monkeyposeur's hatch replacement and body work thread

[monkeyposeur]

OK, to fix your rear quarter panel you will need the following tools and materials:

Grinder

DA sander

Stud welder

Body hammer set

Bondo, hardener, and plastic bondo spreaders

Sandpaper, 80 grit and on up

Primer

Cardboard

 

These photos show the badly damaged frame, and the damage to the quarter panel. The pictures of the dent are not the greatest and don't show how bad it really was.

 

You can see the grinder and DA sander, both of which are air powered. The DA sander is not completely necessary for this part of the process.

 

The first pic is right before I had the frame pulled. My advice to anyone with extensive frame damage is to have it professionally pulled. The rest of the body work is something that you can do yourself if you have the inclination.

 

So let's get down to business. First step is to remove the bumper. Here is a snapshot of the FSM.

[monkeyposeur]

Next, use the grinder to remove the paint down to the bare metal where you want to apply bondo. Make the area a bit larger than the dent so you can feather in the area when you smooth it out later. The grinder also makes deep scratches that creates a better adhesion surface for the bondo. Sanding will not be sufficient for bondoing a large area, you must use a grinder. You also need bare metal for using the stud welder so it can make electrical contact.

 

Next, get out the stud welder and place the rivet in the tip. Place the tip of the gun against the frame and rock it over until you make contact with the body with the collar. You will see and hear a large spark and the tip of the rivet will begin to glow. When it gets cherry red it will stick to the body and STOP! If you leave the rivet on too long you will melt a hole in the body which is not good. Pull the gun back and hopefully your rivet will be stuck fast. Some of them fall off.

 

Next, attach the slide hammer to the rivet and pull back on the slide. No love taps here, give it a some good whacks. When you are done pulling on that rivet, bend it over so you know that you are done with it. Apply more rivets as needed and continue the process until your dent is roughed out. You will not achieve perfection at this point.

 

Now take your grinder and grind the rivets off.

 

If there any high spots at this point, take a body hammer and knock them down with careful glancing blows at a 45 degree angle.

[monkeyposeur]

Next, tape off any areas such as the tail light, that you do not want to get bondo on.

 

Take your piece of carboard and slop some bondo on there. For every golfball sized blob of bondo, add 1-2 inches of hardener. Using your bondo spreader, mix it up thoroughly until it is uniform in color. Only make as much as you can use in a few minutes, since it begins to harden right away.

 

Scrape your bondo knife clean on the side of the cardboard and load it up with some bondo. There is a tapered edge on the knife. Put the bondo on that part of the knife and then spread it on your area.

 

It will be ready to sand in less than 10 minutes. When it hardens up, take a board sander with 80 grit paper (you could take the DA sander and knock off some of the big chunks at this point, but be careful) and start sanding the bondo to a nice contour. I would run my hand on the surface to feel for high and low spots, and then run my hand on the non damaged quarter panel on the other side for comparison.

 

As soon as you start to hit bare metal, stop sanding and apply more bondo. You may need to do multiple fills (four or five) and sanding like I did. The fifth pic is after two fills or so. I don't have a pic of the final fill all sanded nicely. Take care when sanding up to the wheel well so you don't lose the circular contour. When you are satisfied, prime it. The blue spot on the gas tank cover in the last pic is some glazing compound to fill a tiny dent, which I will get to in another post.

 

Put your bumper back on and drive around looking fabulous. That's it for now kids.

 

Woo hoo! 1,000 posts .

[monkeyposeur]

Dang, I need to finish this thread, lol. It's been a while.

 

Here is what it looks like now.

[monkeyposeur]

Next, get rid of the ugly pinstripes. A heat gun can help get them off if they aren't too old. You warm them up and can scrape them off with a plastic razor blade. But that doesn't work too well on older cars like ours. There is also a pinstripe removal tool that you can buy at the auto body supply shop. It's like an eraser wheel that you put on a grinder or a drill. It's kind of expensive though. $40 or more. But I knew I was going to paint my car so I just took a razor blade and scraped them off. Pretty easy.

[monkeyposeur]

Now we want to get rid of the crappy rub bars on the roof. Not only are they very unsightly, but they also don't do much and they give you nine holes for rust to form and rot out your roof.

 

Unscrew them. Pull them off. Sand the holes down to the bare metal. Fill the holes with bondo or glazing compound. Sand the surfaces flat with a block or by hand with a piece of sandpaper. Fill again, sand, fill again, etc., until you have a flat surface.

[monkeyposeur]

While you are doing the above step you will need to remove the roof rack bars. There will be some rust where the rack mounts bolt to the roof. Sand or grind the rust away until you reach bare metal. Take care not to grind the pinch bolts flush with the surface of the roof.

 

If you have access to a sandblaster, blast the mounting points and treat with por-15 or system sampler to put the rust at bay. If you have denting like I did now is a good time to apply some glazing compound and sand, fill, sand fill, etc., until you are satisfied. If you will have to wait to do your final painting, then apply some cheap primer to protect it in the meantime.

 

In my case I ground the pinch bolts flush with the roof and some off them fell into the headliner. A few more stripped loose when I later tried to install the roof rack. It's not a big deal though. All you need to do is get some bolts and toothed washers. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

Now is a good time to decide if you want to delete your roof rack altogether. If you choose to do so, just fill in the holes. I like the way the rails look so I left mine.

[monkeyposeur]

When you finish painting your roof will look awesome. Paint your rails to make them look new. Sand them, rattle can them, and clear coat them.

[monkeyposeur]

A lot of jerks had parked their fancy cars next to mine, opened their car doors and dinged up my doors. To fix these, get some glazing compound, or icing. Sand the dings to rough them up. Mix up the glazing compound and hardener and apply. Use a razor blade or little bondo spreader to smooth it out. It may take a few cycles of applying and sanding to get the desired effect. Be patient and pay attention to detail.

 

Sand with a nice flat block to get a good surface. It helps to view the surfaces in a few different light conditions to catch all the dents. Mark them with a sharpie so you don't lose sight of them.

[monkeyposeur]

All right! We have fixed all the dings and dents. If you want to paint the plastic mirror housings, door handles, and door bumper trim, sand them with some fine grit sandpaper. Spray them with adhesion promoter (available in a rattle can).

 

Now prime any and all of your body work with a high quality primer. Nayson primer is really good, and about $30 a pint including activator. Follow the mixing proportions on the can. For this step you can use a shitty paint gun. If you want to prime the whole car you will need at least three pints.

 

To prep for priming, sand off all your crappy temporary rattle can primer and clean with a good degreaser and fancy paper towels. Mask off all the windows, headlights, trim, etc. You can do this outside. If you get some dust or crappy overspray don't fret because you will be sanding the primer later. Have fun and practice learning how to use a paint gun. You probably can't screw this step up, but I won't speak for everyone.

[monkeyposeur]

You are almost ready to finish painting. In the meantime, drive around with your cool primer gray, add some JDM projectors, JDM sidemarkers, HIDs, new interior (I was able to get new OB front and rear seats and door cards for $100), new HU, and angel eyes. This gives you some time to pick out your final color. Check your local ads for some wrx wheels too.

[monkeyposeur]

At this point I decided to go with Ice Metallic Silver for my final color. Don't do a single stage color. That means you just shoot the color on and call it a day. This is a very unforgiving method. If you get any runs you will have to live with it. Instead do a base color, and then a clear coat. If you get runs you may be able to sand them out. Painting a car is hard, so be warned.

 

Before you can do the final coat the primer needs to be sanded with at least 400 grit sandpaper. Your body work may not be perfect or to your satisfaction at this point. You may have high spots, low spots, or other imperfections. Therefore you need a guide coat of paint. This is basically a thin coat of black spray paint. You rattle can it on and then begin to sand the whole vehicle with a sanding block. As the sanding block sands the guide coat, the black color will allow you to see the spots you either missed during the body work, or if you need to continue to sand to make the surface flat. Take your time. Buy a lot of sandpaper to do this step. It wears out quickly and you are better off using a new sheet once the old one dulls. I'll let you figure out this step a bit because it involves more common sense than instruction and I want to finish this DIY in the next ten minutes.

 

Wet sand during this process. Get a bucket of water and go to town. You may sand through the primer in some spots. Try not to sand to the bare metal during this process.

 

When you are finished, wash your car with a mild dish soap to get all the dust off.

[monkeyposeur]

Almost finished! Buy a gallon a color & activator, and a gallon of clear & activator from your local auto body supply shop. Drive your car to the paint booth and mask it off. Clean it thoroughly with a good degreaser and some fancy paper towels. Mix up your paint and get ready to rock. Remember everything you learned while priming the car such as optimum spraying distances, speed, etc.

 

To make things easier, find an experienced bodyman to hang out with you in the booth while painting. He/she can yell at you when you are doing something stupid and give you tips. Pay them $200 for their services. You will be in the booth for at least three hours and it will be at least 90 degrees in there.

 

Take off as much of the outside trim as you are able and is practical. It makes painting easier.

 

When you are finished applying the base and clear coat, turn up the temp in the booth to 120 american degrees and ride your bike home and drink beer.

 

The next day remove all the masking materials. Use a razor blade to cut along the tape so you don't peel your nice paint off. I learned this the hard way.

 

Put your car back together.

[monkeyposeur]

Hooray! That was easy. Now paint your wrx wheels and get some nice tires. It's easy to paint your wheels at this point at home with high quality spray paint. Install them and drive your pretty car across the country. Once you get back, you are ready to start upgrading the swaybars, suspension, brakes, and building your 22T stroker swap.

 

If I left out any minor details, good luck.

[Grimmrican]

Hooray! That was easy. Now paint your wrx wheels and get some nice tires. It's easy to paint your wheels at this point at home with high quality spray paint. Install them and drive your pretty car across the country. Once you get back, you are ready to start upgrading the swaybars, suspension, brakes, and building your 22T stroker swap.

 

If I left out any minor details, good luck.

 

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/12/11/24/3u5y5uqu.jpg

 

Nice write up. Where do u live so can take care of my quarter panel rot lol

[Stasis]

When I worked at a sign writing company we removed pin stripes all the time, hardest to do was a gen 1 subaru, what did work best was we used like a waxy oil type stuff on the pin stripe to made it restore its flexibility and the heated it gently while lifting it, this way it didn't snap when we were pulling it off

 

We would never put blade to paint, ever

[Stasis]

the front bumper? Don't use fire, turns out it doesn't buff right out

[Poosh]

Car looks great man! You clearly paid attention to all the details to achieve that end result.

[mdzowner]

nice work man.

[camroncamera]

Bump for reference. Thanks for the writeup Monkey! Might have to do this myself due to "checking" (fine cracking) in the factory clear on my GT wagon. More info, for those that may have this problem, can be found over at SL-i.net: http://sl-i.net/FORUM/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27543&sid=356dfbead1c43b9d930ab9eef07c6250

[solo413]

Excellent job!