Ryoken's Guide to Rust Treatment and Bodywork 101

[ryoken]

my buddy just paid about 20 g's for a candy job...

I can't say it's out of line... paint and primer supplies could be $1500 +

a gallon of my basecoat copper is over $400... that candy job had like $3500 in materials...


for a raw steel strip thru show quality base/clear on a K5 inside and out is a lot of hrs....

I've done show quality work out of my garage.. but it's not easy, a ton of work and I know every single trick you can imagine for dealing with a non downdraft situation.. trust me on that...

and that's the difference between your glovebox, and a K5... surface area..... not a big deal keeping your dust light when spraying a glovebox, but when ya start moving the kinda air, etc to do a full vehicle, it's a whole nother kettle of crackers...

obviously, you can do all the panels, one at a time, bring em thru primer, and then give it to a painter.. probably cut your cost in 1/2...

I can tell you how to do anything.. from a keep it a minimum, just get it in primer approach to full bore stripped clean thru glowing finish.....


are we ok on the filler stuff till tomorrow? I'm a bit pressed these days.. got tomorrows laundry waiting on me....

 

[Chief Brody]

are we ok on the filler stuff till tomorrow? I'm a bit pressed these days.. got tomorrows laundry waiting on me....

Sure...I won't be able to do anything on it until this weekend...but I would like to know what to buy so I can have it ready.

On the paint, I am not looking for a showcar finish...that seemed to be all that guy was interested in doing....there are plenty of other people and places to get estimates from though...I don't want to wait 8 months it anyway...er...what I mean is I am not going to leave it with anybody for that long.

Is it better to take the panels off and paint them, or paint them while they are on? If you are painting them off the vehicle, how to you know if everything is aligned properly...especially the white stripe?

 

[ryoken]

the right way to do it is to remove any panels that can be unbolted... strip/bodywork, Trim them out in paint (paint the edges, door jambs, engine compartment part of the fenders, etc) then reinstall, final sand, prep, mask, paint..

keep in mind, it's a metallic, you really can't panel paint it.... you have to spray it all in one shot.. at least the last couple coats of base, prior to clear...

 

[Chief Brody]

keep in mind, it's a metallic, you really can't panel paint it.... you have to spray it all in one shot.. at least the last couple coats of base, prior to clear...

The color I am going to isn't metallic...

 

[ryoken]

oh, that's a solid, ocra? I'll call it... even at that, it's still best for it all to be shot at once. like i said, at least the last couple color coats... especially if your going base/clear...

variations in spray technique will have it not match perfectly panel to panel...

 

[Chief Brody]

Nothin's ever easy is it Chief?....
~Capt. Quint

 

[ryoken]

yeah, i'll do whatever i can to help ya, but i'm not gonna, pun unintended, candy coat it... oh yeah, piece of cake, happy happy, etc...

time to go scrub the clothing...

 

[Chief Brody]

yeah, i'll do whatever i can to help ya, but i'm not gonna, pun unintended, candy coat it... oh yeah, piece of cake, happy happy, etc...

time to go scrub the clothing...

"I'm not talkin' 'bout pleasure boatin' or day sailin'...I'm talkin' 'bout sharkin' for a livin'...you got $3000 dollars worth of net...along comes mr. whitey...looks like a kiddy scissor class cut it up for paper dolls"...

~Capt. Quint to Mr. Hooper

 

[Ulfhedinn]

This is an excellant post. I am learning alot for my teardown.

 

[Chevy305]

I'm sure you could find it cheaper, but like any job on any classic car/truck something un expected will always come up, costing more money and time. Honestly the $8000 is probably the most realistic price out there. What ever you decide on, sign a contract with the body shop agreeing on a price before they even touch the truck. Thats what I did both times my truck went to the body shop and had good results each time.

 

[ryoken]

ok, fillers 101....



I'll try to cover the gamut of standard automotive fillers and not the custom app stuff that wont be applicable for you... tho custom fillers can be interesting...

anyway.... we'll start with heavier duty stuff, fiberglass fillers... there are generally 3 types of "out of the can" fiberglass fillers... long hair, short hair and creamy...

long hair is a polyester filler with fiberglass strands a couple inches long usually.. Evercoats Kitty Hair is a standard in the industry and I've used it often...

Kitty Hair's finer qualities are it's excellent strength and flexibility.. this makes it ideal for any app where you need thickness, and/or structural integrity.. it makes an excellent base fill in these situations.. it is THE ideal filler for over welded patch seams, joints, etc...

this brings up long hairs downside.. it tends to leave some pinholes and void areas when ripped with a sander or grinder... it will always need at least a skim coat of a finer, smoother filler to fill those.. more on this in a minute...

if your case, the only app for the long hair would be filling that crack... obviously not as right as welding it, but a very viable option if done right....


on to short hair... one of my fave products... I will generally use this in most cases over long hair.. not quite as strong structurally as long, but very close... again, this will leave some pinholing, etc, but not nearly as bad as the long hair...

pretty much the only shorthair i use is Dynatrons... great product...

again, your only app for this would be the crack.... it is the filler I use if I have anything deep to deal with...




creamy..... ah creamy... where to start... this is basically the fiberglass version of bondo... tho an exceptionally dense filler, it lacks MUCH of the structural strength of it's long and short hair cousins....

thus it has much more of a tendency to crack due to the lack of hair... it's very good for filling medium dents, to small, as before more on that later...

USC's duraglass is pretty much all i use these days in creamy variety...

it is also an IDEAL skim coat for ripped long hair and short hair for voids, pinholes, etc.... as a cream, it can be initially bi-directionally hard dragged across pinholes and voids for excellent consistency.. then a light full skim to cover any low spots and give a MUCH more pinhole free final surface.... but it will have a few usually... it can be redragged with the same to a final primerable surface...

this is how I did the minor fill work to smooth my firewall and floor corners... straight fiberglass filler to primer.. tends to be a tad better against impacts, etc over reg bondo...

this is what I would use on the bedrail top if any fill is needed...

now... as you can obviously tell, there are a lot of combonations, etc than can be applied....


other variations of the above are long or short ripped, with a skim of reg body filler... the advantage of this is that regular filler will leave a virtually pinhole-free surface, needing minor rinse/repeating...

fillers tend to run in a similar fashion to the fiberglass fillers.. in the sense of, you'll have a standard "heavy" filler, than you'll have the light fillers, which have an even tighter finish, sand finer, fill pinholes better, etc..

there are also ultra light, or micro's too.. which as you can tell the direction this has gone, are just an even "finer" filler...


I tend to like Evercoats regular fillers.. the Rage series is nice, but there are other brands too...

after priming.. any minor imperfections.. and i do mean minor, scratches, pinholes, very minor lows can be filled with a glazing putty... a 2-part is HIGHLY recommended... it should be thinnly dragged across the primer.. usually done with a squeegie...

wetsand with 220, reprime, yada, yada..



alright that's enough for tonight....





that really didn't do much for ya.. I have a tendency to do that...

 

[Chief Brody]

Thanks! That's a lot to digest...I believe I have decided on have a welder put a bead in that crack. I think it would last a lot longer.

Will I need to go to a pro auto body supply to get these fillers?

What to you use for spreading?

 

[ryoken]

most parts stores carry some stuff, but generally you find higher quality lines at the autobody supply places..

get some spreaders like these..

just be forewarned.... body fillers, as with any polyester based product can be tricky to harden.. temp affects speed of curing, as does batch size and above all percentage of hardener used...

many an amateur bodyman has thrown 1/2 a batch in the garbage when it kicked too quick... "hot" batches also can lead to bleed through issues..

 

[Chief Brody]

many an amateur bodyman has thrown 1/2 a batch in the garbage when it kicked too quick... "hot" batches also can lead to bleed through issues..

So you are better off to put less hardener in and just let it take its time drying?

 

[ryoken]

correct.. low end of the percentage scale will yield the strongest results... follow the directions on the can... also thoroughly mixing is VERY important, but be aware, the longer you kneed it, whip it, aggitate it, the hotter it's getting...

hot batches tend to be more brittle in addition to the bleed thru issue... bleed thru isn't nearly as much an issue with modern urethane primers, etc, but it can happen...

 

[ryoken]

also, technically, your supposed to scratch test it as it dries, then cheesegrate it.. but for minor surfaces like the bedrail, just go right to some 36.. preferably on one of these..

or

I must have 25 various sanding blocks...

 

[ryoken]

oh, and I would just pick up a qrt... probably $12, 13 depending on what you buy..

 

[Chief Brody]

How "high" above flat do you spread the filler? Do you always lay it on higher that the bad area? In the past when I have used Bondo, it sank on me or didn't smooth out completely...it looked perfect before I painted it, but the feathering showed through the paint...
a cheese grater...really?

 

[ryoken]

well, them you missed some stuff during that primer, glaze, wetsand, reprime, part of the equation... you can never go bondo right to paint and not see featheredging..

in the old days many filler had serious problems with shrinkage, especially with lacquer products...

an old bodyshop saying of mine is "You can never let stuff dry too long.. "

oh, here's a cheesegrater.. sometimes they are in holders... it's objective is to do your major cut, that way you have to work that much less with 36 sanding..

 

[Chief Brody]

oh, here's a cheesegrater.. sometimes they are in holders... it's objective is to do your major cut, that way you have to work that much less with 36 sanding..

You must lay it on thick to need to use the grater?