Repairing a Bondo repair

[Righty Tighty]

My 71 Scamp has had some rust damage repaired with Bondo in several locations on the car. I’m not really worried about most of them, but the C pillar repair is beginning to crack and bubble just a bit.

I have a vinyl top I plan to have installed, and I don’t want to trap this underneath. I have zero bodywork experience, is this something that’s approachable by someone with no Bondo experience?

 

[Tad]

I would say if it’s cracking it may be worse than it looks. looks like it’s on the joint where the quarter meets the roof. These were originally leaded in. If it were mine and putting a vinyl top on, I would sand the Bondo away until I found clean metal. Clean and neutralize any rust, seal it and use All Metal (similar time Bondo but aluminum based). I just repaired those areas on my super bee.

 

[Lee Robinson]

My 71 Scamp has had some rust damage repaired with Bondo in several locations on the car. I’m not really worried about most of them, but the C pillar repair is beginning to crack and bubble just a bit. View attachment 1715500358 View attachment 1715500359 View attachment 1715500360 View attachment 1715500361

I have a vinyl top I plan to have installed, and I don’t want to trap this underneath. I have zero bodywork experience, is this something that’s approachable by someone with no Bondo experience?

Most likely there is rust underneath the bondo. That will probably require a patch of some sort and a lot of paint work. Under no circumstance
install a vinyl top over that, that would only make it worse. It may have the same issues on the other side as well.

 

[Righty Tighty]

Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. The previous owner took a lot of shortcuts that I missed (not knowing what to look for) but noticed after owning the car for a bit. The thought of ripping into the paint is pretty intimidating, but I know it has to be done.

 

[72bluNblu]

There’s a lot more rust there than you think. That picture of the underside clearly shows bondo coming through holes in the metal. And that picture is showing the base of the C pillar at the very end, which is part of the quarter. So you have two panels involved in multiple places.

The other concern is the sound deadening material on the quarter. It looks brand new. So it very well could be hiding even more shoddy work.

I tend to be a bit of a pessimist, but my bet would be there are spots all over that car that have to be repaired. I had a similar issue show up on my Challenger at the roof seam, some moron filled it with bondo. When I tore into it I discovered both quarters had been very poorly repaired. It needs new quarters and a roof skin.

 

[Righty Tighty]

Judging by the responses I’m getting, sounds like the only way to properly approach this would be to get the entire car down to bare metal and start over?

 

[Tad]

Judging by the responses I’m getting, sounds like the only way to properly approach this would be to get the entire car down to bare metal and start over?

Possibly. The thing about ripping into the paint in that area is that you’re going to cover it with a vinyl top again so even if you just epoxy primer and then put the vinyl top down that would be fine. I would look around under the car around the door pillars under the quarter panels and see if you can find any other spots that are bubbling. If you do start small and work in the specific area. If you find that things are spreading out then I would look further into what you discussed doing.

 

[Dragonsteel]

It would be very difficult to repair just that area as the vinyl top trim that goes on the car is too close to the problem area.

 

[Righty Tighty]

Possibly. The thing about ripping into the paint in that area is that you’re going to cover it with a vinyl top again so even if you just epoxy primer and then put the vinyl top down that would be fine

That would be the best case scenario for me I think. I’ve always wanted to learn how to do body work, but not right this moment.

It would be very difficult to repair just that area as the vinyl top trim that goes on the car is too close to the problem area.

View attachment 1715500415

How do you think I should go about this? The car originally had a vinyl top, so I suspect the holes for the trim exist somewhere under there.

 

[72bluNblu]

Judging by the responses I’m getting, sounds like the only way to properly approach this would be to get the entire car down to bare metal and start over?

It's impossible for us to tell from a few pictures. But if the kind of work they did at the roof/quarter seam is indicative of the work they did everywhere else, then the only way to be completely sure is to take it completely back to metal. If there's rust through where you've shown in the pictures, there's very likely rust through in other places. And since they covered it up once, you can probably bet that's what they did everywhere else.

But like I said, a couple of pictures on the internet don't exactly give us a complete view of what you have going on. My concern would be that what you see at the roof seam is just the tip of the iceberg.

It would be very difficult to repair just that area as the vinyl top trim that goes on the car is too close to the problem area.

View attachment 1715500415

I agree, the damage shown from underneath looks like it's about where the trim would sit. Which means repairing it will get out into metal that won't be covered by the vinyl top.

How do you think I should go about this? The car originally had a vinyl top, so I suspect the holes for the trim exist somewhere under there.

The holes for the trim probably exist right in the middle of the much larger rust hole that has now been filled with bondo, based on your picture of the backside of the panel.

And I have to be honest here, I would never put a vinyl top on one of these cars. Or anything for that matter. If you do, it basically means the car must be stored indoors and not driven in the rain. Even humid climates are tough. Vinyl tops breed rust. That's probably why the rust was there to begin with. Yes, you can paint underneath the vinyl and that will hold up better than it did from the factory, but eventually it'll just rust. If you've got a show car that'll never see rain and you can wash and dry it very carefully every time, do what you want. I use my cars as my daily transportation, so a vinyl top is a no go. My bronze GT would be a perfect rust free California car had it not sat outside with a vinyl top before I got it. It needs a complete roof skin replacement and then some, all because of a vinyl top.

 

[Dragonsteel]

I agree, the damage shown from underneath looks like it's about where the trim would sit. Which means repairing it will get out into metal that won't be covered by the vinyl top.

It's going have to taken down to bare metal and repaired, you can try to keep all the repair above the edge that divides the top of the car and the sides of the car, but your going to have find a painter that can blend the new paint to the old in the exposed areas not covered by the vinyl top.

 

[Righty Tighty]

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.

 

[72bluNblu]

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.

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.

 

[Righty Tighty]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. From this I think I’ve decided against the top, and now the decision comes to just repair spots, or strip the entire car. Logic tells me it would be difficult to do spots and have the paint blended to look good.

 

[Dragonsteel]

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'm now wondering if anyone has considered or tried using bed liner paint to pull off a vinyl top look????