Successful Body repair BTDT

[Jenny Curtis]

Hey Q-list:

I gave the Princess a major facelift this week-end to remove rust pits
and patch a hole.  Here are the highlights.

Last week-end:

Used scraper to open up pits and see extent of damage.  After a stiff
drink and some tears, applied rustoleum rust converter to pits and a
hole in my trunk.

This week-end:
Friday afternoon: Bought supplies, including paint mixed to match
original paint code.  (Match is almost perfect.  I'm lucky enough to
have little fading on my original paint, especially since I polished
and waxed about a month ago).  I got the paint from an auto body store
that supplies most of the body shops in town.  They'll mix paint and
put it in spray cans for about $30 a can.

Friday night:
Pulled back trunk liner to patch hole with fiber glass patch and
resin.  Applied metal tape to front of hole on exterior of car to
support patch.  Used three layers of patch, I think it dried stronger
than the surrounding metal.

Saturday morning:
Used grinding discs to remove all the black gunk left behind by rust
converter (with 80 paper).  Feathered into surrounding good paint with
100 and 200 paper.  This is the hardest, most painful part: hurting
good paint.

Removed metal tape from hole and used bondo to add height to the
patch.  Formed it in a small lump over the top of the hole so that it
could be sanded flat.  Note:  When using bondo, make sure you have
fiberglass or plenty of bare metal behind it, or it will rust out from
behind.  Used 200 paper to sand bondo flush with surface of car.

Masked all the trim, wheels, bumper and glass with masking tape and
newspaper.  Since work had to be done on the inside of doors, I also
had to mask those to keep primer and paint from blowing into the
interior.

My car looked really ugly at this point.  I went inside and had a
sandwhich and a beer.  It looked less scary then.

Started priming with 6 coats of primer.  Allowed primer to dry 20
minutes.  Wet sanded.  I'd never done this before but I was really
impressed by the results.  You use a fine grit paper on a block sander
and sand while flooding the area with a wet sponge.  The result is an
absolutely glossy, silky finish.

Dried the car with a chamois and used some bondo glazing putty to fill
in any little pinholes size pits that might be visible through the
primer.  Allowed putty to dry half and hour and then wet sanded the
putty.  Dried the car again and applied three more coats of primer.
Waited a half hour to dry and then wet sanded that with very fine grit
paper (500).  Dried the car again and got out the spray enamel and
applied two coats with a few minutes between coats.  This is the most
nerver wracking part because 9 hours of prep work came down to a few
minutes spraying.  Then there those annoying little glops which
inevatably burp out of the spray can.  Those can usually be polished
out or touched up later, though.

The results are really nice.  I will finish up by waiting a few weeks
before I polish and wax to blend the new paint into the old.  As it is
now, you cannot really tell where the new paint is and you absolutely
cannot see where the rust was.  The real test will be Minnesota
winter.  I'll know next May whether I did a really good job.

One final note:  It took my boyfriend and I about 9 hours on Saturday
to complete all the sanding and priming.  The wet sanding is
especially difficult for one person to do well, and I think it would
help to have an extra pair of hands for this job.

I'm hoping to have photos and more complete info on my web page soon.

Jenny
4kcsQ The Eurotrash Princess