Jmanji Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Last night won a 1.6 tigra on eBay for next to nothing, thought it may be ok from the ad, engine is fine, pulled Into fill up and had a quick look round,oh dear it has half a wheel arch missing, a rusty boot lock and the door sill is very rusty. As a beginner I don't think I've done to bad, cleaned loose rust, put rust remover, patched holes on sill and boot, cut some metal for wheel arch shaped it and epoxied it on, filler on everything inc my fingers. Wheel arch did not glue properly as edges were up went and got a riveter, worked a treat and here's some pics I took, will hopefully get some paint and finish it off Wednesday, not professional but it was fun having a go!! I know it's not brilliant but for a novice I've enjoyed doing it apart from my back aches like hell. Will put the final pics up when it's done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 I have this at home, and its well worth a read, i use it all the time, its part and parcel of owning a british car...rust http://www.haynes.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=30053&langId=-1 did you remove all the rust on the arch before filling it in, if there is any rust even if you just put some krust on top will still spread up from under all that expoxy. its a good effort, if your going to tackle tasks like that, its worth investing in a mig welder and teaching yourself to weld. and also an angle grinder. your top patch on the arch doesn;t look bad, although it protrudes slightly, but the pop rivets are a little worrying, are they counter sunk below the body? you might get away with it. but you might get sagging ontop of the rivets which will make them visible later. heres my wheel arch, this was doen with a spot welder, ok this is the other side, but it had almost identical treatment, and this is post blending and painting on this occasion this is not my welding, but i have cracked out the kit for other parts on other cars. but that haynes manual on bodywork is very good then ground back ad then finally filled in and blended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 by the way forgot to say, good effort, and its fun learning, you've got a good project car to practice on. just be aware that body filler is porous, so i would get a sealant paint on there sooner rather than later Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmanji Posted April 14, 2013 Author Share Posted April 14, 2013 Thx for the advice, I must admit your xkr has me looking at that one on eBay? The rivets are countersunk, I've put two thick layers of filler now which needs sanding, could not remove all rust as I am short on tools, the grinders at work, and only have an arc welder, may invest in a mig if I carry on, I think the main thing I need is a good sanding disc, I have only got a flat drill type and it does not flex etc, so hand sanding it now with 60 grit to flatten, then put more filler on fine, then used 320 grit, it's actually very hard to get the contour right but I am going to flip this car in a week once it has a new mot, if it passes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madhatter Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Cracking job and great car to learn on! Would love to do this - in particular would love to learn how to weld! Rt did you weld your car up yourself? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Thx for the advice, I must admit your xkr has me looking at that one on eBay? The rivets are countersunk, I've put two thick layers of filler now which needs sanding, could not remove all rust as I am short on tools, the grinders at work, and only have an arc welder, may invest in a mig if I carry on, I think the main thing I need is a good sanding disc, I have only got a flat drill type and it does not flex etc, so hand sanding it now with 60 grit to flatten, then put more filler on fine, then used 320 grit, it's actually very hard to get the contour right but I am going to flip this car in a week once it has a new mot, if it passes? get a good angle grider, then you can fit flexi sanding pads, makes life alot easier on the shaping side. solid discs are best at cutting its a real faff using them to skim a surface. what did you use to spread filler with? depending on the shape and size of what your filling you'll need a range of shapes. and following car contours is something that just takes practice, and a case of checking and sanding back if too high. but a good angle grinder and a set of heads make that easy. if it gets it through its MOT thats the main thing. and should make it an easy seller with no rust. Arc welder would do the job fine, just got to be careful of the heat not warping complex shapes like long sections of wheel arches. hence why a spot welder is a benefit sometimes as its a quick tack. but its looking good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Cracking job and great car to learn on! Would love to do this - in particular would love to learn how to weld! Rt did you weld your car up yourself? on this particular job i got my mates at a local bodyshop to do it. i was all set to do the rust removal been waiting since xmas to do it, but as the garage isn;t wide enough to get the car in and work on it at the same time, i had to given in as the bad weather didn;t let up. i was looking at doing it all outside and i went off the idea of trying to do it between snow showers. and as i need to get it ready to MOT i had to get firends to do it in their nice warm workshop. But i can weld, used to use ARC as a kid, now have a MiG at work, but don;t get to use it very often so my welding is a little scrappy at the moment. most of welding is just down to practice and i haven;t and don;t do it enough to keep my hand in to get it to a higher standard. have welded other stuff. but not on the jag this time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmanji Posted April 14, 2013 Author Share Posted April 14, 2013 Yes another bug for me was the spreader only had a small one supplied with the filler, it was crap had to keep ANSI g the edge to get a clean scrape, does the flexi sanders fit most grinders, I have the usual cheapest Argos small one a large version and I also bought a professional polisher which has loads of heads, I'm sure o e will take the flexi sander, will keep you updated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 its just a generic angle grinder connector, so you can fit a variety of ends to them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmanji Posted April 17, 2013 Author Share Posted April 17, 2013 Ok spent most of the day finishing off the work started, for a first attempt at bodywork I'm not disappointed, however I can see there is a lot of uneven bits which does make it a very amateur repair. I've learnt a lot from doing these three jobs, especially how important getting the filler on correctly "or not in my case " also I found that priming was very helpful also kept rubbing it down to fill the fine aero holes that I had from the filler I guess I must have mixed in air to it? Can't wait for the next job, here's some pics, you can see the aero and also the orange peel effect, but I still need to either polish it down or compound it , not really sure how to tackle this, thanks for looking!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beau Posted April 17, 2013 Share Posted April 17, 2013 Get some good paint compounding paste and it'll help to remove the orange peel on the paint. It would have also been good to use a finishing filler mix which is very fine and you apply a thin layer over the original filler and then give it a quite fine sand down, before going onto painting. Good attempt though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 As beau said, fine filler and sand, as for the orange peel, you moved too quickly with the can, need slow moves across the panel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leonk Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 I might be wrong but I think you can get a spray filler that will fill minor imperfections before you put the top cost on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 I might be wrong but I think you can get a spray filler that will fill minor imperfections before you put the top cost on. yes its a levelling paint. goes on quiet thick, also needs longer to dry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmanji Posted April 19, 2013 Author Share Posted April 19, 2013 Get some good paint compounding paste and it'll help to remove the orange peel on the paint. It would have also been good to use a finishing filler mix which is very fine and you apply a thin layer over the original filler and then give it a quite fine sand down, before going onto painting. Good attempt though Is it to late to compound the peel once the clear coat is on? I'm going to use a professional polish tomorrow, it's quite abrasive so should get it looking a bit better. Thank you for all the advice!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrumbMC Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 This is quite a good video. Just ignore the crappy music bit in the middle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 That's a damn fine first attempt IMO - Paint yup orange peel - more paint but don't get runs Those little holes - any body shop and prolly Halfords will stock "Stopper" its like a very fine filler use that first a light sand then your primer filler - now usually called HB Primer - HB = High Build - great stuff Always fun to learn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun1982 Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 A block always helps for sanding repairs too. Eliminates the chance of 'finger lines' as well as keeping the filler level. Even our repairers at work get pin holes in big repairs, annoys me when there's bloody loads to fill though lol Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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