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Tips
Tips

Filling holes???

nomad

Yoda
Offline
I'm going to remove the side trim on my 66 Midget driver and fill the holes. Just looking for suggestion's. The best would be weld but I don't want to get that serious. It will be a driver that I paint myself but don't really like the idea of just bondoing over them.


Kurt.
 
Kurt:
Welding up the holes is not just serious it is mandatory.

get a good friend who knows how to hammer weld/shrink metal to help you out.
 
I thought that new technology might have a better filler than bondo that might work. Welding means backing the weld in the doors which pretty much means complete disassembly. Plus the need to shrink and do some dolly work. How about using the new panel glue to glue a strip behind the holes?

Kurt.
 
Kurt,
you might be able to braze them if they are not too big. I've also seen screws in the holes with brazing and/or welding to make it solid with the head ground flush with the sheet metal.
Rut
 
I don't have a welder. I used jb-weld to glue a piece of metal (I used coins) behind the holes. Then bondo on the outside. Not as good as welding, but one notch better than just bondo. My car had holes filled with bondo for 30+ years. I didn't find them until I stripped it down.

Sand both both surfaces with corse sandpaper before gluing
 
Any filler with talc in it is a going to cause rust unless it is sealed on all sides. So an epoxy based product without talc or other moisture absorbing fillers may be OK... EXCEPT the areas might show in the paint on an extremely hot or cold day.
 
Not sure how big tge holes are but I've successfully fixed holes for mirrors, holes in BE when I changed locations for hold down latch for BE forward tilt bonnet, etc with a skid tapping sheet metal screw and an angle grinder. Sheet metal screw oversized works as long as you can get tight. Start by grinding down the held of the screw with an angle grinder and a cutting wheel. It gets hot, hot cherry red hot and welds itself in place by the time you have gotten it ground flat and changed from a cutting wheel to a flapper wheel.
 
Self tapping sheet metal screw. Love autocorrect.
 
Thanks all...never thought of self tappers ground flush and epoxy makes a lot of sense. Anyone familiar with the glue's they are using to attach body panels now days??

Kurt
 
Bondo will not work very well to patch holes. If you can clean the back side and JB Weld a metal patch behind then a light coat of bondo can work for a long time. But, you really can weld it. B\These are before and after photos of my Prefect firewall. Notice all those round heated spots in the before. Every one of them was a hole that I welded and ground flush before painting. There is almost no bondo but I did prime with PPG primer/surfacer, I think it was K200.
 

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Well I guess I'm tending towards welding. I welded up the trim strip holes on my MGB many moons ago and it worked out well. When one considers the time involved welding makes sense.

Kurt.
 
Steel can be soldered. Since the holes are small, you could solder them. You'll need less heat than brazing and you won't have the contamination and distortion you'll certainly cause by brazing. Use a good flux to get the solder to stick. Once you get some flow around the edge of the hole, it should be easy to fill if you don't use too much heat. A propane torch is all you need.
 
Thanks Gerard, I'll try that! Considering that all filler work used to be done with lead that just makes sense. The holes are small.

Kurt.
 
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