This is a very involved rust repair project on a car that wasn't worth the effort/time/money, but I did it because my 90 year old Dad loves the car. This project was done last fall, but I started to think some here might be interested in some of the body work done. No repair panels are made specifically for this car, so I had to adapt Civic panels and fab up some of my own. I also took the opportunity to use some products for the first time, like Eastwood rust converter, anti-rust, and rivets and adhesive in some areas instead of welding so that I could properly coat that back side of the panels. Some of the work wasn't done to the level I would for some other car, but I had to make some compromises do to cost and time constraints. I know this isn't a race or sports car, so let me know if you are interested and if you are, I'll start adding pictures and comments occasionally until I cover it all. To start, here's the car after sand blasting:
please make it a race or sports car while you are doing the work. dad will love it. awd plus K series plus turbo?
very interested, especially in the adhesives vs welding. post it up, berkeleyer!
ransom
SuperDork
1/24/13 3:20 p.m.
Wow... that's some serious nonexistence some of those panels have going.
I'd definitely like to see your approach
I addressed the rocker panels first. As you may know, the rockers have a plastic cover on them, so they don't look rusted until they fall off! My dad had no idea there was any rust under them at all. Fortunately, the inner rockers were still in decent shape, so all I needed to do was patch a couple areas. I then cleaned them up and coated them with Eastwood rust converter.
For the outer rockers, I ordered replacement rockers for a sedan and went to work. The filler you see between the doors is covering a welded patch that I neglected to get a picture of.
The sedan rockers needed some additions/modifications to work.
Fitting of rockers and some inner wheelwell repair
I didn't want to weld the rockers on, because I wanted to be able to coat both the inner and outer rockers and have it stay on, so I used a panel adhesive system, which proved difficult to do on such a large piece, but it worked.
I primer and painted the inside of the outer rockers and coated them and the inner rockers with Eastwood's Anti-Rust.
THANK YOU for fixing it instead of the alternative. These are amazing general purpose vehicles!
In reply to sobe_death:
Follow along, I'm just getting started. I think you'll be happy with the end result.
Woody
MegaDork
1/24/13 4:05 p.m.
That would have made a good ice racer....
Where's that funny Woody guy?...Oh, there he is.
(Psst - You're right, it would make a good ice racer.)
bgkast
Reader
1/25/13 5:47 p.m.
Why glue instead of weld then waxoyl coat the inside?
In reply to bgkast:
Because I wanted to try it, and because once the panel is installed, it's highly unlikely that you would get 100% of the inside covered.
Last I checked, the outer rocker is a structural item on a car like that. I would be extremely uneasy gluing them on.
In reply to Kenny_McCormic:
Did you see what the rockers looked like before I did the work?
They weren't doing much at all for strength and the car was just fine without them. The inner rockers take most of the stress. I did this work 14 months ago, and so far it is all holding up perfectly. Also keep in mind that on the bottom the outer rockers are just spot welded to the inners. I spaced the rivets much closer than the original spot welds, and glued the entire length. I wouldn't be surprised if these rockers are actually stronger than the originals.
Woody
MegaDork
1/26/13 10:25 a.m.
I know that stuff is approved for roof replacement, so it has structural credibility.
More rocker panel work. The black glue is pretty messy, and once you spread it, it can set up a little too fast for doing large panel work like these rockers. It wasn't pretty, but I got it done.
Trying to weld to old japanese metal is a PIA.
On to the quarter panels:
I was surprised to find this under all the crap in the wheelwell:
I had to make this part, since it's different than the sedan and hatchback:
Neat project! Definitely tell us the rest of the story, thanks!
Clem
sobe_death wrote:
THANK YOU for fixing it instead of the alternative. These are amazing general purpose vehicles!
Thanks for the compliment. My Dad bought this car when it was one year old, so it's been around a long time. It has less than 100k on it now, and the only reason the rust got so bad was that I had a couple years where health issues prevented me from working on it. So I kind of owe it to him to make it right. Since it's been done, he's had multiple offers to buy it, with the highest being $6k. I told him "sell it!!!", but he won't. While I like these cars, and owned one myself for many years, I'm not sure why people are so ga-ga over them when a CR-V is basically a new version of it, but is much more refined and comfortable.
In reply to bravenrace:
It's be cause a CR-V isn't as fun as these ;) I regret letting the ex-gf disappear with the one we got her all the time.
In reply to sobe_death:
I agree, but that doesn't explain why my old Dad likes it better.
Now that the right side quarter panel is in primer, I move to the left side.
I cut out the bad metal:
I used a combination of modified patch panels and fabricated pieces to patch this side up. Some work needed to be done on the inside of both of the wheelwells that isn't shown in any of the pics, as well as the area in front of the left side rear tire, which needed to be fabbed from scratch.
Some filler and glaze
A little more massaging..
And primer!
Some misc. repairs to the doors
Color!
Seems like I'm talking to myself at this point, but here's more- - - - - -
When I took the rear bumper off I found it to be pretty rusty. They don't make these anymore, so I had no choice but to repair it the best I could. Some bolts broke off when I removed it, so I had to get those out, clean off the rust as well as I could, coat it with rust converter, paint it with POR-15, and hopefully it will last a while.
