Well, I thought I got a lot done today, but when I look at my work I only filled about 10 holes in my fenders.

I got a couple of great fenders from Tigerdan a couple of weeks ago. They came with moulding the ran down the bump. My truck does not have that moulding so I had to fill them.

Using Dan's suggestion. I slightly dented the holes in to get rid of the lip. I then sanded by hand each hole. Next came the fun part... Bondo.

I have never used the stuff before. It has the consistancy of stirred natural peanut butter (with the oil). As you can see in the first picture, i put too much on. That was ok, it gave me a chance to try out my "cheese grater" on it. After some sanding and touch ups with the glaze stuff, I put a few light coats of primer and was onto the second fender.

The second one is the blue one. It was more of a challenge. Three of the holes were much bigger (1/2 inch or so). I was not sure if they were too big to fill with bondo, so I got these reinforcing metal mesh things that are made to fill in holes in body work. The worked great. After mixing more bondo, lots of sanding and some more primer, I was done for the day.

Next step is to brush out the rust on the inside of the fenders and coat it with Rust Doctor. After that I will paint them with either rustoleum or a truck bedliner. I'm not sure which is best.

Lessons learned:
A little Bondo goes a long ways

Wear rubber gloves, I can not get the stuff off my hands!

Double your estimated time to repair stuff

Don't use your wife's tupperware to mix bondo in it. It didn't all come out and she is not happy about losing a good piece of tupperware.

Dogs are smarter than humans (at least this human) with Bondo. As soon as I opened it and the smell filled the garage, they left. Good girls. I got a headache! I had the big door open and a side window too.

Shop vacs are great for cleaning up the mess from sanding and using the cheese grater!

Anyway, this posting has gone on long enough. I hope the pictures load. Any suggestions about bedliner vs. rustoleum are appreciated.
Karl


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Nice start!

Just about anything will work to mix bondo - I use a 6X8 inch piece of metal, I have seen guys use a glass sheet - even Plexiglas. Clean it off between uses - I use lacquer thinner and, if needed, a wire brush on an old bench grinder.

Your going to need a grinder - Harbor Freight sells a 4 1/2 inch one for around $15, on sale. They also sell a 4" one for $1 less, but it is less powerful and will not take the bigger disks. Once you have one you can buy different sanding disks to match the job you are doing - I say this because you want nothing but shinny metal under the bondo, or it will rust through in a few years.

Sure is nice to get started, isn't it?

 

I got a disk for my drill and it did a an ok job. I will need to get a grinder though. I will drop hints to my wife since my birthday is coming soon.

I sanded all these parts down to bare metal on both sides of the hole. It takes a while when doing by hand and file, but I got it done.

You are right, it is nice to get started. I figure even if I am missing the rest of the truck right now, every hour I spend prepping these fenders now, I will not need to do when I get the truck down here.

karl

 

I have an old VW rear window that's been the "Bondo-mixer" for many years, even the dried on stuff scrapes of easily like Clint mentioned.

I didn't know you were going to fill holes, if you're not happy with the outcome, then just bring them down one day and we can weld them up quickly...then it takes just a light skim of putty to make them nice.

 

Geez, I forgot the most important part...tell you wife it's Dans fault for ruinng her Tupperware

 

Looks like you're on the right path, Karl. Some tips...

I use a piece of cardboard or something like that to mix the Bondo on if I don't have access to the old piece of sheetmetal that I usually use. Something about a foot square is adequate and don't overestimate the amount you think you can use before it sets up. If you mixed too much and have some left over after you're done applying that layer, don't just keep globbing it on to use it all up, cut your losses and toss it. Otherwise you'll be letting yourself in for more sanding trying to sand off the excess. If it starts to harden on the mixing board before you're done applying it, stop and toss the rest, don't keep trying to work it as it hardens. You'll just have a rough mess that's harder to sand and doesn't give you an even surface to work with.

Mix the Bondo and hardener with a putty knife and use a flipping motion to mix it, like you're shoving a spatula under a pancake and continually flipping it over. This mixes it without inducing any air bubbles as a stirring motion can.

Grind the paint away from an area about 4-6 inches around each hole and as Clint said, you want bare metal. Couse sand it so the metal is somewhat rough, this gives the Bondo something to bite so it adheres better.

Spread the Bondo in a thin layer covering that whole area. They sell little plastic speaders in different widths for that purpose, don't know if that's what you used or not. Try to get the Bondo spread as thin and smooth as you can while it's still workable.

I use a rubber sanding block with 36 grit for my initial cut to shape the Bondo, then switch to about 80 grit and work my way up to about 240 to feather the edges and sand out the sanding scratches left ny the courser grits. I'm not great with body work so it takes me several applications of Bondo to get it to where I'm happy with it. The idea is to have the Bondo patch well spead out over the area around the hole and feathering gradually at the edges so that it can blend with the body panel, otherwise you'll see the edges of the Bondo repair area when you get paint on it.

Since you're working on an area that's not flat you need to hold some of the paper in your hand while sanding to match the contour of the valleys coming down off the ridge. Another trick I often use is to take my sanding block which is curved on the top where you hold it and check to see if that curvature closely matches the contour of ther valley. If so, wrap the sandpaper around it backwards so that you're able to sand with the block upside-down and sideways along that valley for the rough cuts.

After you think you've got it where you want it, spray the repaired area with flat black sandable primer (not all of them are...) and let it dry. You'll be able to see how well your repair blends with the surrounding metal. If you can't tell where the edges of the Bondo are then you're good to go, if you aren't happy with a spot you can sand the primer off that area and do more work on it. Don't worry about being able to see the blend area just when you spray the pimer on as the Bondo cases the pmer to dry at a slightly different rate as the metal as it absorbs some of the moisture in the paint so there's usually a visible difference at first.

The primer will also show you some sanding scratches that you missed. You can buy a tube of spot or glazing putty to fill these if the rest of the repair looks good and you don't want to mess with it. This putty can be squeezed right out of the tube with no mixing and spread in a very thin layer over the scratch, (even right on top of the primer) using the smallest of the plastic spreaders. A light sanding is all that's required to take off the excess and you should have a scratch that's visibly filled by the (usually red) spot putty. Then hit it with another shot of primer and it should be perfect. (Or close to it...!)

Also, when it comes time to paint the whole shootin' match you can use a primer/surfacer which is a thick-bodied primer that fills small scratches.

Don't worry if some of this operation takes a while to get the hang of. Body work is time consuming and a little finicky for us novices, but think of not only the money you save by doing it yourself as it's also expensive to have done right (or you can have it done cheaply and poorly!) but you also have the pride of being able to say, "I did it myself!"

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All this brings me to another idea which I may have mentioned before and that's what's called a "Fix In". This is where we all bring our projects (if mobile) to a pre-arranged location (usually somebody's house who has a good work area and lots of tools such as welders and power tools) for a day or a weekend and we all help each other with our projects. Makes it lot more fun and we can get help form those who are more experienced. Lots of comeraderie and at the end of the day we can kick back and just shoot the breeze, have a pizza and beer party, whatever.

Anybody interested in doing this some dry weekend?

 

. . . . . . . .

 

Hmmm...pizza, beer, welding?

I like it!

 

Actully Clint, I didn't feel that it was really off-topic because it would be the perfect situation for Karl to get some hands-on guidance to work on those fenders...that's what made me think of it.

 

As you wish - I started a new thread to get comments on this idea, but I guess whatever you guys want.

The problem is that we have a thread on Bondo talking about fix-it days. Someone looking for some suggestions on Bondo is going to have to wade through all these posts, and someone searching for the thread on fix-it days will never spot this one.

Likely I was to quick on the trigger, but once members start to post on this new idea it is too late to separate the threads.

But, like I said, this is our space and we can organize it however you guys want it.

 

Thanks guys!
Mike- I know of at least one of the patches I want to weld. It filling a 1/2" hole and the backside of it has a support bracket, so I could not clean up that welll. I will see how the rest of the patches hold. Even though I spent a few hours on them, I would be fine with knocking them out and welding them and patching again. My goal is to have a great truck that will not rust out in a couple of years. I would rather do it right now and paint it rather than after i paint it. Thanks for the offer. We could work on them and the cab mounts.

Dan- Thanks for the in-depth Bondo instructions. I have not found any that good on the net. You could write an article for this site. I agree that a group work day would be great. I'll bring the beer.

Clint- Thanks for the info above. I dropped the hint to my wife that i want a handheld grinder and a dremel and she said yes! It helps that I went to target and replaced her tupperware. I guess since I got my fenders from Dan's truck, it is his fault.

Thanks,
Karl

 

First rule with wives (or at least the one's you want to keep) Never take anything from her kitchen to your shop.

I know she has great knives just right for scraping gaskets, all sorts of neat containers for holding bolts, and the only vacuum cleaner on the place that works, but don't do it.

Second rule is to buy as dark a shade carpet in the house as you can get away with, and plan on having it cleaned every six months - I my house I live in fear of tracking grease onto our white Berber carpet!

We are converting to wood flooring - expensive, cold, uncomfortable, noisy, and hard on our old dogs (traction) but worth it to me.

 

Thanks for the advice, i will never borrow anything from the kitchen. I just wish she would do the same with my tools... We have hardwood through the house. My dogs are always doing burn outs and fish tailing around corners.

kgs

 

Sounds good - but does remind me of rule #3. Once she learns you will not take anything from the kitchen, she will start giving you old pans, knifes, and the like. I think they plan on replacing them anyway and giving them to you is a good excuse.

Anyway, keep a can of spray paint around, and when she does give you something, paint the handle, and let her see you do it. That way she does not forget she gave it to you!

But we are off-topic ourselves - it is hard not to hold a "conversation" in these threads.

 

To get us back on topic, does anyone have a preference for body fillers? I used bondo, but will use other stuff if better.

When would fiberglass be better to use?
kgs