Repair or replace ?

[aegean]

A question for you panel beaters out there - or is that metal surgeons these days ?

 

I have the usual rust in most panels - perhaps not as bad as most, but rust nonetheless. My question, since I won't be doing the work myself, is is it better to replace the sheet metal with new skins, or repair the existing panel work ? Taking into account the time to strip the existing paintwork, and repairing the rust, versus unpicking the welds, and replacing the skin, what would be the most economical and/or preferred ? The cost of replacement skins seems to be fairly reasonable, but I'm not sure how good the fit is, and if not good, considerable time might need to be spent to get a good fit.

 

To make the visualisation easier, here are some pics of the rust.

[aegean]

And some more

[Sirpent]

The only way to answer that question is to strip back one of the effected areas and guage the spread under the paint, what I mean by that is that many of the areas have the same appearance, hence probably the same issues, if its a case that its straight out metal rot rather than rust appearing under body filler and breaking through to the surface, I would pick an area that has the most amount of blistering and remove the substrate paint and undercoat etc and see how bad the actual spread is apart what has already surfaced and then make a detirmination from there.

 

You may be lucky and find that it is all just spot areas of rust breaking through, however the opposite side of the sheet metal may have deteriated leaving the metal thin, if not repairing the areas may be the trick and then all importantly treating the remaining surrounding metal work with a rust converter / inhibitor is crucial before resealing it all.

 

In other words, this is a "Suck and See" scenario.

 

Cheers

 

John

[Zedman240®]

What I see with rust like that on a car body, on the outside like that, although most of it is the size of a 20c piece, behind that is another story; expect the rust to be around 5 times bigger. With the rust in the last pic in the dog leg, I'd replace that whole section. Most panel beaters charge by time so whatever is quickest to them will be the cheapest but not the best way to repair.

[aegean]

Most panel beaters charge by time so whatever is quickest to them will be the cheapest but not the best way to repair.

 

And therein lies the reason for the question ! Quickest is not what I am after, but best. There doesn't seem much sense in doing what might be a quick and more cost effective "repair" initially, but this would seem to be a short term solution and would likely return in 5 years or so if not corrected completely. As you say, the rust is likely to be considerably greater than what is visible, and if not removed and treated completely, is sure to return. I see a lot of cars for sale that say "restored 5 (or 10) years ago and they mention that some rust has "just started to appear". With rust treatments such as POR 15 and others, there should not be any need to re-visit it in as short a time frame as this.

[PZG302]

If you're not doing the work yourself, don't go to a panel shop to get work done unless they do a lot of resto work.

 

My choice would be to find a business that does restoration work and ask them the question. If they can't help, if they are reputable they will point you in the direction of a shop that can do the job you want.

 

As John said, the best way of repairing the rust will have to made after looking at what there is under the paint. For one section a replacement section may be the way to go, but for another section looking the same it may be best to repair.

 

This happened with my Charger. I bought all the replacement sections for the car only to have the resto shop I'm using use half of them and repair the other sections, and it wasn't a constant. Some areas where I though it would be better to use the section were repaired and other areas where I would have repaired it were replaced.

 

Basically to get the job done right you can double what you think it will cost, and then add some more. The Charger is blowing out in cost, but I am getting a top quality job for the money and will have a new car with '70's powertrain.

[MaygZ]

Not sure which part of melb you are in, but the best panel bloke I have found (sorry to all on this forum  ..  but technically I haven't found you yet) is Peter TODD at Mentone Smash Repairs.  Don't be fooled by the name - they're not really smash repairers and they're not in Mentone 

 

Where is it?

103 Cochranes Road

Moorabbin VIC 3189

 

How to contact them?

(03) 95557419

 

 

I haven't seen Peter for 12 + years, but everytime I went to his shop he had some of the most amazing cars in there.  mainly resto jobs, some with timber cabins!  He was making boots, sills, guards and the like for mini, MG and exporting same to UK.  They've got all the shaping gear there.  (I can watch those guys all day).  He's not cheap, but the quality is exceptionally high.

 

He was active in the Alfa Club (AROCA) so understands car club budjets also.

[1600dave]

I'm a bit of an amateur panelbeater who has done lots of rust repair work on my Datsun project over the last year or two.

 

From the pics, the front guards and dogleg look to be about as easy a rust repair as you'll get - easy sections to form from scratch and weld in.

 

The rear guard at the bottom and the fuel filler area don't look too difficult either (depending on how easy it is to access the rear of those areas for a bit of hammer and dolly action). The wheel arch is potentially the most difficult to hand form because of the amount of "shape" in it, and the door skins are potentially difficult as well due to needing to weld in a few inches of new metal the entire length of the door skin - may cause warping.

 

If available and economical, I'd put new door skins on, and repair the rest by cutting out all rust and forming new replacement sections. Ironically, the only commercial "rust replacement section" I bought for my 180B SSS coupe needed almost as much reworking to get it to fit properly as it would have taken to hand-form a complete replacement section.

 

That is my opinion based on the photos and how I like to work though, at the end of the day (since you're not doing the work yourself), I'd chose a panelbeater and let him decide as to how he would prefer to do the work and advise you on the cost of each option.

 

Both new panels or repir sections welded in should be just as long lasting. The longevity will rely on how well rustproofed the repairs are rather than whether the panelbeater repairs or replaces the panels.