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 - maybe the one that gives the lowest estimate).  They drilled holes and used a slide hammer to pull the metal out.  A high quality shop would then weld in the holes(a step that was 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.

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