Scar's body was in somewhat rough shape when I got her. $500 beaters tend to be that way. There were dents in almost every panel, and rot in both front fenders, both rear quarter panels and both front doors. I didn't mind the dents, but if I left the rust untreated she's rot right out from under me living in New England.

You can easily see the rot around the wheelwell. The silver paint is the last owners vague nod to trying to slow the rust. Also at the back of the panel there is another rust spot. that is where the 1/4 inch of bondo has started cracking off due to rust underneath it.

Another shot of the 1/4 panel. The outer panel has rusted back far enough it isn't physically connected to the innner panel for about 1/2 the wheel well. You can also see the studded snow tires the car came with. I drove on these until August when I got the new rims/tires.

Rust ground down and bad metal cut away. The white area between the green paint and metal is bondo. I kept grinding further and further back in hopes of getting to the edge of it, then finally gave up and just sanded the edge smooth to make the transition slightly less obvious.

The whole quarter panel ground down. In the upper left I found, under the bondo, a spot where the panel had a 3-4" split it in and been badly welded back together (weirdly, my housemate's '72 Nova had a split in almost the same place). Again I gave up trying to find the end of the bondo up there as well. I wet-sanded the area around the panel and painted on Eastwoods Rust Encapsulator.

The next day after rust encapsulator paint. You can clearly see the metal I cut away on the wheelwell, this will be patched with galvanized steel. Also the mangled metal of the upper rear quarter is also obvious. this is being left as I like how it'll add to scar's look (one of her old 'battle scars' if you will).

Panel all patched. The patches are made fron old galvanized steel. I cut them out, and hammered them to shape. then I used sheet metal screws to attach them. Once I got them to fit right they were removed. the screw holes on the body were treated to more rust ecapsulator paint, Then I used silicone caulk when re-installing them to seal the edges and make them water tight so the rust wouldn't just start anew. For all following panels the patches were made and fitted ahead of time. that way I could remove them and paint the rust & screw holes with rust encapsulator paint at the same time instead of two applications.

Rear of wheelwell. There is seven or eight seperate patch pieces here. The ones on the wheel well wrap underneath to screw to both the fender and the innner fenderwell. that way the both seal the gap and hold the panels together.

Driver's rear quarter panel ground down. You can see where I ground down all the random rust spots on the car. I did this everywhere. Any scratch, dent,. nick, etc. that had started to rust even a bit was ground down and sealed.

This fender turned out to be the evil fender. Unlike the pass. side where the outer fender was shot but the inner one was overall ok. This side was the opposite. It looked barely rusted but underneath there was very little left. I ended up having to, in several sections, cut away good outer metal to get at the rusted inner metal to cut that away.

Rear edge of fenderwell. Until I replaced the rear springs that damn exahust pipe was the bane of my existance. With the sagging suspension it was half-wedged between the body and the leaf spring. When the engine was idling it would rattle against the body and make the most obnoxious noise, and there was no room to move it far enough to not rattle.

Driver's door. Both front doors had rot in the front and rear corners and a little in the middle. As with the fenders the weak metal was cut out, everything was ground down and sealed.

Sealed and patched. As I was doing the rust reapir and until I did the repaint, the car got more and more black blotches on it. Made for a very strange looking car with green paint, black blotches and silver patch panels. I decided that I liked the look of the galvanized steel, so when I did the flat black repaint I left them in the raw metal.

Hood ground down. the entire front edge of the hood was one big mass of tiny rust spots from rocks nicking the paint over the years.