Keystone
Well-Known Member
So to as a follow up to my introduction post…
I bought my first old car with the intent of doing some mechanical work over the winter and being able to have a half decent driver by spring time. The number one thing I told myself when I started shopping almost a year ago was “I don’t want to have to do a lot of bodywork”. I asked the seller about rust problems and he told me the only issue was some surface rust in the trunk from the vinyl top which had gone bad. He told me he took care of the rust when he removed the top, and that the roof was in primer and ready for paint.
My mistake here was taking him at his word and not thoroughly checking things over. I did look at the quarters, rockers, doors, etc. and put a magnet to them to verify they were solid. His rattle can primer job on the roof was far from perfect but I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to finish up. I really had no clue at how much damage a failed vinyl top can do to a roof.
I got the car home and began fixing some small problems in addition to cleaning up and painting the inside of the trunk. Once that was done I decided I’d paint the roof in a textured black like I’ve seen someone else on here do. In preparing for this I finally inspected the roof more closely and noticed there were a few spots that looked a little off, so took some sand paper to them, eventually switching to a wire wheel and pulling the back window when I found the rust.
So his idea of “taking care of the rust” was to trowel on the bondo. He literally filled in the roof with it at some spots.
So now I’m afraid I’m in way over my head here. I checked on AMD and I can get the filler panel (Dutchman) and the corners for the bottom edge of the window frame, but that’s it. Even if I could buy a roof skin, I’ve never tackled anything even close to that. I don’t even know where to begin with this mess.
Does anyone have any suggestions, or did I just piss away $5000 on a parts car?
I bought my first old car with the intent of doing some mechanical work over the winter and being able to have a half decent driver by spring time. The number one thing I told myself when I started shopping almost a year ago was “I don’t want to have to do a lot of bodywork”. I asked the seller about rust problems and he told me the only issue was some surface rust in the trunk from the vinyl top which had gone bad. He told me he took care of the rust when he removed the top, and that the roof was in primer and ready for paint.
My mistake here was taking him at his word and not thoroughly checking things over. I did look at the quarters, rockers, doors, etc. and put a magnet to them to verify they were solid. His rattle can primer job on the roof was far from perfect but I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to finish up. I really had no clue at how much damage a failed vinyl top can do to a roof.
I got the car home and began fixing some small problems in addition to cleaning up and painting the inside of the trunk. Once that was done I decided I’d paint the roof in a textured black like I’ve seen someone else on here do. In preparing for this I finally inspected the roof more closely and noticed there were a few spots that looked a little off, so took some sand paper to them, eventually switching to a wire wheel and pulling the back window when I found the rust.
So his idea of “taking care of the rust” was to trowel on the bondo. He literally filled in the roof with it at some spots.
So now I’m afraid I’m in way over my head here. I checked on AMD and I can get the filler panel (Dutchman) and the corners for the bottom edge of the window frame, but that’s it. Even if I could buy a roof skin, I’ve never tackled anything even close to that. I don’t even know where to begin with this mess.
Does anyone have any suggestions, or did I just piss away $5000 on a parts car?
