Ok Ive been mulling over what I should do as far as my quarters, outer wheel houses and rear portion of the rocker. Sadly my car was in the hands of a hill billy jackass who took an otherwise rust free 64 SS and decided with the help of some round bar, bondo and strips of aluminum flashing went on and stretched the wheel well openings and hacked out a good prtion of the outer wheel houses to fill in the gaps. Because of this all the metal in that area needs to be replaced.

Ive gotten quotes of anywhere from 1600-2500 and one that just said hed have to do it hourly... I got to wondering if this is something I should consider doing myself. For the price I guess its not that bad since I wont have to fight with it since I hate bodywork with a passion but another part of me hates to part with that kind of cash when I have the tools to do it myself. The only problem is I have never done sheet metal replacement on that scale and Id be really pissed if I spent over a grand on sheet metal only to mess something up and have to spend more money on replacing the Fck ups.

So I ask you guys, in all honesty if you were a competent mechanic with a shop and all necessary tools but no experience doing this particualr job, would you jump in and do it or would you just bite the bullet and write the check?

I'm a DYI'er... If you a confident in your skill level and take your time, I see no reason to believe you can't do it your self.....

If you hate bodywork that bad, I would most definitely have some one else do it for me, its not worth the aggravation.

Rob

I'm with Rob. Sometimes it's better to pay the Pros. You can spend your time on the stuff you enjoy and know how to get a good result.

thats the way Im leaning too. After the last car I did and my quest to do absolutely everything on it myself, I ended up hating the car in the end. It came out nice enough but I held a grudge against the car. I know that seems odd but I didnt have many good memories of it during the build cause I spent so much time with bodywork and like I said I just dont like sanding, aligning ect.

i myself have been a mechanic for close to 25 years. however when it comes to bodywork, i leave it to someone who knows what they are doing. i can replace a fender or bumper, but to weld in a quarter, or line something complicated up, i would leave it to a pro. the way i see it, if it's a mechanical screw up, it's a lot easier to fix than welding in a quarter panel or roof panel. my 02 cents.

yeah Im with you fuzzy. Im more of the mechanically inclined area along with other (substantial) parts of car construction but body work eludes me. Some people are great at it, some want to be great at it and other like myself look at it with a big frown on my face. I like doing it cause I can spend my money on parts or at the very least build a car to a higher caliber on a more restrictive budget but yeah I think you convinced me, Ill just shell out the dough and not have to worry about it again. Im still gonna be priming and blocking myself cause that it very labor intensive but I think the body work and final color are going off to another shop. Then I can bother them about why it isnt done yet lol. Thanks for the opinions guys

That's a hard choice. I had to do the same thing with my 65 last year. Luckily I had a good friend that helped guide me thru it and did the critical work. I did the grunt work, cutting and removing all the old metal, prepping and then together we fit new metal and I did the welding that didn't show, he did the butt welds and stuff that was more critical. The body work was no big deal to me, but his help on the metal replacement was invaluable. I had intended to do it all myself, but it would have been a 3-4 month job that way. It ended up taking about 2 weeks of me working days and both of us a couple hours in the evening. I would have got it done, but it might not have been as good a job. You have to make that decision and be honest about your abilities.

The other factor you really have to consider is who will you hire and can you really depend on them. Probably 50% or more of the guys that hire panel replacement have troubles with the shop never getting it done and a couple weeks running into a couple years. That is the worst part of having a shop do it unless you really know them and are sure.

How come there are no sweat shops that do body work for cheap? Hmmm, I wonder if I could adopt about a dozen ten year old boys from China? Anyone that can build a nice wall should be able to learn to do bodywork. Just kidding. I heard the Russians do some nice bodywork.
Squido

How come there are no sweat shops that do body work for cheap? Hmmm, I wonder if I could adopt about a dozen ten year old boys from China? Anyone that can build a nice wall should be able to learn to do bodywork. Just kidding. I heard the Russians do some nice bodywork.
Squido


When I had my collision shop I had some guys from some of the islands in the Caribbean work for me. Those guys could do some amazing body work. I never saw guys that could straighten and fix anything.


Now back to the subject. I would do it myself. I am not going to pay someone to keep my car for 2 years and then get it back and have to spend another 4 months fixing his mess up. I'd rather mess it up myself.

Being much more mechanically confident myself...

I think I would get a quote from MartinSr on what it would cost to teach me how to do it. I have this suspicion that bodywork is one of those trades where you could learn a lot from watching and working with a master. I have dreamed about taking a "vacation" from the regular job and spending the time in a bodyshop. I would donate my time and whatever work I could do in exchange for the learning experience. It is an interesting dream...

How come there are no sweat shops that do body work for cheap? Hmmm, I wonder if I could adopt about a dozen ten year old boys from China? Anyone that can build a nice wall should be able to learn to do bodywork. Just kidding. I heard the Russians do some nice bodywork.
Squido

nothing against russians but in my area which has a large ukranian immigrant population, the amount of savalged cars flooding the market as boomed. I am appaled at how the body work was done on them but in a way I guess your right they hide it fairly well. My experience with a lot of them including a russian owned body shop across from my own has taught me to not only refuse work from them and never have them do work for me.

Being much more mechanically confident myself...

I think I would get a quote from MartinSr on what it would cost to teach me how to do it. I have this suspicion that bodywork is one of those trades where you could learn a lot from watching and working with a master. I have dreamed about taking a "vacation" from the regular job and spending the time in a bodyshop. I would donate my time and whatever work I could do in exchange for the learning experience. It is an interesting dream...

I know a few guys that I would love to hold my hand, unfortunately I gotta work on old cars all day long myself and could never justify the cost of learning it on the job. If you were to add up even a week or two of payroll checks it would never justify what it would have costed to just farm it out and pick it up in a few weeks.