hello fellow BC members!!!!!!!

this post is on the subjct of the begginings of rust on my otherwise beautiful blue 92 bonneville. i live in wisconsin where they dump more salt on the road than mcdonalds on their fries..... anyway, i was wondering is there anyone that ever tackeled bodywork such as this. replacing fenders on the bonneville is a joke, since they are welded and are part of the roof panel. I bought a book on body work, but i can not get any real help from that, i havent touched the rust spots yet becasue im too scared to mess up the whole finish. I am an aircraft mechanic who has done these types of repairs on aluminum skin aircraft but never with steal and numerous layers of paints, sealers, and finishes. I was wondering if they make patch plates that i can weld in, or will i have to use the old stand by (buddy bondo)........any comments or suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks you,

nickyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Well your gonna have to paint the 1/4 roof and other 1/4 no matter how you look at it. This will most likely end up costing as much to repaint the whole car too since you've got a 92. (It'* hard to blend on an older car) If you really like your car, you should do some cutting and welding but if you only want to hold on to your car for a few more years, grind out all the rust, and stuff Tiger hair fiberglass in there.

thank you ver much for the fast reply 95naSTA, yes i plan to keep the car many more years, so cutting and welding will have to be the road i choose. Now that i have made that desicion, do i look for a patch plate, or do i have to fab one up, i have talked to a buick dealer that i have do my heavy repairs and they said it will cost nearly 1000 bucks, would you have any further advise on what i should do......... I think if i would have it painted id get the whole car done in the same color with maybe a tad bit of pearl for depth, i really suck at painting, i mean horrible!!!!! thanks again for the fast post good luck with your headlight trasplant, awsoem idea i love it!!!!!!!!!!

nickkyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

How bad is your rust?
If it'* so bad, that you wouldn't be able to shape sheetmetal to replace it then you probably need a rust free donor car and cut the section you need off on there.
I'm pretty sure you can just get a piece of sheet metal, cut it to fit, cut/grind out ALL rust and weld the new metal in it'* place. Then grind down the welds smooth. Then cover over the bare metal(including the smoothed weld marks, with a thin coat of light weight bondo. Then sand everything down smoooth. If you got a long board it would make that job a whole lot easier.
As for the paint, You should probably be urathane based b/c it is real thick and covers little things nicely.
If you get higer end paint (two stage) it'* better quailty but thinner, and it allows you to have pearl. Pearl isn't in the paint itself, it'* in the clear. The single stage urathane dosen't have this.

Maybe if you don't have any hard experience at body work, you should do the cutting/welding/grinding and have the body/paint shop perfect the rest.

Hope that helps.

I need to replace a small area on my car too. I intend on cutting a larger section (black area) from my parts car so when all of the grinding and removal of rotted sheet metal is done, I can insert the appropriate sized patch. It already has the shape and contour of the fenderwell which will be your biggest problem if you use flat metal. Maybe a trip to the boneyard is in order. Can you give us a pick of where the damage is??

thanks guys this advice is very helpful, my rust damge on both sides of the car are about 20% of what you guys see on radman1'* car, i think your idea of cutting an undamaged section out of a doner car is the best idea, and ill leave the paint work up to an experianced body shop, good luck with you rust repair radman!!!, thanks again for the useful and generous information,

nickyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

like what was said before, I would leave it to a body shop. They have experience in this, and most guarantee their work against rust out. Can't beat that, especially in that area on the Bonnies. I monitor my wheel wells religiously as I have noticed this is the first spot to go. So far, so good.

Jay