I’m looking to cover a relatively large rust hole in my rocker panel with ‘tiger hair’ or some similar stuff. I have not really ever done body work before.

Does anyone know of some kind of a ‘Body Work for Dummies’ guide that could help me? Because the rocker panel is close to the ground of my car I don’t need it too look perfect.

A friend of a friend has a body shop. He gave me an estimate of approximately 400 to 450 to fix this. That would not be worth it for me. But I do think that it’s very well worth it for me to have a go at this myself. It’s worth it for me to try to

1 stop the rust before it significantly weakens the frame (the jack points are still
solid)

AND

2 cover and paint the ugly brown holes that are on my white civic (If I screw up it wont look any worse. A ‘ghetto’ paint job would be a great improvement. This area of my car does NOT need to look perfect! )

The hole on my rocker panel is about 2 by 5.5 inches. The other rocker panel is only just starting to show rust – still fairly solid. I understand that these rust spots occurred where collision work was done over twelve years ago. The car was totaled before I got it.

I understand that there is a decent chance that this rust will come back.

The underside of my car was coated and therefore I don’t believe that I have any other significant rust issues. If my engine was in better shape I’d consider having a shop do it proper – cutting and welding new metal on to it.

Thanks for reading.

 

The advice that this guy gives seems to be a good fit for me:

https://honda-tech.com/newreply.php?...ply&p=24890971

I understand that i can apply tiger hair in layers? It'd seem that's what i'd need to do. Either that and/or use tiger hair in combination with some other filler product.

POR15 sounds good also.

 

do you have any pics on the holes, I would like to see how you did it so that I can use it to repair my civic

 

The problem with fixing rust the half-assed (no offense intended) way is this, you didnt fix it. Rust is a nasty little bugger and if you do not completely remove the cancerous material it will come back and spread. the correct way would be too completely cut out the rusted portion and weld in a new piece if it cannot be sanded away. There should literally be no more rust on the car if its done right. Then just for safety sake i would throw two coats of POR15 or similar on the metal if you would like.

You can tigerhair it up all you want but it will come back and spread sooner rather then later normally.