Steve Shoyer wrote:
> There are some other areas of the car needing attention due to
> rusting (hood, trunk lid, front fenders), so I was wondering if it would be
> less expensive in the long run to get a new bodyshell
I doubt it. Most of those repair panels are
very cheap. I replaced a lot of metal on my B
and it was a fraction of the price of a bodyshell.
With a body shell, you pay for things like bulkheads
and other parts that really don't rust enough to otherwise
replace. You also pay for whole panels when you really only
need repair sections in most places.
I found when planning the repair that some of the panels
LOOKED expensive, but when all added up it wasn't too
bad. $100 seems like a lot for a piece of metal but when
you buy all the metal to make the car wonderful again
and it's less than $1000, it starts to seem cheap. Especially
compared to a bodyshell.
As well, unless a really high level of finish is a must,
doing a bodyshell means you will remove and refit a lot of
parts that really would have been just fine for another
30 years where they were.
--
Trevor Boicey, P. Eng.
Ottawa, Canada, tboicey@brit.ca
ICQ #17432933 http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
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