How would you fix this? Okay, on the belvedere.... It has had this rust hole ever since I got it, It hasn't gotten any bigger, hasn't gotten any smaller either . I bought some patch panels a couple of months ago thinking I either fix up the old girl or get rid of her. So i was wondering, Is there another choice than the patch panel and If I use that patch panel, How much of it do I use? Do i just barely go a little further than the rust, or do I use the whole panel? I bought a miller 211 so I can spot it in without warping the whole car. I am not looking for a 100% show quality job, but I don't want people looking at my repair and going WTF? either. I was thinking that I should just cut out about an inch past the rust and then trim the panel to fit. What do you guys think. Pictures anyone?
Just go a little bit past the rust, make sure you get all the bad metal out. when doing the patch also don't have the corners at a right angle like the patch is now. have a nice radius to them or follow the fender well.
Cut the patch first to the shape/size needed, then hold it up and scribe along the edge. dont try to cut exactly on your scribe line, leave a little bit so it can be fine tuned to fit the patch perfect.
My experiance tells me, don't grind along the rust, go a inch higher. You know you hit a good spot, when you go through paint/primer to bare metal. If you hit rust go higher. Otherwise you get problems with your welds. The biggest issue is to make the pieces water tight an un-warpt. Trial by error is why Bondo is invented, but asking is faster, better and cheaper! After treatment is important for long life!
Well I started on it last night... I need a better cut off wheel but The rust doesn;t go past where it is in the picture. I sanded down to bare metal above it and to the sides it is solid past the rust. I am thinking I might just try to patch where it is rusted lengthwise and height-wise and just use part of that patch panel.... If it doesn't work, the guy I bought the panel from mistakenly sent me two of them and he didn't want me to return it so I got a spare. I will take some pictures tonight. I am going to find myself a better cut off tool today. I have no Air at home for air tools so I am going electric, I got a Mikita 4" angle grinder. I think I have had this car for... damn over ten years, the rust doesn't appear to have gotten a lot bigger over that time. How do you treat it after I repair it so hopefully the rust wont reappear?
"If it doesn't work, the guy I bought the panel from mistakenly sent me two of them and he didn't want me to return it so I got a spare." Good, you can use one of them to fix the wheel housing with and the other on the fender. Dave.
you can't tell where the rust ends from the outside since the rust has formed from the inside out. make a good guess where the rust ends and cut it out, then look at the back of what you cut out and see if you cut above the rust.
When you cut out the rusty part you will be able to see the inside. If you did not get all the rust cut a little more. Hammer and dolly the edge flat. When you fit the patch panel you want it to fit as nice as possible without having to push or bend it into place. In other words tweak it with your fingers until it fits nice. The trouble with pushing it into place when you weld, is this stresses the metal and causes warps when it cools.
This is how much rust was in the outer and inner panel, really not that much. I built my own inner patch panel this morning..... Started with just a sheet of metal..cut a piece long enough and about two inches wide, bent it over, conformed it to the fender curve and then tacked it to a larger piece; Welded it together with little spot welds ground the welds down Cut the piece out a little large than it needed to be: and it seems it might fit. I got to cut out the rest of the rust on the inner and then grind the piece down to fit. I got some errands and work to do this morning, Hopefully this evening I can get back on it.
Well It's fitted. I got it tacked in a couple of places,,,, I don't know whether to be proud or hold my head in shame.
Well, been working on it the last couple of weeks on and off,,,,,got it pretty close stripped the passenger door which had a bunch of cracking paint, looks like it was replaced before, had some filler in it, which i ground all out.
I dunno if it makes me crazy or not, but i never make a square corner on a patch panel, because ive seen it where the weld shows faintly thru the paint in a reflection, so i figure a square edge is more noticeable than radiusing the corners.....
Yer not crazy..slddnmatt mentioned the same thing above and my dumbass forgot and did it the other way. It looks ok in primer....... I am painting it myself so I am sure there will be lots of blemishes to see.
Good point... I've always been making square corners, because that's the easy way when cutting off old metal with an angle grinder. In spite of risking to sound stupid, what tools do you prefer to make a hole with radiused corners?
The trick is to weld going away from the corner. If you weld going into the corner then it traps the heat and you'll have some serious metalfinishing to do. I start at the corner and go in a direction, stretch where i started and then weld from the corner again but going in the other direction. Radius corners are better but hard to make and fit because if you use tinsnips the metal will stretch like crazy and send tension everywhere as you make the radius. If you have ever done this on anodized aluminum you can actually see the tension radiate out as you force the snips around. To minimize i do a rough cut 1/2" away and then do the final cut along the lines. You can do the radius thing with a punch and then a straight cut into the hole, thats a lot of work tho.
Well after i got the patch finished I started on the other side, I ground out all the old body work. Looks like sometime during it's life it was sideswiped. I didn't see that on the carfax. .. I redid the door and 1/4 panel. Primed the 1/4, doors and trunk lid this morning. Used a product called Z-Chrome...Wasn't anything like on TV......Wasn't anything like I expected. I put on three coats and used 3 pints... I can still see through the primer.. It has a LOT of orange peel after it dries I am going to block sand it and see if I have any imperfections. I see one already and after I repair that and any others, I am going to scuff it up and reshoot some more. The sun came out and the humidity dropped, so I just rolled it outside and shot it put there. I have no experience doing any of this, First time I have ever even used a spray gun..... I don't get it, on tv they have the car ready in an hour.. some more progress pictures
you're faster than i am. and looking better. good job so far. like the car. what color or colors are you going to paint it?
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