• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

How to make a grown man cry

Share this page

AUSMHLY

AUSMHLY

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
A picture is worth a thousand words.

left wing.

Happened when fitting/tweaking the windshield after 5 times. Yup, it was to be the final install.

Just a couple more things to do, and she was to be finished enough to drive. Told all my friends, Thursday is my birthday, the first day I will spend behind the wheel. So many people are expecting to see me tomorrow.

Well, I guess it's just another story to add to the restoration experience. Cheers all, Roger

OK, maybe, just maybe, this is savable? It was a perfectly clean break. The one piece will fit back perfectly. I mean you don't even see a hair line crack. How about that.

So temped to glue it. Any thoughts on this?
I was thinking, glue it, then perhaps clear the wing.
Any body shop guys out here?

Could I be so lucky? As if I'm lucky.
OK, head up and all that. Cheers again, Roger
 
I'd definitely give super-glue a try...

Sorry about your luck, but Happy Birthday anyway (single malt Scotch works to take "your" edge off, I recommend Lagavulin).
 
Roger,

Bummer .. but it could have been worse. I think it's worth a try to glue it. At worst you will need to take it back to the body shop and they can fix it pretty easily.

I have glued bondo before when making/repairing models. I use epoxy (5 minute type would be good enough). The problem with most super glues is they can outgas and leave a white powdery residue. Plus they set up so quickly that you may mess up the placement. With epoxy you need to hold the part until it sets .. tape might work in this case (or maybe just hold it for 5 minutes). Try to wipe off any epoxy that oozes out right away. Also, apply the epoxy with a small brush to both surfaces. You don't want water to be able to get into the crack anywhere and allow rusting.

You can clear a small area with an airbrush or fine touch up gun. Then you buff out the overspray area.

Cheers,
John
 
Im sorry it happened before you could show it off so:

Yeah just get some super glue and stick it back.More to the point WHATS! Bondo doing in there in the first place?.--Keoke- /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
"More to the point WHATS! Bondo doing in there in the first place?".--Keoke-

My neighbor was holding the side that cracked. He told me, I should come over and look at what happened. I was not expecting to see such a sight.

I found myself with the deer in the headlights look.

Once over that, I found it interesting that my thoughts were going back and forth between, this may turn into a big job to repair, and what's all that bondo doing there. I was very disappointed to see so much.

I remember thinking, keep calm, you can handle this. Focus on finishing installing the windshield and keep busy with the other things on the list.

It was hard to concentrate after my neighbor left. Eventually, I walked over and stared at it again. I decided to take a photo for my restoration book. And sense some of you have been following my restoration, I'd thought I'd share with you, the two steps forward, one step back I just spoke about in one of my other threads.

Funny how some things you know you will always remember. And this was one of them. So take a deep breath, and be grateful that your one of the fortunate to own a Healey. This will get fixed. Cheers, Roger
 
oh my god. after all you've been through. For now, crazy glue it back and drive. Later, take it back to the body shop and ask the question. Don't let this stop you now. It's one small piece. It's major bondo. It's your birthday. You can't destroy bondo because, well, it's bondo. Happy birthday Roger.
 
Roger,
It happens!!! I had a similar experience but with a garage door which accidentally closed on my freshly restored Healey! The worse part of it for me was that I couldn’t catch the door in time! The owner of the body shop that did the work was more emotional that I and offered to repair it at no charge. Cool guy and a good body man.

Perhaps you could expect the same from your body shop; it’s your Birthday and good things are expected!

Have a Happy Birthday anyway! GONZO
 
I think that if your body guy had taken the care with his work that you have taken on the rest of the project, this would not have happened. As you get your baby on the road, watch for cracks. No telling where else you've got filler that thick.
 
Poor baby! If you super glue it, use the kind that you can apply with a little brush and better precision, staying away from the edges. I'd probably seal it with clear silicone, wiping off the excess.
 
Thank you all for your input and support.
I figured the best thing to do was to bring it to the body shop and have him repair it.

What he did was superglue it and say, come back next week and I'll spot paint it and clear the fender.

Reason I passed on glueing it? I've had so many problems with this body shop, that if I were to glue it, then have a problem down the road; he would then have an out on warrantee. Now it's on him, as it should be. Not that that much bondo should have been there in the first place. But whatcha gonna do. You can't monitor everything they do. You trust them that when they say, we will use as little bondo as possible. That statement rings as much truth as him keeping my car hostage for 13 months.

We all have stories. And this chip will be added to the Adventures of Roger's Healey.

Cheers all, Roger
 
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/savewave.gif
Do not use silicone any where painted surfaces will be used /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nonono.gif-or you will really /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cryin.gif---Keoke
 
Is there any way Roger could checked for too much Bondo when he first picked up his newly restored car? I'm worried about the same issue on my BJ7. The guy doing the body work and repair was supposed to give me an opportunity to check his work when the body work was complete, but before primer. Instead, he completed everything short of color application and now I'm worried that he did so to hide excessive use of Bondo. Other than running a magnet over the entire car, is there anything I can do to check Bondo thickness. Obviously, a little Bondo is o.k. (even the factory used it), but I don't want to find Bondo cracking during reassembly or three years down the road.
 
Yes of course there is.Simply take a very powerful magnet and attach to a know good bondo free surface and remove it noting the pull it takes to get it off.Then compare suspect areas to this same test.Areas that do not exhibit the same pull [Lower] are suspect to include bondo. For Aluminum surfaces it requires a bit of iron fillings.These are deposited on a thin paper and the magnet is run on the opposite side.The heighth the fillings rise to is use to detect the presence of fillers.However, there exists on the market inexpensive tools that will perform these functions.-Fwiw---Keoke

P.S. The best guard against this problem is to know the shops capability. Do they have finished metal work capability?-Old Word Terminology Panel Beating Skills.
 
Back
Top