Hi everone--

This is my real post on H-T, I've really just been lurking for the past couple months. Although I'm new to the site, I've been around ephatch, CSI, and a few other forums for awhile. I've owned a total of 5 civic hatches and coupes over the past 5 years, and I've loved every one of them.

Back in Febuary, my wife and I decided that having two Civics wasn't cutting it for our lifestyle, so we decided to get rid of one. Having to decide between our '00 ebp em1 and our '02 ep3, we traded the ep3 in on a Jeep Wrangler.

Time went by and of course I got an itch for a hatchback again . I searched the H-T classifieds for a decent EG project, and eventually bought one in august from a member on here, VolpeOwnsU. It needed a good bit of work and had been neglected for quite some time, but I was down for the project. Despite the visual condition of the car, it was very mechanically sound and had fairly low mileage.

So this brings us to today... completion of phase 1 of my project I dropped it off last week to have the terrible case of honda rust repaired... I had everything replaced the correct way, with new metal welded in. Here are some before and after pictures:

Rear right quarter:

BEFORE

Note the band-aid a friend stuck on there after they were pokin' around on it and poked their finger all the way through the panel, haha.

AFTER

Also had the huge-*** dent/scrape repaired right behind the door.

Rear left quarter:

BEFORE

The lip of the wheel well was completely GONE...

AFTER


All in all I'm really happy with the work they did. Please don't flame me for not getting it painted I didn't want to waste the money on red new red paint, when the rest of the paint doesn't look the best, and in the spring its getting a totally different color inside and out. I'd rather rock some brown colored epoxy than some nasty-lookin' rust!

I'll keep you all posted on how the project goes, I'm really excited to get even further into this project. Thanks for reading my humongous rant

 

looks good if you dont mind me asking, about how much did this cost to fix? i might be getting a car that has some rust on it as well.(not a civic though)

 

looks good

you may want to make sure that the primer is water proof. Some primer will allow water to soak in and start the whole rusting process again. Maybe get a couple cans of the stock red touchup paint and shoot it on there for the winter.

 

fantastic. and yea, whatd it cost?

 

Congrats buddy, looks very good... I wish I had the know-how to do body work or I may have kept it.

Glad you could turn the car around unlike myself. Did you also get the hood cable fixed?

 

thanks for the comments guys...

the bodywork cost me about $800 to have the bad metal cut out and replaced with new metal. I had originally gotten a quote from another shop at the same cost to do fiberglass/bondo... I wasn't really crazy about that. I kept looking and I came across these guys who gave me the same price for metal replacement, and were recommended by my mechanic... so i figured i'd give em a try. needless to say i'm very happy with what they did and I would recommend them to anyone in the central pa area... just let me know if you want their contact info.

nonsense: thanks for the heads up-- but i'm almost 99% positive the brown epoxy you see is waterproof. it would really blow to have that same thing happen again

volpe: yeah, i'm glad i could take it off your hands and give it the attention it needed yeah, we got the hood cable straightened out that same day... stopped by my grandfrathers place on the way back (he's been a mechanic for about 50 years) and we managed to pop it together. haven't had a problem with it since... i just need to replace the piece at the release lever that holds the cable housing in place. i have a couple other questions for ya, but i'll just IM you about em.

 

wow they did a nice job........

 

you got good advice coming in so pay attention to these guys cuz I did the same thing a year ago and my rust is coming back through the paint!

 

clint g: did you have regular primer on yours or an epoxy? This stuff seems to bead water off like regular paint does, and not soak like i've seen regular primer do. If you look at the pictures it almost has a semi-gloss finish to it, instead of the typical flat, rough texture of primer...

you guys are getting me all nervous now, haha. I'll call the body shop on monday just to be sure. I'm almost positive though, that they wouldn't let it go out of their shop without something that was protecting the work that they did.

 

that's a real great job. Did I just hear $800 for a repair work? that's a steal imo. The work came out great

 

Not to burst anyones bubble, That work looks like it was bondoed up Not that it looks bad or anything. Look at the gap between the bumper and the rear quarter, on both sides there is a gap in the middle section. All i am saying is that it could have been fixed WAY cheaper then 800, Probably for the price of under 100.

Sorry
Peace

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slowhatch4now &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Not to burst anyones bubble, That work looks like it was bondoed up Not that it looks bad or anything. Look at the gap between the bumper and the rear quarter, on both sides there is a gap in the middle section. All i am saying is that it could have been fixed WAY cheaper then 800, Probably for the price of under 100.

Sorry
Peace</TD></TR></TABLE>

"I had everything replaced the correct way, with new metal welded in."

??? Maybe the thread starter can comment

 

The very last pic looks a tad bit sketchy. Maybe it's just the angle or something but the wheel well doesnt look like it has a smooth curve to it.

 

They make replacement fenders for cars/trucks. The mechanic at my old workplace did the same thing. You buy the piece of the fender surrounding the wheel well.

Then you lay the new piece over the old fender, trace it on, and cut away the rotted/old metal with tool of your choice. Then you grind away the paint on the edge of the new piece, and the cut edge on the car. Then you tack weld the new piece onto the car. Then fill in the rest of the gap between new/old with weld. Grind smooth. Primer/seal. Done.

And it comes out looking just like that.

 

i wish i did that to my car instead but since i'm broke i did it the half *** way and used quite a lot of bondo and it came out good i'll post pics of my car soon

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slowhatch4now &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Not to burst anyones bubble, That work looks like it was bondoed up Not that it looks bad or anything. Look at the gap between the bumper and the rear quarter, on both sides there is a gap in the middle section. All i am saying is that it could have been fixed WAY cheaper then 800, Probably for the price of under 100.

Sorry
Peace</TD></TR></TABLE>

it was definitely done with metal, not bondo. yeah, its not perfect... with how much damage there was, i didn't expect it to look 100% like stock. but they got it damn near close considering how much new metal they had to shape in there. there's no way that they could have done that for $100, trust me. It was 2-3 days of straight labor, cutting out the old stuff / putting new stuff in / grinding down / etc.... and labor isn't that cheap!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tolowhb &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The very last pic looks a tad bit sketchy. Maybe it's just the angle or something but the wheel well doesnt look like it has a smooth curve to it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

you're right... its not perfectly curved at this point. they're going to go back and 'refine' it some more once i bring it back to be painted... they'll round out the wheel wells even more and get rid of any rough spots that they left.

 

Any updates?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SOHC_Ek &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Any updates?</TD></TR></TABLE>

on what exactly? if you look at my previous post, I said again that it was definitely done with metal, not bondo.... let me know if you had another question besides that.

I did find out that the epoxy used on the body is definitely waterproof. now i'm just saving my pennies to have all my dings pulled and have the car painted....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by r3p00c &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">on what exactly? if you look at my previous post, I said again that it was definitely done with metal, not bondo.... let me know if you had another question besides that.

I did find out that the epoxy used on the body is definitely waterproof. now i'm just saving my pennies to have all my dings pulled and have the car painted.... </TD></TR></TABLE>

Final outcome, but I guess you're saving up for paint. Have any more pics of your ride??
I'm jealous because I have rust

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SOHC_Ek &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Final outcome, but I guess you're saving up for paint. Have any more pics of your ride??
I'm jealous because I have rust</TD></TR></TABLE>

unfortunately it'll be awhile til the final outcome, lol. i have two other car payments that money goes to before the hatch. next on the list is replacing the vss, replacing the windshield, fixing my rear defroster, some random oem parts... the list goes on and on....

as far as the paint job, right now i'm debating wether i want to pull everything including the engine and do a completely different color, or go the easy way and do red again (but maybe with a different pearl coat or something). either way, i'm gonna put the right amount of money into it so it looks nothing short of amazing. the target date for this to be done as of right now is april.

no pics other than what you see right now.... because, well.. theres nothing else much more to see than a stock eg with some brown epoxy wheel wells