Tyrell's school of hack body repair

Removed the layers of filler off the panel today.  Had four distinct layers of filler, with the last one being a version of tiger hair.  Neat part was the change in filler, or hardener that changed the colors by layer.  Not sure if it was intentional, but amusing nonetheless.

That last one was a real pain in the ass to strip off.  But when I did, I was left with a Swiss cheese looking panel like this:

Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of Morons, Psychopaths and Mental Defectives! 

   

We are making today's short bus / window licker trip to Tyrell's school of body panel repair. Here is some real old school hacking right there folks.  Drill a bunch of holes so you can put instruments in there to pull out the dent, but don't bother to weld up the holes when we have all the plastic filler you could ever need!

Have seen better work on some of the ghetto versions of Asian tuners buzzing around.

Need to cut out the offending metal work and weld in a new panel, or carve a piece from a scrapped Vanagon.

Some supplier of used parts in Indiana wanted $200 plus S&H for the piece, and said he could get it to me in three weeks.  I am still looking.

A little tail?

So I have been stripping the rear tail piece while I am waiting on a contractor neighbor to bring me the sandblaster.  He stopped me from buying one a few weeks back, and now he is taking forever.  I have the small one, but I need a big heavy duty one for all the jobs I have going.

So anyway, back to the tail piece - The panel that surrounds the taillights and is beneath the hatch.

This is the panel when I started stripping it.  As I have gotten closer to a clean panel, I have found more subsurface rust.

This is what it looks like today.

There are some rusty spots, particularly around the tail light mount clips, the screw holes that held the license plate bracket on, and the very bottom of the panel beneath the 'vents'.

Will require the sandblaster.

Someone gave me a box of these Bohemian cigars.  They are a bit too dry and I have had them in a very humid environment trying to rejuvenate, but they are still a bit dry.

Too bad too, they are milder than I generally prefer, but the size makes them perfect for a quick smoke in the garage.  Many times the smoke, the fumes from primer and the smell of the chemical stripper gets to be too much. Not enjoyable, and I end up putting the cigar down in favor of getting some work done.

Been training for the Tough Mudder anyway.  Should cut back on my cigar usage.

Nose panels

So with all the pain on the nose stripped off, and the body filler used by the PO's body shop to hide the rust in the infamous nose panel removed, we can see what we are dealing with.

The ends do not look too bad.  You can see where the body shop used a whizzer to grind away seam rust, and then coated with body filler to hide it.  I am of the school of thought that it is better to remove the offending panel.

Ahhh, there is the start of the rot.

And there it is in all its pure unadulterated ugliness.

I used a whizzer and a sawzall to 'carefully remove the metal at the base of the inward angle of the upper panel.  Then a hammer and chisel to remove the spot welds and material on the bottom of the bumper support.

I have the new panel, and will need to do some grinding to remove the remainder of the spot welds, and then some sandblasting to get a good clean surface to weld the new panel.  BTW, the new panel was purchased from Bus Depot, but I have also seen them listed at CIP1.

More photos when I do the install.