Rally Service Car - '79 GLi

[Luke]

Unfortunatly it was much worse than expected, and the worst part is that along the lower fender edge, the bondo had held the moisture just like a sponge against the metal for 20 years and slowly rusted that area away. It was really not evident that this had happened from the outside, as the 1/4" of bondo was holding its structure pretty well.
So I looked at it for a little while and decided the between the major ripples and dents on the upper part of the panel and the rust along the lower edge a complete panel replacement was in store.
An hour later and theres no turning back!

[Luke]

At this point I was truly questioning my intentions. Its a $600 car, I probably should have treated it as such... but everything else on the car was so clean and unmolested I thought it was deserving of a little TLC.

So the next step was off to the parts store for donor panel:




This '93 900 was located in the local yard, it was suprisingly clean and straight on the panel I needed, and no rust.
A few sawzall blades and $25 later I was out the door!

[Luke]

I cut the panel on the inside of the rocker on the donor car in order to leave the original spot weld seams intact. This was a little bit of a pain but with some different length blades it wasnt too bad.






Once i had the piece home, I attacked it with the spot weld drill and the angle grinder. This took a little while, but the result was an almost perfect 1/2 quarter panel with all the flanges still intact

[Luke]

Initial fitment showed that I was headed in the right direction!

[Jordan]

Once i had the piece home, I attacked it with the spot weld drill and the angle grinder. This took a little while, but the result was an almost perfect 1/2 quarter panel with all the flanges still intact

God that looks like less fun than scraping undercoating

That '93 interior looks pretty nice... any of it left?

[Crazyswede]

just had an idea...this would be a good time to install an outside accessable storage locker. Use the dead space between the outer fender and the inside of the car as storage for tow straps and other things...accessable from outside...sure not very period correct but different

[Luke]

Once the final fitting of panel was done I welded the seam closed, using as little heat as possible and pausing a long time between stitches to let the metal cool. The result was I had a nearly flat seam that will require almost no filler after a little grinding with a flap disk.



The rest of the panel was glued in place using 3M 2 part body glue. This is awesome stuff and very easy to work with. Its also super stronger, stronger than the original spot welds.
I need more vice grips!

[DeLorean]

Nice repair, I know the car you got it from. Without E-Z pull, the degree of difficulty would really increase on this.

[Luke]

After a little sanding its almost ready for primer:

[squaab99t]

After a little sanding its almost ready for primer:

Dude you need to slow down. You make my projects look like glacial movement.

Nice work on the weld. Did you TIG or MIG the seam?

[Scott]

That is so cool! I had that same color 79, bought it for $300 20 years ago. It was a true workhorse. Wish I'd had a garage at the time...

The idler shaft on the timing chain let loose while I was on the highway one fine day. Made a heck of a bang and scared me to death. That and rust did it in.

[Luke]

Nice work on the weld. Did you TIG or MIG the seam?

The MIG'd the seam, more out of convenience of not having to move the TIG welder than any other reason. I used .023 wire and low heat and it worked very well.

[Luke]

Once the metal repair was pretty much complete, I sprayed the whole quarter panel with epoxy primer. I'll put the ever so slight amount of filler ON TOP of the primer, rather than underneath. This is what is recommended by the paint companies these days as the repair is better sealed up this way.




Once the primer was dry, I put a skim coat of filler, sanded, and then followed up with a coat of high-build primer in that area just to fill the pores.

[Luke]

I also decided to strip the entire hood to bare metal. There were enough little rock chips and dings along the front edge with spider veins of rust underneath that this was the simplest way to get a good result.

[Geoff]

You should just repaint the whole car

You miss spelled something: ShAABy

Whose silver 4dr (?) is that?