I just picked up this Civic with quarter panel damage as you can see..

Taking it to the body shop would be the best idea, but I do not have the financial being a full time student.

What are you guy's suggests on tackling this thing. should i replace the whole quarter panel, if so, what are some steps i need to take and is there a thread about this? i tried searching, but no cigar.

Thanks for helping out.

 

fixmyrust.com has replacement panels or sale that are cheap and grade A quality

 

I just looked in there, but they didn't have big enough quarter panel to fix the whole side. :/

Is it hard to take off the whole quarter panel?

 

my advise would be seeing if you could take the inside panels off and pop most of it out, and use a hammer/dolly to massage it as close as possible

 

If you dont know how its done I would advise against doing it yourself...

but basically you have to drill out all the spot welds to get it off... there is a LOT more involved than that but the welds are the main thing attaching it to the car... so its not like replacing a fender

 

+1

You're looking at 10 hours per side in labor.

 

i was aware of the weld spots and taking the glasses out. would i just cut the connected part by the rail under the door and over the door?

 

That doesn't seem like too much work if you have a stud gun, hammer and dolly kit. try to get it straight from the inside as much as possible.
but if you decide to replace the whole panel I'll help you out here i'm going to school for this your going to need a hand saw, a pretty good welder, and be a good welder. spot weld cutters. get a weld buster, those do wonders. but before you do anything I would call honda and ask for a repair procedure.

so half way through this I realized your coupe is a 96-98 and mines a 94 so it's a little diff but same rules apply.

alright so you already know your going to have spot welds all the way around.

your going to have to drill those out without drilling all the way through, if you do drill through you should weld them back up (which can be a pain in the *** sometimes)

but once you have all those off your going to want to make your cuts here (yellow, Green is where your damage is) no need to go all the way to the top.


make the same cuts on your new panel, align it, clamp it down, start welding/grinding done.

 

people make it sound so easy...

my opinion right off the back its gonna be a whole replacement. the time + cost needed to pull this dent is not worth it.... people say do it yourself...if u dont mind your car looking like ***.. go ahead... besides just a 'hammer and dolly' you'd need a torch. the whole panel is stretched. u'd need a hammer and dolly and a prayer... to replace it you'd need a billion other things

but taking it back to the original post.. u stated you were going to take it to a shop.. then u asked what do we suggest u should do... does that mean you're going to try to fix it yourself? or are you just asking if u should tell the shop to replace it... or fix it?

 

You could probably get that to look halfass decent with a stud gun you can get one at harbor freight. It wouldn't be perfect without replacing it but you could get it close

 

I'm a body man and i fix damage like this quite often, as my shop does alot of work for used car lots who buy from auctions... That needs to be replaced. Even the most badass bodyman in the world (I like to include myself in this) would tell you to only replace this. No way in hell an inexperienced person (even ones fresh out of autobody school, who like to think they can do anything) would be able to get that to look "decent". But whats considered decent is at the owners discretion.

 

I can make that look pretty damn good if I had the tools and a couple gallons of bondo. spread like 20 coats and that dent wont even look like it was there.

 

I did it. Not all that hard if you have patience. You might be able to get an idea of what your getting into from my old thread. https://honda-tech.com/forums/paint-body-84/replacing-1-4-panel-door-2593010/

 

If it was me, i would tare apart the interior and try to pop it out from the insde. If you know any one with a uni spoter. I would ground the paint down and use that. Most of that should just pop right back out. Just dod hit it to hard where you dent it out!