Thanks for showing the tips. The ruler looks about an inch away from the cut. Do you run your hand along the ruler and then hold the cutting tip that one inch higher? Or does the cutting tip have some guide built into it that keeps it one inch higher than the guide?
There are some great examples on our streets, where the owner "wanna be body guy" is doing his own repair ("gonna save me some money"). The car has bondo applied over the original paint, some grating/sanding has been done..maybe, but still a "work in progress" driving proudly on the road (never quite finding the time to get back to it..weeks, months, years go by). Same guy may have applied primer over some of it, or not..who needs to remove or mask off trim/door handles, etc?..just paint over it. I've seen this done on late model cars, don't these people have insurance? Ah, what would we do without Bondo?
Mike, the plasma cutter comes with a wire guide holder, you just glide it along the stick, it keeps the tip the perfect distance from the metal and it doesn't wobble, much better than trying to do it freehand. I'm getting a quarter panel cove from Danny Howell up at Southeast Chevy Parts to repair mine. I'll show you the weird rust later this afternoon.
I by no means would do it but back in the day when I was doing overalls I got in a job that had 1/2" bondo over unsanded paint and and painted over and held for who knows how long and never popped out. Sometims it is amazing stuff.
You think that is bad, my boss at the old shop told me once of a body guy he worked with that would mix up a whole can on a big piece of cardboard, then just slap the whole mess--cardboard and all--over the damage and let it set up. Then he'd go back and sand. He explained that the cardboard would sand right off, then he went at it with an air file.
Here's the quarter finished, not the back half, obviously, that's next. There will be absolutely no Bondo needed on this repair, the seam is under the trim and there was no warpage whatsover because I went very slowly, letting each weld cool before going to the next.
Here's the piece cut out. I'm gonna go home and weld it in after I fix some pinholes in the piece. The Impala trim is wider than the El Camino so the holes will have to be filled. It's still better to make the repair at the trim line. I'm moving right along.
I've seen a shoebox rocker made out of wood, chicken wire, and a ton of bondo...and I thought I'd never see worse...but I just did Hey look on the bright side- it's good metalwork experience and you have a '59 El Camino
Hey I'm not complaining, the guy I bought it from never lied about any of the car's issues, I got what I expected and quite honestly nothing's been particularly hard, and I've been driving her to work everyday. I'm glad old Bob threw in all the panels, but I did have to pay $100 for that shitty quarter panel, it's worth it instead of trying to make that piece.
I checked this site out, it was so horrible that I couldn't stop reading it because I needed to see the next hideous repair of modification, it was like watching a train wreck. The most frightening thing about this site is he was so proud of his work. I worked in a body shop that did work for a cheezy used car dealer. We did some shoddy patch work, I was young and it was my first body shop job, but I never was very proud of it, not proud like this guy who documented every hammered, riveted, bondoed and rubber under coated step. On top of all the "body work" he settled on this for an interior: I think I am going to have nightmares tonight.
im not through reading it all yet but im startin to like the custom persian carpet and at least his seats are held down with big washers. Im still in awe chip foose look out. later mike
The passenger's side quarter on my 62 was filled with Bondo because someone didn't want to fix it properly. It was a completely different shape than the other side. They even covered the door with it and sculpted it to match. I spent hours grinding out the bondo only to find the damage was minimal. We spent an hour with a stud gun and a dent puller and now the filler is limited to a few places. The door was perfect under the Bondo. I don't know why they couldn't do it right the first time.
What is it about El Caminos that attracts such aweful repairs? I picked up a 66 el camino to use as a shop truck..it was cheap. The guy I bought it from had got it for his daughter. Once they started to get into the previous repair work, they decided to find another project. The floor had rusted out and the backyard magician had cut out the rust. found another floor and 'fixed it'. He had taken the replacement foor, cut it in half to fit through the doors, tacked it in about 6 places, then finished installing it with roofing screws and roof tar. The genius had done this on the frame... which required him to cut the cross members on the car and the replacement floors there was a 4 inch gap between the crossmembers and no attempt to add structure. The pics are not for the weak hearted. Luckily the guy I got it from had found another elco in the salvage yard and got the entire floor from toe to backwall, and rocker to rocker. this gave me complete crossmembers to do the repair properly, whew. here is a link to the pictures....not pretty http://s151.photobucket.com/albums/s126/dansponcho/66 elcamino/
Man, I think I saw the crew that worked on that Kaiser on a TV show, modifying a Porche Boxter.......sure looks like he same expert workmanship
Some people just don't know any better. And other times the car is just old and they want to patch it up for a few more years. Like that van I mentioned, I know from being under some others in the junkyard - eventually it will rot to where I won't be able to get it inspected anymore. I'm going to run it in the salt and use it up. So I don't see any sense spending a lot of money to repair the rot in it. My '50 Chevy, though, that person didn't know any better. One quarter is bondo on the outside and if you look under it's done in little galvanized tin squares, pop-riveted in place. The other side was patched by putting a quarter apparently from a 4-door on - over the original - including a 3-inch gap where the door seam was. Filled with both lead and bondo. Wheel arches done with crude pieces - they don't match side to side and niether one would take a factory fender skirt. The headlight area is about half sculpted out of filler, too. It's going to be a lot of fun (?!?) to redo that one of these days.
Its the mid 60's and I have a friend that owned a small "pay here" used car lot. Many of the cars he bought wholesale had rotted rockers. There was a fly by night body shop a couple of blocks away he had a contract with to repair rockers and lower 1/4 panels at a flat rate per car. They used Kotex as filler and smeared Bondo over this and finished it off. Didn't look to bad but I offen wondered how long they lasted. Well they lasted long enough to sell the cars. Donn
My favorite part of that guy's website is the last tab where he brings it to a shop and they cut out all of his wonderfullness
when i find shit like this on my rides, i cut it out, and take out any rust in the area and then i fix it so i don't need that area, like if it's a door pannel i use a lexan see though patch or rockers i make a skeleton rocker out of thin bar stock and clear coat it all, i figure you should be proud of the shit your car when't through and survived, i know i am, i like my scars and my car likes it's holes.
did anyone see the re-re-rebuild of it the interiors not that bad...at least the front seats arent http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/EricGordonsKaiserConvertible/phaseII.html and it seems like alot of the bondo patches are being fixed too
Buddy did something similar (but much more extensive on the car) with his '57 Chebby wagon years ago....except that he used fiberglass over the foam... .
It looks like someone skinned a refrigerator to put floors in my Falcon. I didn't even know those were in season.
Yup, I saw a Borgward Isabella for sale years ago by the side of the road, it looked a little bent in the middle, when I saw what was underneath I was shocked to see a refrigerator door used as a floorpan, the whole door, handle and all. I'll be honest with you when I first patched the minimal holes in my Consul Capri, I used a filing cabinet to scavenge the metal from, I welded it all in but a few years later the rust came back worse, I reckon there was something about that metal that couldn't withstand the Florida humidity. I made a ton of progress this weekend, if I hadn't forgotten my camera I'd show you.
On a side note I went to the swap meet yesterday and this fuckn yahoo says to me, "I used to have an El Ranchero." I said, "There's no such thing, it was just Ranchero." He replies, "Nope it was an El Ranchero, but it was smaller than yours." I said, "It was a Falcon based Ranchero." He said, "Yup, that's it, I didn't know they built a full sized one like yours." I said, "This is a Chevy, not a Ford." He said, "Are you sure?" As I was waiting in line to go in the swap meet, the dipweed was standing there complaining about whether to pay $4 to get in, the ticket girl was looking at them with disgust, eventually they walked away.
all this talk of "great stuff" and "bondo" reminded me of a link i was sent once, and now i'm gonna pass it on to you folks. *disclaimer* i'm not responsible for any nightmares anyone has after seeing this. http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2008/05/29/lithuanians-and-pu-foam/
HAHA.............it seems like this kind of thing is a constant in your life, I think you are an idoit magnet. Unfortunately, I suffer from the same affliction. Its really too bad its illegal to hit people over the head with a 2x4.
The Jalopy Journal
