Hey guys,

Long time reader, first time poster! I appreciate all of the information people have posted on this board, and I thought I would post up some pics of my first adventure in body repair.

Backstory: This is my '97 GTP with ~200k on it in MI and PA snow and salt. It's a hobby car / daily driver with newer modified engine, transmission, and suspension, so when the rocker panels rotted off I didn't feel justified in junking it.

Go easy on me because I'm new at sheet metal work and welding!

Before, passenger side:


Garbage that fell out of the driver side:


Pieces I cut off of my parts car and disassembled for wirewheeling and painting:


Painted, removed masking from weld areas and sprayed those with weld-thru primer:


Body cleaned up and primed:


Inner rocker and rocker reinforcement installed:


I had to make a patch panel for the floor, since it rotted away from the inner rocker panel in areas. Here is is screwed in and ready for welding.


Driver's side ready, pretty much.


Passenger side:


Now I need to test fit the doors, fenders, etc prior to body filling and painting. Still trying to decide whether I should rattle can, learn how to spray 2k paint, or just take it to the paint shop and be done with it...

Hope these pics can help someone else, feel free to message me or post questions if you want to tack this job yourself

-Justin

Looking good, thats lots of work!!

Next time you are replacing anything structural, jack up the car on the suspension, NOT on the body. You need to have the car sitting as it does when the wheels are on the ground.

Keep the photos coming!!

Good tip Alex! I did have a jack under the rear suspension point to keep the weight off of the floor pan / roof line, it is hard to see though.

Update: Installed the driver's side doors last night and everything lines up so far

Update: I bought a $60 paint gun set plus an air filter from China Freight. The filter was junk but the gun works pretty well (at least as far as my untrained eye can judge). I also used a disposable air filter on the gun itself.

Here are the products I used:

Primer: PPG NCP271
Base: PPG Deltron thinned 1/1
Clear: PPG Deltron 3000 high velocity, medium temp hardener

Since (I was told that) the clear coat helps increase weather resistance, I sprayed clear on the rocker panels and lower door sill area fading out as I moved up. The reason for this is that the door jamb area is lacking in shine and depth, and you can wipe the color off a little with a weak solvent. I assume that this means the door jambs were basecoated at the factory, but not clear coated.

The paint turned out ok for my first try, I have some dust nibs in it that I may or may not try to eliminate. Also, I didn't tape far enough away from the repair area, so I was unable to blend properly and now I have tape lines to deal with.

On to the pictures!









Here's what I did to keep the shop sort of clean, box fans with furnace filters taped to them. I used 4 fans plus my furnace blower on high with a filter over the outlet, then cracked the garage door open about 12". For safety I wore nitrile gloves, long pants / shirt with hood, and a NIOSH certified 3M dual filter half-mask respirator.

Got everything finished last fall and drove the car all winter, here are a few pictures with the salt hosed off

That would have cost you an easy 4 grand to have fixed at any normal bodyshop. Crazy amout of R&I. Nice work, good attention to detail.

Did it only rust on one side?

4k huh? Ouch, that's slightly more than the car is worth without damage. The damage was symmetrical, I fixed both sides and it took me a couple of months working on the weekends.

It made me feel good to save an otherwise sound vehicle from the scrap yard, and I appreciate your comments as well Hell of a learning curve on this type of work, and I now fully appreciate the skill and dedication of those who do it for a living!

Did you treat the inside of the rocker cavities with something after you welded it?
3M used to make a internal rocker spray for jobs like that. It came with a long tube. I don't know if the still have it or not.


Good job! It looks good.

No I couldn't get in there with anything after welding. I should have gone out and purchased some sort of wand spray system, but I didn't

Looks excellent, most people would have junked that new of a car or otherwise just driven it into the ground. That was a lot of work and you did a great job!