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First off let me just say that body work, quality body should be left to a professional. I mean yes you can go out and buy all the tools needed to replicate a shop, set up a temporary paint room in your garage, but for what? It's like fixing a natural gas leak in your home. Sure you can do it, but why risk it? You might blow up your house to save a few bucks. The same is true of body work on a classic car.

If you are restoring this from the standpoint of true restoration, then you will want to avoid putty and filler altogether. You will want to go the hard and rewarding route of actually banging out the dings, or cutting and welding new pieces of metal altogether. And of course the ideal would be to simply remove the damaged panel and replace it with a new one.

If this car is simply for joy riding and/or already has some bondo on it, then by all means, sand and fill that baby to perfection.

For doing it the right way, the current thinking is to replace the panel altogether, if you have the means and the damage is severe enough. If this car is destined for the top competitions and or auction houses this is really your only means of fetching top dollar.

If the dents and dings are minor, say hail damage and smaller, then you can have them popped or rubbed out by any reputable body shop. One thing to note: the older the car, generally the thicker the gauge of metal used in the body panels. Make sure your shop understands this and doesn't quote you a price to pop a dent out of think aluminum to find armor level steel in front of them, you will be getting a phone call you do not want to hear

Make sure they understand the paint codes you are working with. You want the paint to match, not to be discernable from one panel to the next. Also, make sure they know how long it has been since the last paint job, and supply them with any touch up paint that you may have so they can color match to the best of their ability. Sometimes, if there are numerous panels that require attention, the best thing to do is a total respray.

Now, when you come to the decision that a total respray is the best option, what do you do? Do you just mask and paint and hope for the best? This is fine if the car is not destined for the top tier competitions. But if your car is to be the cream of the crop, guess what? That's right, a frame off disassembly has to take place. Everything down to the frame bushings must go. Your car has to be totally disassembled.

So you see the cost is greater than one would imagine if you are wanting to play in an elite league of restorers. But if it's simply a weekend cruiser with no future resale in sight, and you are okay with it, then by all means just fix what is damaged, repsray and enjoy.

But the bottom line is that you need to know what you are wanting the car for, then decide where to go from there based on that need and the total damage to the body. If you can get away with merely popping a door ding without paint, you've skated by pretty luckily. But if you have multiple panels that require replacement and respray, then this may be the time to initiate that total frame off disassembly you've been threatening for years.

Learn more about this author, M.L. Brooke.
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