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can some one explain this

1K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  inkfreak1976 
#1 ·
Im doing a paint job for a freind of mine, complete color change.
on a 7o mustange. it has minor imperfections in the body work, and it had the rear wheel well rusting in a spot. while grinding out the spot on the wheel well to weld in a new peice of metal. I found a night mare that i cant explain.
I first noticed during the grind out that some idiot put over a 8th of a inch of plastic filler dumb founded i got curios and did a couple of other test spots with the grinder and found that there was even thicker spots of filler.
so figureing that since there was more spots on the panel that were wavy, i decided to grind out all the filler and see what i had to work with and to see the reason for so much filler. to find a panel the was near perfect condition. only a couple miner low spots that ive already taped out. I do notice that the door is now a little high but that can be adjusted easy.
while going around the rest of the car sanding on the passenger side after haveing to use 36 grit just to get to threw the clear coat must be like 6 coats. I broke threw the primer and found you guessed it more bondo.
so heres my question
should i grind out the other panel also or just leave it where it sits, and takeing the filler off the other side is that going to make it seem off per portioned. or will i be fine. so far the rest of the panels seem fairly filler free or just in very lite applications.
please give me some feed back here im trying to figure out why some one would do this.
just incase it might be pertanate to know im spraying a couple coats of epoxy due to the bare metal now, a couple coats of k2 to block , sealer, base and about 4 to 5 coats clear wet sanding between coats 2 and 4 for grapixs. then color sanding and buffing.
any help will be great
thanks
 
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#2 ·
Usually if it has filler its either rust or its been hit but I 've also seen plenty of guys use bondo to even up jambs ...mabee someone didnt know how or for some reason couldnt adjust the door I'd give the jambs and rockers a very close look to see if its been hit and stuffed with bondo...it sounds like a big can of worms....
 
#3 ·
yep, can of worms sounds bout rite.i ran into a similar prolem on my 63 nova. i took all the bondo off my drivers 1/4 and found that the dents were never dollied out.just filler. now its beat back straight and looks dang good.i was told that a lot of shops dont go to the trouble of fixin these places. not enough money to do it rite i guess.some of that dang bondo was 1/2" thick. :confused:
 
#4 ·
thanks for those that replied, sorry about the response being very dated. my father had some health complications and had passed not long after the post was written.
I have ground out all the filler and found nearly no sheet metal damage, i adjusted the doors and after a little work ive got the filler down to a minimum. I found the problem. the peron installed the panel incorrectly. but also noticed that the front panels were also wrong for the car completly. so i have lined every thing up, pryed pounded and reworked body lines. at this point ive had her almost ready to prime just a few spots to putty for small scratches and bubbles.
but now the worst thing ever has happened, the garge that i have been working in has had a fire. soot and smoke damage everywhere. as much as i can tell the car has noting wrong except for a nice thick layer of soot and a terrible smoke smell.
no burning of the panels or bubbleing of painted areas. i was really lucky. but now how do i gett the soot off with out damageing the work that ive already done. do i need to replace the filler? can i just power wash and move on? wax and grease remover? im at a total loss of what to do here any help would or advice would be great.
thanks
 
#6 ·
Tucson is right. You stay at this long enough and you will have all kinds of stories to tell. When I frist stated doing body work back in late 72-early 73 I worked for a small used car body shop for a few months. Had a 68 nova to do with bondo cracks in Lt 1/4 panel so started to grind it off. Couldn't get to the bottom so I took my grinder and ran it straight into the panel. The mud had to be 3" thick. The spot where I hit it with the grinder looked like a little step. Needless to say I mudded it back up and sent it down the road.
 
#7 ·
One of the guys that worked for me was prepping an El Camino for paint. He ran into the same problem. An old "bottomless" bondo repair, in a rocker panel.

He stuck the edge of the grinder in it and was amazed! He came into the office and told me that he had found...... a "bondo mine"! :)
 
#8 ·
Sorry about the loss of your Dad.

A good washing should take care of the soot. Use something
like Simple Green, or Comet if the Green dosen't work.

And don't be too concerned about Bondo. If it's been in place for
years and hasn't cracked, chances are it's as stable as metal would
be. No need to do over. Might even be what's called a 'skim' coat,
that's used to ensure a perfectly flat panel...
 
#9 ·
thanks for all the replies,
and im thinking that maybe it was a skim coat. but i thought be for doing a skim coat you were suppose to line the body as best as possible then skim.
Ive found the problem! the person that did the rear panel replacement didn't line it correctly. its all off. and instead of working the problem in a more labor intensive way they filled the hell out of it.
its cool thou now i know not to open that can again, bad thing is the other side is like that too. just hope that i dont have to do the other side because you can tell a difference. my side is straight as a arrow from front to back. the other side, well its ok but some that knows what there doing is going to spot it in a second. as soon as i get done with the garage clean up. im going to take another look and decide weather or not to take that plunge.
on another subject, can anyone recommend a good reasonably priced respirator that will be good for spraying base clear. im wanting a full face. I ended up using the one that i bought for the job to spray latex to seal the smoke damage and that thing sucks ***, I sucked in alot of paint with it on. and i know that i cant do base clear with it. any recommendations would be great.
thanks
 
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