How To Spot Bad Body Work

Do you know what you are getting? This car looked mint at first glance. Then we hauled it over to Pure Vision Design in Simi Valley and stripped it down to find hidden disasters. There were many.

We're pretty fed up with restoration candidates. We'll go ahead and throw in "minor rust" and "needs TLC" too. We'll get these statements straight-faced from a seller while we're staring at their total piece of garbage. It's not like we've been looking for concours cars or even sheetmetal that would be considered close to perfect by our rapidly dwindling standards. It seems like each time we're presented with a potential project car, we're faced with the rusted reality that either people think they can lie to your face or they really don't know what they're talking about when it comes to bodywork. We fear the latter.

It's up to you to decide whether the car is crap or cool. Because bodywork has the biggest street machine price tag, this is an area where you should ask for help; so we're going to give you some. Consider this an education on finding the hidden damage and hacked-in repairs that can cost you serious rocks to get reworked using a perfect example: This '69 Dodge Coronet R/T. It was sold as a "perfect survivor." It really looked the part to the casual eye, but any pro would notice the signs of trouble. Then we took it apart to reveal some serious crunched, welded, and beaten sheetmetal hiding behind the sheen. Can you see it? Read and find out how.

Know your body. The first thing we noticed was the wheel radius wasn't uniform to the body line. Is it supposed to be? Buy a few books, walk a few shows, and know what the body fat and lines look like stock. Note that this body line looks like a drunk drew it.	The second outside indication that this fender had been hit and replaced was the gap between the top and the upper lip on the panel. Even if it hadn't been obvious that the gap was too large, it didn't match the gap on the other side. The trunklid gap was also twice the size on the passenger rear quarter.	Even without taking the trim off the car, we noticed that some body filler had been sanded and painted below it. Get low. Since a seller likely won't let you take the car apart, you have to look for a sign like this. Obvious Bondo will be deeply scratched by sanding. Paint cracks mean rust, filler, or an impact. Old paint will dry up and spider or fade, not split and crack.
See? We popped the trim off and found some body filler and broken welds. If you're going to restore this car, the entire rear quarter should be replaced.	If you're not worried about a quarter install, check this out. The impact on the quarter damaged the tub, which supports the tulip panel, the supports for the convertible top in this case, and the seatbelt mount. All of this needs to be replaced or rebuilt for everything to work right. Get in the trunk and check it out.	Here we have two different welds. Below the gold pointer is a factory spot weld. The white pointer shows a repair that has been ground down. Make sure the weld styles match. Not all repairs are bad, but this will point them out.