[hiryu]

I bought my mk1 which came with a dent in the rear quarter panel that doesnt look real hard to repair. I don't know much of anything about body repair, but I plan to hammer out what I can and fill the rest in with some type of material. I have no idea what kind to use, and would like to get some tips from those experienced with this stuff. Links would be great to. Everything will be done at home also. Thanks.

 

[feral4mr2]

try a few different word searches in google (auto body repair, body repair etc), it always brings up some handy links.

before i had accesss to the net (back when i started playing with fixing rust in 1986) i used to go to the library and read all the great books they have on do it your self body repairs.

bondo/body work work isnt too hard, but at first can be darn right frustrateing, practise makes perfect i found.
it's good to see you wanna have a go at it yourself, have fun man.

 

[hiryu]

Heh, thanks. I know it won't be easy to get it perfect the first time, and I think it's something that'd be nice to learn. Can't wait to start and see how it'll come out.

Edit: Hmm, after doing a bit of reading, this seems a lot harder then I thought. Haha, I'm mainly worried about water build in the filler and between body/bare metal. Maybe I should wait till spring or summer when the weather is warmer, so my cure time won't be to slow and the weather will be dryer so it won't get messed up after I apply paint.

 

[littledragon]

having owned a body shop, I can shed some light on this. You don't want to use bondo to fill in any big areas. It's meant to be used to fill in small imperfections. Idealy, the panel should be replaced or if the damage is not too bad, remove it and pound it as near perfect as you can. Put the panel back on the car to make sure it still fits right, apply a THIN layer of bondo on the area, let it harden and sand it with a sanding block. When you're done sanding, there should be almost no bondo there anymore, the only bondo that you should see is where the panel isn't perfect. Next step is to spray it with primer, after the primer is dried and the surface is still bumpy, sand it down some more, apply more bondo and sand it again. Keep repeating this until it's completely smooth then finally prime it and paint it.