ryanstev

Hi all, I have a 1979 Ford Falcon XC and I'm looking to get some work performed on it and I'm looking for a panelbeater who can make a house call. I've contacted Mobile Rust Surgeon twice via email, but had no reply, so I'm not sure who else to try. There are three main areas that I need repaired, one is the driver's A-pillar, it was rusted out and needs a patch welded in, it's rust free now, but I'd feel better having this professionally welded in, rather than doing it myself. I understand a shim can and maybe should be inserted into the A-pillar for this type of repair. The other two areas are the C-pillars. They're rust free, but have dents on them and wouldn't pass a WOF. A picture of the left C-pillar can be viewed here: https://kaitaia.com/Project/Pictures/filler-left-c-pillar-4.jpg this is from back in 2010, when I painted this with POR15. It's bare metal now, but this shows off the warping quite well. A previous owner already had the dent pulled out and bogged over. A picture of the right C-pillar can be viewed here: https://kaitaia.com/Project/Pictures/2023/oil2.jpg this is from a couple months ago, I think it's a relatively simple dent to work on, but I couldn't pop it out from the back. Just above that dent is a square patch, this was a pretty poor repair, so I'd like that cut out and a new piece welded in, it'll be a good way to work on the dent while its open. There's a twist to all of this work though, which is, I want to keep the car bare metal. It's treated with boiled Linseed oil and white spirits to stop any rust. That second picture is how I want to keep the car's look. This means I need the dents on the C-pillars fixed as best as they can be and filled with either lead or solder, I'm obviously not a panelbeater, but I understand that this will add to the structural strength by doing it this way. If there's another way to do this that'll add structural strength, then I'm OK with a silver body filler that looks like steel and which doesn't need to be painted and can just be coated in the boiled Linseed, but I'd need a panelbeater who can make up a report stating that this repair is structurally sound. The repair doesn't need to look pretty, there are a few panels here and there that I and previous owners have replaced and I'm happy to keep the scars exposed, not covering them with filler. I just want the repairs to be able to pass a WOF check. I'm in Massey, West Auckland, just off Don Buck road, I have a steepish driveway, so a panelbeater with a caravan to work from wouldn't work, someone with a van of tools would be fine, I have a double bay garage with lots of room to work in and the car's on positioning dollies.

That's also a possibility. The rust isn't in any structural areas and the rust that's on the quarter panels is very minor surface rust, no pitting and it has been wire wheeled and treated, so it's just the staining that's left, but I also know with some inspectors "Rust = Fail" and that's it. I'm not against cutting that out and welding some fresh metal in if the inspector didn't like it. It's definitely not the sort of car I'd take to VTNZ, but hopefully a garage would check it out.

Thanks Tortron, I've checked that out and gone through a few more videos like that. Since I've only got the one warped panel that needs to be fixed, I'll probably just get it professionally fixed, if required. If it's not a WOF fail, then I'll just keep the warp as is. I feel like the old repairs I've made, as well as previous owners' tell a story and makes the bare metal look more interesting.

I would have thought there was space for a dolly, you can get your hand fully in there, but your arm isn't long enough to keep your hand in there and hammer on the other side, even if you were to take off the boot lid. A dolly with a long handle would work, but I assume for some reason this couldn't be done and they used a dent puller instead. There are probably 30 spot welds from the dent puller, so they must have gone to a lot of trouble fixing this. Finding an old panel beater is a really good idea though, I never considered that, there are a couple repairs that I made 10+ years ago that I'd rather have professionally repaired.

The reg is on hold.

Hello all. I have a 1979 Falcon XC project car that I've recently restarted work on, after a 10 year break. The car was incredibly full of rust, which I cut out and welded new steel in from 10 to 15 years ago, my weakness has always been body work, I don't have the patience to do that right. My 10 year break was caused by not having a garage, so the car was under my house for a few years, I had a garage built under there and had the car outside under a tarp for what should have been 6 weeks, but ended up 1 1/2 years and a lot of surface rust came back. I recently decided to go for a fully bare metal rat rod type of look for the car, wire wheeled actually for a dull look rather than shiny, with Boiled Linseed Oil and White Spirits to preserve the steel and surface rust. I like the look, the problem is that since I've stripped the bog off the car you can see the old dents on the C Pillar. I'm pretty sure my car was a paddock basher before I bought it and at some point hit a bank, it was repaired before I bought it, but due to the nature of this sort of thing, it'll never be straight again. I've got some pictures before, the bare metal is from a couple weeks ago, the black paint was from 11 years ago or so, just there to show the dents a bit easier. The structure under the panel is fine, it never needed to be repaired from what I can see. I've read and read the WOF rules, it talks about 5mm depth and 40mm wide dents being ok. This is a large dent pulled out (you can see the dent puller weld spots) so it's actually pretty flat, it just looks bad. A bit of filler over the top and you'd never know. I'm assuming I'll probably need to find someone to sign off this repair, but maybe someone else has already dealt with this sort of thing before and can tell me that it's not necessary? (I've painted rust converter on this and wire wheeled it, so it's not so bright and there's no stripper disk marks, this is a before picture of that) Here's a better look at the damage from 11 years ago: As a bonus, here's how the car looks now, on the other side. (I'll fix the dent on that side, it's an easy one)