sounds like i would of used a stud welder on it first then started hammering/dolliing it into shape cant tell without seeing pics replacing the whole area isnt that bad and shouldnt warp much if you weld it right 1/4 inch of mud isnt bad ive had cars with in excess of 2 inch thick quarters/fenders/roofs my t-bird<<<< in my avatar had about a 1/4inch in the drivers door dont know why it wasnt dented or anything , possibly just for panel alignment
I allways remove old bondo with a plumbers torch and putty knife. It really cuts down on the dust a grinder or sander would make!
A friend of mine was doing the same to his 50' ford coupe. It was Oxide red and kinda wavy as well. I convinced him to wire wheel the whole damn thing and he found that both front fenders had holes almost the size of a basket ball that had been fiberglassed shut and mudded over! I just don't get it. It takes less time to do some things the right way!
In high school auto body class they had a early 60's Ford pick up/farm truck that had been rolled . The roof was mashed and wrinkled but no broken glass . The shop teacher and I use the term lightly mixed up a gallon of cold load mud up and used a 2x4 to spread it . The truck had a flat top when done .
I had a 74 z28 that I beat on my little race track for a few hours before parting it out. about halfway through the day, a wheel flew off and took out the entire bottom of the quarter between the wheel and bumper. I found it odd that the piece actually flew off, and when I went back to get it off the track, I realized it was actually a piece of a street sign covered with about 2 inches of bondo and riveted on. The whole shebang weighed about 25 pounds. We laughed and pounded on it a little harder after that. I'd have been pissed if it was a nice car..
Grandpa had a 66 Chevy stepside truck (lwb, 1ton), bought it from a painter. It was brush painted green enamel. Not a horrible job actually. But anyhow, the rear fenders were coming apart... like peeling a layer. Turned out the whole rear fenders were covered in a minimum of 1" thick of bondo. In spots, it was around 3" thick. I can't imagine how many cans they used per fender. The bottom of the doors were about 2" thick, the botoms of the front fenders were about 4" thick. Oddly, the rockers were only skimmed over with a thin layer. Never seen so much bondo in one vehicle before or since.
suuuurrrre.. i can peak that rear 1/4 for ya and fix the rockers so they line up right! my sandblaster guy wouldn't touch it, i had to grind everthing off this shoebox by hand. damn near killed my disc sander!
Thats about how thick I like my p-nut butter on my toast. They don't call it "Rage" for nuthin. A lot of dudes should be fined for bondo abuse. ~sololobo~
A whole quarter inch thick huh? haha. I know you haven't reached the bottom yet, but come back when you've gone at least an inch and still haven't touched metal. These pictures are from the rear fenders on my F1. Looks like a previous owner somewhere down the line couldn't be bothered with tightening the last few fender bolts, but was somehow able to scoop the mud between the fender and welt against the bedside. You could tell from the outside it was old too. (the paint matched the rest of the truck) but when I cracked it in half it smelled like it had just been scooped out of the can. To be fair the seller DID tell me they were full of mud when he got it.
check this out. the 1st pic shows in order, bondo-original sheetmetal-tacked patch. basically to make the patch line w/ the rest of the panel they layed 1/4" of bondo in an area of about 3x3 feet. Real smart ah? 2nd and 3d show how well this professional collision repair body shop joined the lower rear quarter w/ the rear lower valance, so well that it took another 1/4" of bondo layed all over the lower qarter and a good portion of the lower valance to look smooth. cant say anything about how well the bondo was layed thou, b4 wire whelin it it looked lazer straight! Edit: i hear you guys when you say that back then this was the norm and i agree, but this one was done 3 years ago!!!! by a so called pro shop as i mentioned.
I recently found out that there is no such thing as bondo abuse. it can be used for everything. Filling dents, rust holes, cracks, you name it. Oh and it makes a hell of a cab corner just ask the previous owner. I have spent hours grinding out the mud on my 54. I have almost all the sheet metal sanded down to bare (yeah that's right sanded, I aint got no money for your fancy media blastin), so I can start dent pulling and patching.
I almost hate to post this in public, but what the hell. When I first started doing bodywork for a living. (1964) I worked for a guy that sold used cars as a side business. He would buy wrecks at the auction and repair and resell. Well he bought a 1965 Chrysler New Yorker 4 dr. The entire left side was side swiped. Flat! like about 5"-6" in from where it was supposed to be. He tells me to fix it. I rough pulled the tin and told him what I needed for panels. He drops off 2 cases of Bondo brand plastic filler. The cheap shit and says filler up. I said your kidding right? he says, I can buy bondo cheap, metal costs to much. So I went back to pulling the sheet metal (3 days total pulling) Still looked terrible but the front and rear edges were close so I started to fill it. The finished job took 11 1/2 gallons on one side. Most of it stayed on the car. Not much sanded off. I still laugh like hell when I think about the shit I did when I hacked cars before learning how to do it right....
A guy that delivers stuff to my work started chatting me up about my cars the other day and proceeded to tell me about his rear ended Lincoln. So far he is in 3 gallons and isn't smooth yet. He wanted some advice but I was pretty speechless.
I have committed serious filler sin on my OT truck in years past...but no more. I have seen the light. Anything rusted through or in serious need, steel panels and welders come out. At least I didn't let that practice carry over to my '54 Plymouth...
Just found a 1/4 of lead followed by 1/4 of bonds on my passenger door. I don't mind filler at all, I use it for light skimming. My old VW 21 window had almost an inch in places, such a bummer. When I got it off the metal had a slight wave, and just needed some shrinking, hammer and folly and paper thin amount of filler. That's what sucks about getting a car that's "finished".
Hell, I see that all the time. I just blasted a friend of mine's 48 Chevy project. We are swapping it to an S10 frame. anyway, the doors had 2" in some place, directly over rusted metal.
Since we see a few horror stories try this. A friend had a 4 dr Corvair while in the Navy during Nam. Someone backed into one of the rear doors. He was coming home so when he got here he bought another door. Took it to the shop and told them to replace the door and paint it. Two days later he picked it up and left town going back to his station. About a week later he was at the car wash, as he ran the pressure washer over the door the whole outside of the door fell off. They had taped wadded up newspaper to the door and mudded over the paper. Never replaced the door did not pull out the dent, never sanded the door, not even the edges where the bondo touched. He had to take to a shop there to get it REALLY fixed.
ok im speechless. i assumed they always used lead to fix these back in the day i guess bondo was simpler and cheaper? at any rate, yesterday i found a video on youtube with this sales man looking guy demonstrating how to fix some spots that had rusted out in the front driver side fender.. he cut out some of the cancer and then patched it using fiberglass and bondo. i was very shocked to see this.. never seen a fix like this before.. but now, i see what that guy was doing was in line with cases of bondo.. and how the hell is bondo cheaper then the thin metal to fix it maybe if you buy it by the 5 gallon bucket? the stuff is damn expensive here. or i think it is anyhow. thanks for sharing your horror storyss. i find it very interesting.. also i notice a lot of people blame the owner before them.. with a old car id think it be hard to put blame.. but in the end dose not matter.. heh.. talk about lazy man.. he even got them a door. news paper, yeah thats gonna hold better get some chicken wire while you at it.. the weirdest fix iv seen is a guy tried to fix rusted out exhaust using tin tape and a coke cans.. he cut the can out, then taped it to the pipe using this tin tape he had several of these patches on his exhaust.. from the age of it looked like they were done at different times.. .. it did not burn off and worked but not how i would of fixed it. chris.
I think metal work scares most new generation of body guys today and just dont know how to work it or afraid to. My left finder on my velle was apparently hit and after checking it they beat the bad dent/rip and welded it back up and used a light bit of lead work, whoever did it knew what they were doing.
Dude, 'ludes went off the market in 1982, and became a Schedule I drug in 1984. I doubt that anybody has any left. The modern term would be "tweeker", aka methamphetamine addict.
I once saw two and a half inches of bondo on the quarter paned of a 63 impala. What tripped me out is that the person who applied it, or at least the person or one of the people who sanded it at some point , did a really good job. That quarter looked straight as hell. Oh well
I put 2 gal of Rage on a vw ghia, that was after a few days of hammering out dents I could get. My father bought the car from a good liar. The nose of the car was about 2inchs to the left after I took the 5 gal of filler off it after my father drove it to my house. My wife is still pissed about all the dust after 2 years.
hell ive seen bondo that thick on airplanes man!! Years ago there was a guy that put a new quarter on a 3/4 ton chevy cargo van, nothing lined up.. so he used over 2 gallons of bondo to "blend" in the shitty skin job he did.. that guy is now the manager of the chevrolet dealers body shop in town..
The Jalopy Journal
