Body Repair

[Cimaron]

Greetings, I have a beautiful 2003 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series Silver Birch Metallic. It has 146,000 easy miles on it and runs amazingly. I recently started some body work on the RR quarter panel wheel well lip, knocked out a couple of rust bubbles, my project just got a lot bigger. About the whole span of the arch and 4 to 5 inches up, (about the size of a chrome trim molding), it is no longer there. I know I have to remove all the rust and pre-treat all the adjoining metal before any fiberglass/bondo work. The problem is the rusted 30 inches by 3/4 inch of the arch lip is solid but extremely brittle and rusted. My question is: Does any one know of a place, store, shop, partner or friend that can give me info on where to find a "repair patch panel" for the arch and up the side of quarter panel? I have searched this internet for 3 days, just about every autobody place I can find....I have seen 100's of them, mainly for trucks. I don't have a welder and my expertise in body repair is only mediocre. A response on any way to repair this, would be extremely appreciated... I have pictures of the quarter panel arch below.....

Cimaron

 

[11MarkX]

Once rust starts, there's no way to stop it. However, there are products like POR15 which will slow it down. Once you encapsulate the rust with that, then buy these lips to cover up the rust and you're done. If you don't like the chrome, paint it. Ebay sellers match paint in an aerosol can. It's your best option otherwise you'll be working with bondo for a long time to get that flare just right...and it'll never be perfect.....and then it'll just crack and rust off again. Use reinforced bondo and a good plastic or sheetmetal backing if the rot extends over 2".

Repair panels cut the fenders way up, away from any rust forming, then weld it. It's a huge job. There's cheap bendable universal flares, but I spent a lot of time fitting them in and they still didn't fit very well, so not worth it.

 

[oktowncar]

The best way to fix it is to replace metal instead of using Bondo and fillers.
Find you a donor car in good shape, cut the quarters and any other areas needed then cut and weld to your vehicle.

It's not as hard as it looks.