Been following this for a couple of months, interesting look into body work and the tools used.
15.12.2023 SWITZERLAND
In this video I start doing all the bodywork on the car to get it ready for blasting. This is the first half of it. The second half is coming next week in episode 3.
First I vacuumed the whole car and removed the sound deadening.
Next I needed to remove the undercoating on the rotisserie. I used an infrared lamp and a scraper to remove it. I also did the same on the fenders. Now the car is ready to get all dents removed by my friend from parkbeulen.ch. All panels were quickly reassembled to the chassis and the car back on jack stands. He was able to remove all dents from the complete car in just one day.
Now it's time to start doing all the bodywork. I started with closing the holes from the side markers. They're not mandatory in Switzerland and I prefer the clean look. Then I drilled four new holes in both fenders to install some fender mirrors. I really like that japanese style of them, you can't see much, but it's just about the look. That means I don't need the door mirror anymore, so I closed both holes.
Working on the door I saw two holes from the inside. I quickly discovered body filler and a big dent around these two holes. I sanded it all off, welded the holes, ground it flush and hammered it until the dent was completely removed. I also found the same on the passenger door. I think they drilled these holes so the filler holds better.
I also fitted a new BRE style front spoiler to it.
In the rear I found two areas where a tiny bit of rust was shining through. I decided to drill all spot welds off and remove the panel. What a good decision that was, a bunch of rust came to light underneath. I removed everything, applied some weld through primer and welded the panel back on the car. One of the clips that hold the rear panel was broken off. I bough new ones, but couldn't replace it. I needed to drill the little bracket off, make four new ones and weld them back on the car. I had to be careful when welding, so the clip doesn't get too hot and ruin the heat treatment of the spring steel. After the rear panel section was done, I moved on with the tailgate. As I'm replacing the old flimsy and broken rear spoiler I needed to close all the holes from it in the tailgate. So I started sanding the paint off for welding. I then quickly discovered more body filler and a bunch of more holes from the old emblems. I welded them all, ground flush and drilled new holes for the new spoiler. To remove the wobbly effect on the tailgate I removed the original support piece and welded in a much stronger version.
As I won't install the roll bar anymore, I closed all 16 holes from it.
Now it's time to move to the rusted rocker panel. I just started to remove it and found a lot more rust hidden behind it. As this video is already a bit long, I decided to continue and finish the bodywork in another episode, coming next week.
The complete bodywork on this car took me around 110 days in the workshop. It was much more work that I ever could expect after I disassembled the car. I recorded a total of 1500 clips. On Patreon there's a 2h 40 minutes video available which is an extended more detailed version which includes part 2 and 3.
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