Vacation - Pt. 4 - Body Work

A while back I had the misfortune of finding a large qty of body filler on my driver side door while stripping the paint.

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In the picture below you can see the point where I said "eff this" and moved on to something else.

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As with all things that get the "eff this" treatment, you have to confront it sooner or later. So I decided to tackle it last week.

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I don't even want to tell you how much bondo dust came off of this thing. It was truly absurd.

You can also see where the body shop drilled holes in the door to pull it out since there must have been a pretty good dent in the side of it.

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Since this was my first real experience doing any body work I decided to start smaller and do my roof first. There is a small ripple (that you can barely see) travelling from front to back down the roof.

This body filler came highly recommended by one of the better body shops in town.

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And here is the hardener they gave me. lol

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I guess the rule of thumb with body filler is that if you make a pile of filler about a half inch thick, just run a line of hardener from one corner to the other. This gets close enough pretty much every time.

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You just mix this paste until it is all uniformly light blue (or whatever color hardener you have) and it is ready to apply. I had approx 4 minutes to get it applied and smooth before the mixture became unworkable.

Usually my first try is my worst try, but this run came out perfect. Just a little raised and a pretty level height. One thing you want to avoid is creating a low point. This is a point of filler that is lower than the desired surface. when sanded smooth it will show as a pit and you will have to reapply.

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After about 10 minutes the body filler is ready to "grate". This takes all of the high points and peaks and shreds them. It is best to perform this step when the body filler is still slightly gummy but not soft.

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After about another 20 minutes it is ready for sanding. The body shop I spoke with recommended using 36 grit sandpaper on a block and then 80 grit to smooth it out. Using a 36 first will cut down on sanding time. Since my time isn't worth shit, I just used 80 grit so i wouldn't take off too much filler and have to reapply. This technique worked very well.

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Repeat steps on all dents and dings that cannot be hammered out.

This rear skirt is right next to my spare tire well so i was not able to hammer it out.

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After grating and sanding.

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Now on to the door.

I had to mix up a hilarious amount of filler and did my best to keep the mixture and the ratios as close as possible.

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This pic is after my second application. I found low points and had to refill.

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Third and final.

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Luckily my passenger side door...

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Hood...

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And Hatch...

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Were all in much better shape.




Oh shit.... Setting up for paint.

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