How to restore a classic car (2) preparing your bodywork
There are 4 key stages to restoring a classic car’s paintwork - plan, prepare, prime and the final finish. We’re going to dig deeper into these stages and share any tips that will help you complete your project.
This stage (this article too) is all about rust - its presence, its absence, and what to do if it’s eaten a hole in your bodywork. If you need to review stage 1 - planning your classic car restoration, go there first.
Prepare your bodywork for restoration
Rust develops mostly around the lower areas of your classic vehicle - lower wings, under doors, along cills. It can sometimes also be found around windows. Patches will evolve at different stages.
You might not have any rust to fix, for example if the damage is a graze or you’ve bought a replacement panel or cill. If the panel is primed, skip to step 4 - the final finish on restoring your bodywork - or see our guide to applying touch up paint.
1. Clean your rust
- If the rust is flaky, remove loose particles with a wire brush. Hopefully this removes it all. If so, lightly sand using a fine sandpaper to achieve a glass finish. Then skip the rest of this article and go to stage 3 - primer for your classic car restoration.
- If rust is still visible, use the rust converter. This compound kills rust and transforms it back into iron. Just paint it on and let it cure.
2. Fill uneven surfaces
- Rust on classic cars can be pitted. Apply a Fine Finishing Filler, just a light skim to cover the small imperfections. If there are deeper indentations, you’ll need to layer your filler, starting with something like the Universal Filler, and applying a final fine skim over this.
- Once the filler is on, use a coarse sander from the Primer Preparation Sheets pack. It might require 1 or 2 attempts to get it nice and level and get rid of the bobbles and edges.
- Finish up with the finer sandpaper from the pack to get a glass finish that’s ready for the primer. Use a rubber sanding block for best results.
Here’s one we prepared earlier - How to treat surface rust on your bodywork before winter arrives.
How to fill a hole
If your wire brush has not revealed pits and scrapes, but an entire hole, obviously you’ll need to fill it. Holes are quite common on a cill, which take a lot of aggravation from dirt, salt, water and feet.
There are 2 ways to fill holes
- Professionals in a bodyshop would remove the panel, cut and tack a tin plate from behind and fill with the fine finishing filler from the front.
- There are user-friendly products like the MPEX Fibre Glass Repair Kit that help you do a pretty good job at home. This has fibres that create a strong area to bond to the fine surface filler.
How to fill a hole with a fibreglass kit
- Remove the panel so you can attach the fibre glass matting from behind for invisible joins.
- Cut the sheet of fibre glass matting to shape, tack to the hole, and apply the resin.
- Replace the panel and fill from the front with the Fine Finishing Filler - fibre glass isn’t smooth enough in itself to be painted.
- As above, once the filler is on, use a coarse sander from the Primer Preparation Sheets pack. It might require 1 or 2 attempts to get it nice and level and get rid of the bobbles and edges.
- Finish up with the finer sandpaper from the pack to get a glass finish that’s ready for the primer. Use a rubber sanding block for best results.
What’s next for my project?
Our next article on classic car bodywork restoration is about priming the bodywork.
How to order your touch-up paint
For classic cars, simply enter your paint code by reg, make, year and key (basic) colour into our search tool and follow the instructions.