Bottom of rear quarters - Repair

 Rust removal

One key task to complete for the roadworthy was to repair the rust in about the only place the car has it. Thats the bottom of the rear quarters. The right rear had been done before and had all fallen out. The long term plan is to replace the drop sections from the inner rail and the bottoms of the rear quarters.

The short term plan is to just repair with aluminium mesh and body filler. This is my first attempt at body repair, so a watched a few Youtube videos and rolled up my sleeves.

Per the pictures below, the situation on the right rear was fairly bad.

The first few pictures show how it was before I started.

These show the work needed once all the body filler and small aluminium plates were removed from the last repair job.

Here are the pictures of the left rear.

I cleaned up as much rust as I could. I used rust converter and cleaned up the surface.

Then I used aluminium fly screen in the bottoms to form up where the body should be. This also provided a base for the body filler to stick to. I used the body filler on the insides of the guards to hold the mesh in place and then set about filling from the outside.

As per the pictures the right rear really needed the mesh to make a base.

Once repair was completed I used 40, then 80 then 120 then 240 sand paper to get a smooth surface.

Then I masked up the area and added a rattle can primer. Then completed another 240grit sanding.

Then on with the gloss goat. I added 2 coats of gloss.

Here is the end result.

It is not perfect by any means and not body shop quality (if you get right up a personal with it), but it will do the job for now.

While I was at it, the rear stone tray was fairly poor with paint chips and a white surface on it.

As seen here.

As the newly painted rear quarters sit along side the stone try, and as I had it removed to complete the repair, I sanded back the stone tray and then painted it with primer and then gloss paint. While again, it is not perfect, from 5ft away, it looks ok and matches the patina of the rest of the car.

The next task is the exhaust, then roadworthy and registration. 

Then off to the parties we go.