How thick can filler be before it's considered too thick? I warped a left lower quarter patch panel on my 66 Chevelle below the body line and it will require 1/4 to 3/8 inch thich filler in some places to even it out. I obviously am an amatuer NOT looking for a show quality job- I may even paint it flat black to simulate primer. Do I really need to cut off the quarter of can a decent job be done with filler? Anyone ever used filler to excess and end up with a decent job?

Can you get behind it to hammer and dolly it a bit? You might be able to get some of the warpage out.

actually it's warped BELOW the trunk pan from the inside of the trunk, and I cant get a spoon back there because the metal is too tight from the shrinkage. So I can't hammer and dolly it out either.

Look for some of Sevt Chevelle's posts, he offers quite a bit about metal working. He had mentioned making tools and improvising to get in hard to reach places. You might not be able to, but you could be surprised at what is possible.

Barring that, 1/4 to 3/8 is not that bad. I mean, you want less but heck when I took my quarters off the passenger side had over 1/2 inch in places and you couldn't tell.

Maybe you could take a stud welder and work it in small increments.

I tried that already too- stud welder that is- got it to move 1/4 inch out. I have already filler/filled it but have 3/8 inch filler in the thickest spot- mostly all 1/4 inch thick. I never have used this much filler before but this is a relatively small area. Have people used filler this thick successfully? Again it's not gonna be a show car, but just a nice driver.

Try Cutting The Damage Area And After Fixing Re Weld It

I'm not sure on most of this, but its something to think about.

My buddy took a lot of filler out of his 67 Camaro, the quarter was full of it.

It was 1/2 to a full 3/4 of an inch thick, it had been in there at least ten years, but it was hard to tell when the previous owner put it in.

It might of been in there for 30 years. Anyway, he was grinding it out, and I ask him why are you taking it out, because it looked good, and no rust under it, but he wanted new quarters.

Pretty much everybody trys to get the metal right, so just a little bit of filler can be used, but if that Camaro could hold it without cracking, and we have a better grade of filler to choose from nowdays, maybe we should use more filler.

As long as it isn't on the panel edges, I'm not sure on a hood. The other thing that concerns me is guys block sanding primer, and they keep adding primer, where maybe putting a good coat of filler to start with might be better. Back to your question, I would fill it and don't even look back, but, I'm guessing here, I would rough it up really good, so it looks really rough, and put the filler over bare metal.

I'm thinking this because of what I saw on the Camaro, but if you were putting just a little bit of filler, I would epoxy the bare metal first.

There are some things I have been wondering about. the way were supposed to do it now, or most say, bare metal, epoxy, filler, epoxy, primer and paint, or skip the final epoxy.

We also weld a lot of our seams solid, or a continuous weld is what I mean, and we also plug weld, with not to much lap welding going on.

Back in the sixties when they were being built, I would think that the majority of cars pretty much stayed in the same climate as where they bought them. Where as today you see cars that are bought and taken to a different climate.

Up here in Wi. we have cold but the cars aren't driven when its real cold because of the salt on the road. Where in the southern states its a little hotter, but you will get the humidty also.

So, heres what I'm trying to say, the panels were lap welded on these cars, very little filler if any to speak of, they had rubber body mounts, and not much if any hammering and bumping and heating of the panels to get them in shape.

So as the temperature changed the panels could flex easier, or more uniformly.

A lot of cars have been found in barns or what have you with the original paint looking really good.

So, lets say we replace floors and quarters on a car today, weld it solid in some areas and plug weld it in others. We also had to do some hammering and a little metal stretching and shrinking to get these panels to fit.

Or, on the back half of the quarter we pounded out the dents, shrunk it or stretched it, when the temperatures change, will the back half of the quarter flex more or less, or the same as the front part.

After working on the back half of a quarter panel, the metal is harder or softer then the rest of the quarter that hasn't been worked on.

We get it to bare metal, epoxy it, a little filler and primer and paint and let it set for 40 years.

Then we take another car and do the bare metal then add a half inch of filler and paint it and let it set also.

Would the half inch of filler have any effect on the panels flexing from the temperature change, could the filler thickness help control the humidity from getting under the filler.

The car I'm working on had a small area in the right rear of the trunk that had 3/4 of an inch of filler in it, I took an air gun, I call them a muffler gun, throttled it down a little and vibrated the filler out.

I took a good look at one of the bigger pieces, to see if it was cracked, and it wasn't. The manufactuers of filler, I think they tell you how thick you can put it on, but that might be to cover there own *****, but I'm not convinced that a little bit of filler is any better then a lot of filler, or a little bit of filler is as good as a lot of it, if mixed right and put in right.

I know when I see something and I know the story behind it, like the Camaro, and the trunk in my car, 3/4 of an inch filler is not a bad thing.

Just maybe 3/8ths of an inch of filler is better then a very light coat of it.

Rob

Rob must have been bored this morning....

That area is not big enough to be subject to much vibration and flexing, so yo should be all right with the filler that thick.

You should never need filler that thick. Bottom line, the metal around the warped area HAS to be shrunk. This will pop the dent back out to a point where you won't need much filler at all. It has to be slapped in the correct spots to shrink the metal around the dent. If you aren't comfortable doing it, take it to a body shop. It's probably something a good shop could fix in 10 mins. The roof on my Elky had several large dents and I fixed them all in a half hour.

Thanks all!!

I welded quarter skins on my GTO an the top of the quarter warped. I did the same thing and put a lot of plastic. The I realized it was to much. I ground it all off and heated the metal with a propane torch and tapped it with a hammer and dolly and it came out pretty straight. Not pretty mind you but a lot better than before and I put a lot less plastic on it.

Rob..............Thats it :D:D:D A stud welder would work SUPER For Steve :hurray::hurray::hurray:

www.howardsbackyardautobody.com :beers:

If someone welded in new panels the correct fix is hammer and dolly the weld seem NOT to heat or shrink the area. The area is already shrunk from welding and shrinking the area farther will not correct the problem.

Heat does not stretch metal it shrinks it down which is what is causing your oil can in the metal. Remove the shrunken metal via hammer and dolly and the oil can will disappear.

IMO 1/4 thick filler is too much, working the metal is always the fastest method, try to aim for 1/8 thickness on filler. Even just working the metal to achieve 1/8 will yield faster results then working it to the point of 1/4...Eric

As I said earlier, when oil canning is the issue regardless of the cause, shrinking the steel in the correct area around the dent, is the way to fix it. The steel is stretched on the perimeter of the dent, causing the dent. When it is shrunk using a slapper the dent will work out. It's simple logic. Anyone who says different is unaware the correct methods to repair the oil canning. The roof of my ElCamino was loaded with oil canning, and I work them all out using the correct method.

My answer is to use a cut off wheel to cut out the offending area as neatly as possible and gently work the piece after it is removed from the car on the work bench or whatever. When the piece is once again Ok, weld it back in with backer plates to help suck up the heat this time.

No easy answer when the back side is out of reach.

If the warpage or oil can was placed into the metal from welding a panel in, then the correct fix is not to shrink the metal even more as that is what caused the oil can in the first place.

When you weld metal it will shrink at the weld seem, pulling the surrounding metal inward. If you stretch the metal back out with a hammer and dolly you remove the shrunken metal and also remove the oil can. You dont even touch the oil can itself you JUST work the weld seem as that is the only thing that changed.

Oil cans can be created from either stretched or shrunken metal, and many times the cause of unseen damage in another area.
Can you push the oil can in and another area pushes out? If so you need to determine which area is the true cause of the oil can.

personally I would cut an access hole in the wheel well big enough to get a dolly behind so I could work the metal properly. I would use the hammer ON method to raise the low spots back up. Once the metal is worked out to your liking weld the access shut. Since the wheel well has a great deal of compound curve to maintain its strength you wont have a great amount of warpage when welding the hole shut

If the warpage or oil can was placed into the metal from welding a panel in, then the correct fix is not to shrink the metal even more as that is what caused the oil can in the first place.

When you weld metal it will shrink at the weld seem, pulling the surrounding metal inward. If you stretch the metal back out with a hammer and dolly you remove the shrunken metal and also remove the oil can. You dont even touch the oil can itself you JUST work the weld seem as that is the only thing that changed.

Oil cans can be created from either stretched or shrunken metal, and many times the cause of unseen damage in another area.
Can you push the oil can in and another area pushes out? If so you need to determine which area is the true cause of the oil can.

personally I would cut an access hole in the wheel well big enough to get a dolly behind so I could work the metal properly. I would use the hammer ON method to raise the low spots back up. Once the metal is worked out to your liking weld the access shut. Since the wheel well has a great deal of compound curve to maintain its strength you wont have a great amount of warpage when welding the hole shut

I think I mentioned something to you a while back about checking in on here more often. He would have put an inch thick filler or shrunk the panels more then they were all ready.

You can't leave us kids alone on here for to long.

Besides, our car bodies are more important then your schooling.:)

There is a little thread from one of the best metal shapers in the land Randy Ferguson
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=118539

In short, the thread talks about stretching the weld area to correct the oil can...Eric

Guys I want to focus on the question- the THICKNESS of the filler- how much/thick have you guys ever seen it that didn't crack and looked straight? I KNOW that you should keep it to a minimum, but in this case I feel the panel is so small and non-vibratory that the thickness of the panels filler really doesn't matter, that's why I asked the original question about the thickness of filler seen before. I will cut the lower quarter off and tack in a new/reproduction piece if I do anything, but after filling it thick it looks like it'll be OK.

I dont get this, ive been reading soooo much about warping sheetmetal when welding. I replaced or repaired literally every piece of metal on this car, no joke. I never warped a thing. I dont evern know what warpage looks like. I taught myself how to MIG weld only last october. i wasnt even as carefull as i should have been with keeping the heat down. guess im just lucky? or maybe its my super duper expensive 350$ home depot welder ;)

Eric i seen that post on the trucks site. I used that method on butt welding the floor and trunk on the firebird show car. turned out great. one question what about the areas that are hard to get to? I mean,well i will start my own post instead of stealing this guys.

Back to the original question use as little as possible. If you dont get at least some of that oil can out you will be sorry. There is alot of stress in that area man. Get some of it out and use around 1/8 inch maximum.

That's it- I'm cutting it out and getting a lower patch panel....

By the way- I'm using a flux cored wire on the MIG 0.030- NO GAS- mabye I'm using too much heat or too damn impatient???!!!

if your going to do it over i'd ditch the flux core and go for the gas... It'll keep the heat down, I know that much

You need a gas welder period. However some say use .023 i say its according. The patch panel and certain quarter work i use .023 but on floors and structural i use .035 because of strength and heat. I love heat. There have been times i have seen veteran body and metal workers do welding that just split. I like to use more heat personally. Especially during plug welds. Not much more though. Most welders are set on the "A" setting for the heat i like to use the "B" setting. This is for thin sheetmetal only. Its also according to the welder. If you have the pot settings then go to "B" if not and have a better welder that is super adjustable set it between A and B. Eric might want to reply to this though since this takes a kind of talent to keep the warpage down. Also no matter what even if you use a TIG you will experience warpage. I really dont know if more heat will mean more warpage but i have never got more. Jump around on the patch panel also. get yourself a flat peice of copper and hold it against the back of panel. The weld will not stick to copper. This is only for a butt weld. You can also flange which is good for a beginner. However try to butt weld. This makes for good practice. I have some pics of a butt weld on my floors and various other stuff i am going to post.

You sound like your mind is already made up, BUT FWIW, when I re did my quarters I found mud that was put into a dent that was never pulled out, it was almost 1" thick!! I had the car for over 10 years and never knew it was there till I started to grind the paint off the quarter...

I'm certainly not saying I would have put it in that thick, but you can't argue with something that held up that long with materials that aren't even as good as we use today....

And all this was over bare metal, and even RUST in some areas....

Well I tackled the other quarter panel (right) today, cut out a 10 by 3 inch patch of sheet metal behind the right rear tire, cleaned out the junk stuck behind it, and welded in a new sheet metal piece. This time I used 0.023 inch wire, with shielding gas. Tacked a little at a time, waiting for the metal to be cool... Guess what- NO warpage!!! Experience is building up now!!:yes::hurray::)