Roof Rack Rust Hole!! Body Shop or Bondo Patch?

[SHREG]

$700 at my local body shop. They did not need to remove the headliner. Turned out great. Was in and out in a day. IMO, worth every penny to have someone else do the work.

Good luck.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS]

No, it's more like 1/2" round with a 45 degree grind on the end. I'll try to post up a pic later tonight.

Here's a pic of the tapered punch and the JB Weld

SteelStik instead of Quick Steel. I hit the punch about 3 whacks with a small hammer to taper down the hole. The step drill bit was used to drill out the nutserts and for a 3/4" hole for an electrical pass through for the new roof rack light bars.

 

[bcaskey08]

Why steel stick over quick steel?

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS]

Why steel stick over quick steel?

No reason other than the Blue Magic Quik Steel was not available at the NAPA I visited. JB Steel Stik appears to be similar except for the name.

 

[boobird]

How has SteelStick held up after X years?

 

[cme4lyt]

Search a post from me about 2 years ago; I put a fiberglass patch inside and then filled with resin, sanded and painted. Came out great and very happy.

Most of time is pulling and replacing the headliner and sunroof.

 

[boobird]

Search a post from me about 2 years ago; I put a fiberglass patch inside and then filled with resin, sanded and painted. Came out great and very happy.

Most of time is pulling and replacing the headliner and sunroof.

Did you use bondo fiberglass and resin? Are the hole seams visible at all? I have some trunk holes from removing the spoiler, so it will be visible

 

[cme4lyt]

Just fiberglass and resin. Sanded the resin down on top and painted, monsterlined, over it.

 

[Pin_Head]

A good way to deal with permanently filling holes like this that won’t leak and looks good is to treat it like any other sheet metal panel replacement.

Grind off the paint.
Cut out the hole so that it is large enough to get your sheet metal flanging tool in. About 1.5 inch. It can be any shape you want.
Crimp a flange all the way around the hole.
Cut a piece of new sheet metal to fit.
Solder the new sheet metal on. Use paste flux.
Finish with Bondo and paint.

You could weld it too, but you would be more likely to burn the head liner.

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

I have used these on a 60 to cover the holes after I removed the roof rack. The 60 headliner is much more involved than an 80. These come in different sizes. I went to a autopaint store and bought a rattle can of my factory paint code. Sprayed one side with paint. Mixed up some JB weld, placed it on he non painted side and placed it over the holes. You can even grind them flush if you wanted. I did not do it. Took less than an hour to do everything.

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[boobird]

A good way to deal with permanently filling holes like this that won’t leak and looks good is to treat it like any other sheet metal panel replacement.

Grind off the paint.
Cut out the hole so that it is large enough to get your sheet metal flanging tool in. About 1.5 inch. It can be any shape you want.
Crimp a flange all the way around the hole.
Cut a piece of new sheet metal to fit.
Solder the new sheet metal on. Use paste flux.
Finish with Bondo and paint.

You could weld it too, but you would be more likely to burn the head liner.

After a spoiler delete I was left with 5 holes.

Instead of soldering, I used 3M panel bonding adhesive to "weld" sheet metal to the holes. A nice perk is that the adhesive will block any rust formation. It dries rock hard.

I've yet to apply the final Bondo layer, might wait until spring.