Repairing a Bondo repair

Righty Tighty said

Interesting thought. I never considered the repercussions of having the vinyl top, or even the necessary care to be honest. I think it’s obvious that this won’t be a show car, just a semi-daily cruiser. I had an image of what I wanted the car to look like when I was done, but it’s evolved over time, and I’ve ended up on the fence over the vinyl top a few times. Maybe this will be the deciding factor.

Luckily I’m in Arizona, so I think any existing rust won’t progress very quickly, but I would like to clean it up and get the car as sound as possible.

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If you wanted the "look", you might consider painting the area normally covered by a vinyl top and using the factory trim. I've seen this done a few different ways, but a semi-gloss type paint pulls it off pretty well. Clearly not the exact same look, but no rust concerns. I've seriously considered doing that with my butterscotch Dart Gt, it had a white top from the factory. I won't put a vinyl top on it because it will see weather, but keeping the top white for a two tone look with maybe some kind of textured semi-gloss paint is definitely on the table.

Arizona would be pretty safe as far as the rust is concerned because it's so dry, but the vinyl top would be prone to drying out and cracking if it spends too much time outside in the sun.