Are you looking for the "best" way or the easiest way?
If the paint is peeling away it is just a matter of time before it rusts.
There are number of levels of "fixing" the problem - and the one thing you
really want to avoid is the beginning of rust. You did not say what type of
car it is but if the dent is on the rocker panel under the door you are
lucky because that is a least a good area to be able to hide the bodywork.
If all you want to do is stop the paint from peeling and prevent the rust
from starting then you should remove any of the peeling paint and sand the
area down so you have what is called a "feather edge" around the damaged
area - basically you do not want any hard breaks in the paint if you know
what I mean - you want nice smooth edges on the repair area so that there
is no way for the paint to start peeling again. Once you do this you will
probably have to put some primer over the area to seal it and then spray
some color over the area to blend it in. The way you can make a repair
blend in to the rest of the car is to paint up to break lines in the body
work. If it is a rocker panel then paint up to the top and bottom of the
rocker and then try to blend in the color going back so that you cannot see
the repair. Dont mask the whole area off and paint a square area like you
see some people do - that just calls attention to the work. If you are
going to use spray paint the stuff that you can get in the spray cans from
Dupli Color is actually pretty good - in a spot like the rockers if you are
careful you could probably do a good enough job so that nobody would ever
notice.
If you decide that you are going to fill the dent dont use the standard
bondo that you get at the local Discount auto parts store - the stuff is
crap. Go to a real auto body supply store and get the bondo that has
aluminum filler in it. This kind of bondo is water proof because the
aluminum filler does not absorb water like the filler used in standard
bondo. It will help to prevent the area from rusting out later.
If the area behind the rocker panel is damaged IE the undercoating is
breaking off of chipped touch the area up with some of the zinc rich primer
you can get from RustoLeum and then get some real rubberized undercoating
in a spray can from the auto body store or from one of the restoration
places like Eastwood and touch the area up - this will prevent it from
rusting out from behind.
Hope this helps
Jim
At 11:42 AM 4/8/99 , Eric Linnhoff wrote:
>How-dee!!!
>
>At our last local event my co-driver not only managed to best my times,
>a cardinal no-no if you want to co-drive someone elses car, but he
>managed to smack one of our local petrified cones hard enough to dent
>the rocker panel under the front passenger door panel.
>
>The dent doesn't bother me so much cuz it's sorta like a battle scar and
>chicks dig scars. ;^) But, the paint cracked on the edge of the dent
>and peeled up a little bit and currently has a little bare metal exposed
>to the elements. It left a bare spot approximately 1/8" x 3" and the
>paint is peeling away enough so that I could pull on it and make the
>exposed bare metal area much larger.
>
>What's the best way for me to bandage this wound? It doesn't have to be
>real pretty as it's in a location that's pretty hard to see and the
>car's white so it'll be easy to match the paint. I'm somewhat
>mechanically inclined but I couldn't hammer out a flat body panel if my
>life depended on it. I mainly don't want the panel to rust from the
>inside-out and the paint to bubble up from the rust.
>
>I've already purchased some touch up paint from the dealer so that
>there's some chance of the paint matching the surrounding panel.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>See you on course.
>
>Eric Linnhoff in KC
>#69DS TLS #13
>'98 Neon R/T
><eric10mm@qni.com>
>
>Drive like the wind
>Straining the limits of machine and man.
>Laughing out loud with fear and hope
>I've got a desperate plan.
>=======================
>"Red Barchetta" by Rush
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