Need some good body work advice.

[Nismo280zEd]

Yeah I understand how that goes completely. Whatever filler you use... I would maker sure it's waterproof if your going baremetal. It'll save you from a big headache a year down the road when you have that nice shiny new paint on it and you start to get water bubbles under the paint from your body filler. Icky!

I understand the hassles of setn' up a paint booth this is why my car is flat black with primer lol. Eventually it'll get some PPG and Clear on it. I would also recomend a filler with "body hair" or fiberglass reinforcement in it.. it's harder to work with but much stronger structurally and wont' "chip" on you or absorb water. I would really be hesitant about putn' puddy on bare metal though. maybe alteast treat it with some zinc better adhesion too. The bondo test you mentioned is interesting. I would think the sealer wasn't applied properly if the sealer was the weaker element of the 2. Also another little secret... any time you have bare metal.. use lacquer thinner to clean your surface. once you paint and need to clean.. use rubbing alchol (highester percentage you can get) It won't weakn the paint but cleans just about as well.

 

Good Luck!

Take some pics for us.

-Ed

[Jolane]

Thanks Ed. The metal filler I am using is water proof. The other precaution I have read about is to heat the metal slightly, since moisture will condesate on cool metal. This will evaporate the moisture from the metal pores before applying filler.

 

I have been using Lacquer thinner to wipe and clean the panels before filler. I also prep the metal with 80 grit by hand before applying filler. The test I am referring to (and can't find the link to) also tested other grits for each process (36, 80, 120,X) and noted that 80 grit held better than the 36, which I guess is commonly used.

 

I looked into the metal wash and zinc wash treatments also, and it seems that if you are using epoxy, no need to use that stuff. There also seems to be complications with compatability. Some filler will not take the metal wash, while others say not to use it before using the filler. What a pain... epoxy it is for me!

 

I will be using Kitty Hair for most of my work after sealing. I believe that stuff is waterproof anyways, and I expect to use it for other areas I want to smooth before sealer (like the rocker panels).

 

Thanks for the advice. There seems to be as many ways to do this as there are people doing this type of work.

Joshua