Rust Repair patch

[Ducati]

Late this afternoon I bought a 1986 Honda Accord LX sedan for my girlfriend. It has 175,000 km on it, and we paid $2000.00.

However, it does have the small areas of rust on the rear part of the rocker panels and the front of the rear wheelwells that all Accords of that vintage seem to have.
I am not prepared to go to as elaborate pains repairing this rust as I did when I restored my Alfa Romeo using new panels, I am inclined to cut the rust out with a cutting wheel and fabricate patch panels myself, out of 22 gauge steel and tack weld them in, and apply a skim coat of bondo. Then get a Super Deluxe Whizbang Special paint job from Maaco. It is only a $2000 beater, after all, and I know that in 2 or 3 years the rust may reappear, and the Maaco paint job will peel off in the car wash.

Does anyone there have any ideas about a better way to do this? Are preformed patch panels available to weld in? Is there anything that can be done to prevent the reappearance of rust in that location?
Many of you are people whom I acknowledge as Honda experts, whose large juicy cerebrums can be picked of the knowledge therein.

[autobodygal]

Cross Canada probably has prefabricated panels you can weld in. But it may be just as easy and cheap to manufacture the panels yourself.

[Ducati]

I have had pretty good results in the past using 22 gauge steel and hammering it over a wooden form or a vice with bodyworking hammers. However the metal on that car is about as thin as tinfoil, and I expect that there might be some warpage. I would like to use as little bondo as possible.

I appreciate your advice. I will call "Cross Canada" - what exactly is Cross Canada? Is it Cross Canada body parts or something? I want to look their number up and contact them. I'll try a Google search.

[Hash_man]

Does anyone there have any ideas about a better way to do this? Are preformed patch panels available to weld in?

Yes there are. You can get a panel for the rear wheel wells, only thing is, that it is the whole thing, front in front, to the rear like just before the gas tank.

I saw this in a catalog when I worked at partsource, it is from Pro-body, and is called a rust repair panel.

[autobodygal]

Cross Canada is another aftermarket panel fabricator, there will most likely be a few places in BC that will sell the parts. I do imagine they have a website, although I just purchase them through a local supplier here.

[Ducati]

Found em'.
The repair panel is an entire rear wheelwell. Very extensive coverage panel.

This weekend I will start up the cutting wheel and begin the rust excision. Hopefully the holes will be small. Cutting out two entire wheelwells and tacking in a new panel will be a last resort. Will do if neccessary, however, as the rest of the car is immaculate.

[autobodygal]

If the panels are cheap enough you can cut what you need. Good luck let me know how it goes.

[mlander]

A few recommendations I can offer to help assist a good 'cheap' job...Like autobodygal said...you could just cut out what you need out of a replacement panel if the contours are hard to shape but if you don't have the money to burn on replacement panels and are comfortable with your manufacturing skills go nuts!! As for tacking the peice in...you'd be better off welding it completely while your at it because tacking it can cause problems early on depending on a bunch of factors like contamination and structural support. I'd hate to hear you go through all the work only to get a body filler crack 6 months down the road. If you first tack it in one inch intervals...let it cool down and fill in the tack welds staggering the welds so you don't warp it. If you don't let the panel heat up too much your warpage will be absolutely minimal but if you're not confident in your welding you may not want to bother with this. Something else you could do to help prolong the quality of the repair is to remove either the trunk inner trim panel and/or the quarter panel inner trim so you can access and spray anti-corrosion gunk from the inside out. Regardless it's still smart to take off the inner trim when welding so that you can make sure you don't burn the car down. It's too easy to catch the well on fire without knowing it! And trust me...I've learned this from experience...LOL

[dcoultis]

Bowness auto sells cross canada stuff, they are the worst piece of shit body parts that you can buy. I have a front filler panel and passenger side mirror from them on my civic, and the front filler panel barely lined up and i had to force it into place, and the gaps are all messed up. The mirror didnt fit worth a crap and sits up at angle higher then the other mirror. From my experience with them i would not use there parts ever again.

[autobodygal]

The guy that posted this thread has since been banned.