Driver rear quarterpanel repair....

[240SX=fun4me!]

Some questions for the experts in the autobody area....:

I'm looking at repairing a large section of the driverside rear quarterpanel, starting from about 3 inches from the wheel-well, all the way back to the light. I was wondering about what approaches I should take.

Should I?:1. torch out the entire section, then repair the damage as best as possible....but then how do I reattach/weld it back onto the body?2. remove the whole section as above, but apply a fiberglass tape over the exposed area, and then fill in with bondo?3. is bondo a good thing to use? and/or is it good to use on the size scale I'm going to be applying it too?

The area is about 12" tall, and like I said, from the 3" behind the wheel-well, all the way to the rear lights.

The car is a 1991 Nissan 240SX S-13, non-hatchback. Things I have already done to the section: I have already screwed shale screws into the section, and have pulled some sections out to about even, but the metal is too stretched to do further repairs.

one more thing....The damage is from another car hitting it with their front end, pushing the wall into my trunk space/emergency car jack...they also ruined the damn power atenna... (previous owner ran a red light.)

Thanks for all the help guys, sorry for being to long winded, but I knew you'd ask for details

[AmIdYfReAk]

Heh, just a question... why would you say 240 non-hatch back? rather than 240 coupe?

i was looking at a 1993 Coupe with the same Dammage but on the other side, and that is a HUGE Job to fix, you will need to basically eather Bump out the whole Secion ( or as much as you Can ) from within the trunk cavity and See if you can puch most of it back..

the Sad part about this is that The 240 has a metal incased Wheel well ( atleast i know the coupe does ) do this would make the Repair alot more difacult than say a grand am

My Best suggestion, if you have the Tools ( Angle Grinder/Diamond Cutter and a Mig ) i would cut the Area out and re-work it and place it on the car.. or there is allways the option to pull it off of another Car inthe junk yard and mig it on your car.

[andrave]

to do it "right" you cut along the inside of the door, below the rocker panels, and back inside the car, and basically replace that whole piece back to the taillights. Its a lot of work.

[240SX=fun4me!]

Thanks for the replies,

Amid, I had a brain fart and was in a hurry haha, that why i said 'non-hatchback'

I know its gonna be alot of work...which sux, but this is my restoration-project-baby 240sx.If i cut the metal out though...how do i put it back in place? Wouldn't welding fry the electronics?Also, Is Bondo gonna hold if I put alot on? wouldn't too much make it to heavy and break off if I hit hard bumps fast? (which is what I'm gonna be doing, living out in the country as I do)another question: do they make a tape that would make the whole project smoother...and allow for less bondo to be applied?

I donno, I got all winter to figure it out, but I wanna know now what to do.

thanks for any help guys.

~Levvy

[i2ice4m3]

bondo shouldn't be applied to areas deeper than 1/8 in. This is a wild *** guess, but i think it's around there. you can use a lot of bondo and it'll look fine, but in the long run you might get cracking. water will get under the bondo, but you probably would be too lazy to fix it (not calling you lazy, but most people wouldnt think much of a crack) and it'll get down to the metal and start rusting. This happened on my current 240. Some jackass layered that stuff on my door. i chipped it all off and discovered lots of rust. Anyway, if you are forced to use a thick layer of bondo, i'd suggest using this stuff called kitty hair. It's bondo but reinforced with fiberglass. If you want more strength use tiger hair. have lots of sandpaper if you plan on using kitty hair or tiger hair, though.

[eddiec]

if its a really large area and it sounds like it is your probably better off cutting out the offending section. this will allow you to fix the trunk/spare jack area. then weld on the new skin. bondo is good in small doses but deep large areas should be avoided. there are several sites ive run across on the web that have good instructions for the diy'er. search around

[andrave]

if you are unsure how to do it you could probably prep everything yourself and just pay a bodyman to weld the new 1/4 for you. that might be best, its real easy to mess up.

[AmIdYfReAk]

i would agre with andrave,

As for the welding, you need to disconnect the batt to make sure that the welder dosent mistake the negative off of your batt as its own ground ( turst me., ilve seen it happen.. its nasty )

other than that, if you have no experance doing body work, i would NOT try to attempt this.. fixing a slight dent ( like a ding or a basketball hit ) would be something that i would start out with..

A whole Rear quarter would be a quite advanced job.

[240SX=fun4me!]

But fun....

yea, i was figuring that it woulds be hard as hell to do, but it is my project car, I'm gonna learn on the run, makes it more interesting that way.

The 'Tiger hair' stuff sounds interesting, I'm gonna check it out now. Thanks for all the help guys.

~Levvy

[AmIdYfReAk]

if you are going to do that, why wouldent you just use some figerglass? it would be alot stronger than figerglass reinforced bondo..

[89 240 SOHC]

Just stuff the dents full of newspaper smooth some kitty hair over it make it smooth and "look" right then hurry up and sell it buy another and start over....If you're gonna try to do it right find some rust holes to practice on...I dunno where you live but here in Canada there are tons of rusted out peices of crap I've bought done the body work on and sold it for 5 times what I put into it.