In light of the previous paint jobs and various repairs it was determined that we needed to get down to bare metal to see what we had to work with. The most efficient method is media blasting. This is much faster than having someone spend days with a dual-action grinder going over every panel.
To the untrained eye the body looks wonderful in its mat grey bare steel. But under the body man's hand as he caresses each panel a different opinion is formed. He feels each undulation, dent, ding and crease.
This is how body shops used to repair dents and creases (actually some still use this method today). They drilled holes and used a slide hammer to pull the metal out. A high quality shop would then weld in the holes. This step was obviously skipped here. They just applied a liberal amount of plastic filler to plug up the holes.
This corroded area was only discovered after the paint and filler
was removed.
After the media blasting we noticed some pin size perforations at
the lower part of the passenger fender. This is the part of the fender
that covers the front of the rocker panel.
With pin holes on the outside we were concerned about what the
inside looked like so we removed the fender.
Not only was the inside of the lower fender scaly, but it was
hiding a severely perforated rocker. We'll have to create a new section
here.
Its a bit hard to see, but the triangle area below is where new
metal has been welded in on the front of the fender. This is the view
inside the fender looking up above the headlight bucket. The factory's
undercoat just didn't reach all the way to the nook at the front allowing moist
road dirt to sit there and corrode the metal. We will make sure this area
is coated with a modern sealant to prevent a reoccurrence of the rust.
We found a couple more areas that need straightening. The
areas below the bumper mounts have been pushed up.
Improper jacking damage
Remember this view?
Where before they relied upon plastic filler to
get the shape back and hide the holes....
we welded up the holes and worked the metal
back into shape.
This view shows the re-shaped panel sprayed in
epoxy primer.
Go to the next page( in paint).