I'd like to make a few comments on the bondo thread. you can hum, "To
every thing there is a season, turn, turn, turn" whilst reading and you'll
have the right mood music.
When I first got my car, I also had very little dough. The car had no
floor boards on the drivers side, the rocker shot, and the rocker was poor
on the passengers as well. Now, I needed transportation, the car had to
drive and pass Maryland inspection. So I used bondo to construct new
floors and rockers, sealing the passenger compartment and meeting MD
inspection. To do this, I used stiff plastic netting to rough out the
shape I wanted and then applied 1/16" of bondo to each side. This is a
pretty standard method when you want to cover a large area which is
currently a void. Yeah, I know the car needs the rockers to be structurally
sound. But, the PO had been driving it without bondo, I wasn't making
anything worse. I passed inspection, went to school, went to work, and
slowly got a little more money together.
Nextt, I paid a welder to put in new outer rocker panels, reconstruct the
inner rockers, and build a new floor pan. Getting out all the bondo was a
true mess. Here I think Scotty is right. If I had it to do over, I think
I would pop rivet and seal with either a little bondo or silicone if the
inspectors allowed it. This would have avoided the bondo removal, which
wasn't 100% successful, and really annoyed my welder.
The next stage came when I wanted to paint the car, which it really needed.
For $100, a professional auto body guy did a bondo job on the rear quarter
panels for me. I couldn't afford much more. For another $100 I bought the
paint and sprayed the car with a neighbors rig in my backyard. It wasn't
perfect, but looked one hell of a lot better than before. Ten years later
the rear quarter panels are just starting to bubble through. Ten years
later I'm also out of school and will probably have the rear quarter panels
done right some time soon and repaint.
My bottom line, do what you need to do to enjoy your car. If enjoyment to
you means driving it, a little visit from the bondo bandito can be very
useful.
Mark M. Banaszak Holl
Brown University
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