Bought My Third Car - It's a Suburban - BIG Picts Too !

[Electronic M]

Well I ended up buying a used bumper and hitch off of a Yukon. The corner cross brace brackets were rustier than the ones on my old bumper so I performed the punishing act of swapping them....the carriage bolts they used have such a small squared off shank that removing them with anything other than a grinder is barely possible. End result turned out nice though.

Then the weekend before the 4th and into the 4th I ended up re-repairing the driver's side rust out on the rear quarter and rocker panel. The rocker had rusted out before and had a Bondo patch with a empty bag of cheese puffs and a purchase order ticket from a crummy Mexican body shop that did the the repair. They also fixed the quarter being mashed in in a collision the previous owners were in by covering it in 1/2" thick layer of body filler....

Seeing the old repairs failing and not wanting to fill holes bigger than a quarter with body filler, but not wanting to spend $500 on buying a welder or the time to learn to weld I came up with a unique solution. I cut squared off holes removing the rusted through sections of sheet metal and grinding the edges to bare metal. I then took the bare edges and tinned them with my 80W soldering iron in roughly 1/4" perimeter around the hole, did the same for a piece of 26guage sheet steel cut bigger than the hole, painted the untinned inside surface of the patch then soldered it on and covered it with body filler and paint to hide it...it went great on the quarter (no one can tell it was patched). The rocker was tough because the bottom section I was patching had a sharp bend that my initial approach could not properly duplicate, and it is not perfect but much harder to spot than a over 2' long rust hole... I considered re-doing it but with vacation (that truck went with on) under a week away I was lucky to complete it at all...
Passenger side is the same but the rust is a bit worse... I'm probably going to fix that too.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Well I ended up buying a used bumper and hitch off of a Yukon. The corner cross brace brackets were rustier than the ones on my old bumper so I performed the punishing act of swapping them....the carriage bolts they used have such a small squared off shank that removing them with anything other than a grinder is barely possible. End result turned out nice though.

Then the weekend before the 4th and into the 4th I ended up re-repairing the driver's side rust out on the rear quarter and rocker panel. The rocker had rusted out before and had a Bondo patch with a empty bag of cheese puffs and a purchase order ticket from a crummy Mexican body shop that did the the repair. They also fixed the quarter being mashed in in a collision the previous owners were in by covering it in 1/2" thick layer of body filler....

Seeing the old repairs failing and not wanting to fill holes bigger than a quarter with body filler, but not wanting to spend $500 on buying a welder or the time to learn to weld I came up with a unique solution. I cut squared off holes removing the rusted through sections of sheet metal and grinding the edges to bare metal. I then took the bare edges and tinned them with my 80W soldering iron in roughly 1/4" perimeter around the hole, did the same for a piece of 26guage sheet steel cut bigger than the hole, painted the untinned inside surface of the patch then soldered it on and covered it with body filler and paint to hide it...it went great on the quarter (no one can tell it was patched). The rocker was tough because the bottom section I was patching had a sharp bend that my initial approach could not properly duplicate, and it is not perfect but much harder to spot than a over 2' long rust hole... I considered re-doing it but with vacation (that truck went with on) under a week away I was lucky to complete it at all...
Passenger side is the same but the rust is a bit worse... I'm probably going to fix that too.

I saw the repair job you did on the one side and I was very impressed with your workmanship. Keep up the good work!

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I saw the repair job you did on the one side and I was very impressed with your workmanship. Keep up the good work!

Thanks! That patch on the front passenger fender was the trial run preceding the refresh of the drivers' side. The rear quarter patch I did I actually got better than the repair I showed you (the rocker honestly ended up worse though).

The one you saw I could find the patch with light at the right angle...the one I did since then I can't even figure out exactly where the patch is anymore.

[init4fun]

The last time I did backyard hack bodywork was on a crappy van that I kept as a junk hauler , but it needed an inspection sticker that it couldn't get due to the rot holes . I knocked out the rot , backed up the holes with chicken coop wire , and then slathered the Bondo on . After a few layers were slathered on and knocked down smooth a bit of paint hid the butchery and the all important inspection sticker was granted . The Bondo rot disguise lasted the final few years I had it till the engine died and off to "Pick & Pull" it went