I am by no means, an expert when it comes to body work. I removed the ground effects on the doors to take care of some visible rust bubbles along the top door seam. I then moved on to remove the rocker panel ground effects and noticed that the rear dogleg (area on side body in front of the rear wheel, but before the door) was almost completely rusted out. That portion of the ground effects was really not being held in place by anything at all.
After removing the front and rear pieces along the rocker pannel, the rear portion of the metal strip that holds the ground effects to the car came right off... the rivets had pulled through the almost equally rusted rocker panel under the rear door.
So, to anyone who has some experience in extensive body panel repair, my question is how is this type of damage repaired? Is the damaged area cut out and new sheet metal formed and welded in? Or, are there replacement body panels for the Taurus just for this purpose?
I think it's probably above my DIY ability since I don't have a welder; but I'm jsut wondering what the process is and how expensive it might be.
<small>[ February 26, 2004, 03:43 AM: Message edited by: mholhut ]</small>
After removing the front and rear pieces along the rocker pannel, the rear portion of the metal strip that holds the ground effects to the car came right off... the rivets had pulled through the almost equally rusted rocker panel under the rear door.
So, to anyone who has some experience in extensive body panel repair, my question is how is this type of damage repaired? Is the damaged area cut out and new sheet metal formed and welded in? Or, are there replacement body panels for the Taurus just for this purpose?
I think it's probably above my DIY ability since I don't have a welder; but I'm jsut wondering what the process is and how expensive it might be.
<small>[ February 26, 2004, 03:43 AM: Message edited by: mholhut ]</small>
