Hi,

I would like to fill in a factory gap that spans the length of my car. It is on my 90 miata. for those that have not seen one up close the gap is about as deep and wide as a pencil.

is this gap too big to fill in with body filler and paint over? do i really need to weld over it with a strip of metal?

i will me using metal glaze, not bondo. I was thinking of tack welding little anchors every so many inches just to give the metal glaze something to hold on to other than the factory sheet metal. i can pull this off and sand it all nice and smooth, but i really do not want to have to weld in a metal strip all of the way down. i dont think I am good enough at welding.

i would appreciate any advice. thanks.

 

If you take it all down to the bare metal and use a good filler I don't see why you would have any problems. Some might say that is not the correct way to do it and blah blah, but I'm sure it would work.

 

right on. I feel it is not too much volume to fill but what do i know? lol

 

up

 

dont freakin fill that ,come on now ,one good tap on any spot and it will pop right off ,weld in some metal and be done with it

 

well so far so good. i used metal glaze and i must say that it is waaaaaaay better that bondo. it weighs considerably less, it sticks better, and it is surprisingly durable.

within moments of it drying i was able to slam the bejesus out of my door and nothing seemed off at all.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by phatboycrxhf &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">dont freakin fill that ,come on now ,one good tap on any spot and it will pop right off ,weld in some metal and be done with it

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i really would have proffered to have done it that way but it just seems to open up a whole new can of worms.

 

i would have welded it ,ive seen what happens with to much filler and glaze as well ,glaze isnt meant to be used like you did ,its like spot puddy ,for like pin holes and such .

sooner or later it will crack and you'll be like .....WTF !!!! i should have listened to phatboy lol

 

yeah i'll have to agree with the majority... for the best finish, welding is the way to go

 

haha

i hope it works. if it doesn't then i will redo it. lol.

am more concerned that I would screw something up while welding and I wont be able to fix it where are if this fails i can just chip it all off and start over.

 

welding a piece is the right way to do it. but u can sand down to the metal and use kitty hair to fill it. ive used it to redo rocker panels and they held up. i even smaked em with a sledge hammer and the bent but the seam never broke.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 99sohcaccord &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">welding a piece is the right way to do it. but u can sand down to the metal and use kitty hair to fill it. ive used it to redo rocker panels and they held up. i even smaked em with a sledge hammer and the bent but the seam never broke.</TD></TR></TABLE>

what is kitty hair?

 

short strand fiber glass filler .you can use it ,but you'll have to chase it with glaze after ,cause you'll never get it to the point of being perfect and its heavy as [freak]