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Greetings fellow hearse owners and enthusiasts, My husband and I are the proud owners of a 61 Eureka Hearse. The hearse is in "good" condition but needs some help. My question right now lies with the body. There are some rust spots and some of them are pretty bad. We've heard bondo is a huge no no but it's the only substance we know is moldable. Is there anything we can use as a patch or filler that is relatively inexpensive?
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Welcome!
Can you post some pics of where the rust is so we can recommend how to fix? -
There are body fillers that are worked similar to bondo but are much more durable when cured. The best ones I've seen are green and silver but I don't remember their names. They are more expensive than the stuff you'd find at a parts house but I wouldn't use anything else after seeing it in action during the repair of a rear clam shell on a Lotus Elise. Outside of that, fiberglass is your best bet for significant repairs to body work on the quick and relatively cheap.Comment
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Anything can be fixed with a metal patch. All it takes is a skilled bodyman with the right tools. Bondo, or any other filler by name is a finishing compound used to fill in small imperfections, after the real bodywork is done.
If you plan on keeping your car for more than 3 years, sourse the panels from salvage yards. Anything else will resurface, and you will pay the piper twiceComment
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Bondo like body filler isn't meant to be applied thickly, you'd need to patch the hole with something like metal or fiberglass and then use the filler only to level out the finished surface. The problem with any patch that isn't metal is that the expansion rates are different so as the temperature changes the patch will expand at a different rate than the metal, and eventually cause a crack which can range from ruining your paint job to the patch becoming dislodged.
I would avoid riveting on a metal patch, since this will give new holes for future rust to start at & the differences in metals may cause a chemical reaction encouraging rust. Also, you'd have to use a heavier filler thickness to hide a rivet than you should be using so there's a higher likelihood of a bad crack developing later on.
How good are you with fiberglass? If you can't source good body sections to have welded in, what you could do on small non-structural areas of exterior sheet metal is apply clear packaging tape over the surface of the body panel, cover it with a liberal amount of vasoline, and then lay fiberglass over it. The vasoline will prevent it from bonding, and once the glass hardens you have the rough start to a fiberglass replacement panel. This is similar to how people build their own wide body kits, after first using foam & cardboard to overlay the car to get the size & shape they want.Comment
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