I have some rust over my wheel arches of my beater civic and I really can;t afford what a shop wants to cut/weld new quarters in, and grinding, POR15 and some fiberglass looked like the only option for a DIY rust repair.... till I heard about panel bonding adhesive.

Aperantly this stuff is as hard as a weld, plus water proof.

The question is, would I be nuts to cut the rust out, cut a good patch panel to shape with a bit of an overlap and then glue the panel on (holding it with stainless rivits or screws). then bondo/fill over the seam, prime and paint?

Anyone ever done this?

 

It can be done. Glue a patch panel. I would not go and cut the whole quarter out and glue it in. But a patch panel I would if you do not know how to weld. Just make sure that you clean up your area to be sectioned of rust very well and follow the directions on the panel bonding tube. It will most likely ask you to clean the surface of any paint and loose debrie.

 

the thing is you are doing the same labor anyway, why risk it with some ghetto fab step when you have to spent that much time and money for paint supplies?

unless you are just gonna wing it with a RTS lacquer rattle bomb

 

Aparantly it's not that ghetto, body shops and even oem manufacturers use high quality adhesives on all kinds of panels. The question really is in the technique of installation.

I have friends with paint booths that will shoot the car cheap with PPG or omni paint for the cost of materials, if I do the body work so I figure I gotta give it a go. The car is pretty ugly.

Got some more research to do on the subject but if anyone with experiance with adhesive panel repair cares to share thier input I'd apreciate it.