If body and paint work were easy, everybody would be doing it. In fact, one of the reasons we had to revisit an old repair on our ’68 Nova project car is because whoever owned it previously did a horrible hack job. Good thing the Nova is at Outlaw Motorsports in Riverside, CA, where head honcho Ron Aschtgen can show us how to do it right!
The body repair we finished today at Outlaw is pretty standard fare that most guys can tackle at home. We’ll be running a full story in PHR down the line, but here’s the skinny: We had ordered in advance all the right stuff to tackle the dent repair from Eastwood, including grinding discs, sanding blocks, and abrasive papers in 40, 80, and 220 grit. We also had them send a gallon of Feather-Rite body filler, and some Pro-Glaze finishing putty (both come with activator/hardeners). On the tool front, we had Eastwood’s 7-piece Auto Body Hammer & Dolly set, which has already paid for itself several times in this restoration. Rounding out the tools was a MIG welder (for filling the holes left by the old botched repair), and a high-speed angle grinder.
The old damage was uncovered when we stripped the old paint off; a previous repair was attempted that was filled with an unacceptable amount of body filler, and about two dozen holes from a slide hammer tool. After stripping the old paint, Ron welded the holes shut, ground the welds flat with a grinder, then used the hammer and dolly set to bring the sheetmetal as close to level as possible.
The next step was laying down a skim coat of Feather-Rite body filler in our low areas, and sanding it level with an Eastwood sanding board and 40-grit paper. We actually had to lay down filler twice, performing more hammer and dolly work in between to fine tune the sheet metal. After the second round of filler, Ron put a thin skim of Pro-Glaze down, followed by some sanding with 80-, then 220-grit paper. Satisfied that the entire affected area was flat, we hit it with some Eastwood Self-Etching Primer out of a spray can. This will protect our work until we can get the Nova into the booth for a coat of sealer and build primer.
The entire dent repair took about 5 hours, including photography, and in terms of difficulty, is about a “3” on a scale of 1 to 5. The good thing is that other than the welding, there isn’t much you can do wrong that can’t be easily fixed, so give it a try—you don’t have anything to lose. At the end of the day, you’ll stare at perfectly smooth paint knowing what a mess it was to start with. The pride that results from doing it yourself will last for years.