Well i'm new to civics and very new to rust repair and paint, but this is my new project. I'll use this thread to post progress and hopefully get a little help and insight into making this car a bit more respectable looking!

So here she is as she sits:



The front cover and pasenger side fender were off a teal car that the PO must have rattle canned black without prep and all flaked off. The Hood is rock chipped bad and hs some small dents but the fenders are relitivly straight.



Side view - there is a monster dent on the one side, i'm hopeing I can push out from the inside a bit, then use body filler to strighten it out some. Any thoughts as to the best way to procede here?



A close up of the dent



This is the drivers side rear's only rust. I'm thinking i'll grind it out best I can and use fiberglass filler to build it back up, then bondo/prime/paint. I dunno anything about metal work or welding so i'm trying to keep it simple.



This is the worst of it - the pssenger side rear fender. I dunno what do do here? It fratured and i'm sure there is quite a bit of rust in here. Maybe some fiberglass matting will rebuild the panel - or I can possible use some panel adhesive and glue new metal in.



Interior is in OK shape, I'll prolly get new carpet at some point, and maybe dye the interior black at a later time.



The whole reason I bougt the car - H22A!

She's ugly but she fun.

My plan is to work on an extreme budget (I only paid 2500 for the car and it came with lots of extras). I want to kill/hide the rust the best I can and make the car 1 uniform color. I'm currantly concidering rattle canning the car satin/flat black or possibly white (it's original color).

Any thoughts/help or insight along the way is sure apreciated!



Modified by H22Stew at 8:28 PM 3/22/2008

 

good luck with that quarter panel. that thing needs to be replaced man, and so does that fender. unless your really experienced bodyman youll have a tough time. putting too much bodyfiller on that quarter panel is going to make it really brittle. things like that need to be replaced instead of repaired or its going to come back to haunt you. especially that rear fender well. that rust needs to be cut out and a new piece welded in. guaranteed that rust will come back and be worse if you just try to grind it and cover it up with fiberglass or bodyfiller.

 

Is there any feisable alternative to welding? i've read a bit about panel bonding adhesives and i'm tempted to try that so at least there is new metal in place rather than fiberglass. Glue I think I can handle, but welding i'm quite sure I would make a real mess of.

 

bonding is very common and even used by some manufactures during initial assembly

 

the more I read about it the better it sounds, i'm just not sure how I bond the lip of the new quarter panel to the wheel tub as there isnt much contact area to join the 2 panels together.

Has anyone done fiberglass mat work before? If I cut out the bad chunk on the passenger side and use POR 15 inside and glass the outside will it hold up a while?

Just how think can I fill that big dent with fiberglass or metal based filler after I pop the worst of it out? is a 1/2" way too much in a few places?

I know the body guys are cringing at this thread, but this is going to have to be a cheap/half assed fix as there is no way i'm spending more than a few hundred bucks on this car to make it presentable.