This is at heart a body-repair question, and this seems like the best sub-topic to post in.

My Spider needs some body repair. A couple of years ago I had AutoSprint look over the car so that I could come up with a rank-ordered list of its short-, medium- and long-term maintenance and repair needs, and also assess the bodywork. Report on the bodywork was "yes, it has some rust but this isn't anywhere near the point where I'd consider the shell not worth repairing." I'm writing y'all here because I'd like some relatively experienced opinions on what it is likely to actually cost to get all its body needs attended to. I can and do most of my own mechanical work on my cars, but I have neither the equipment nor the skills to do body work myself. I'd love to learn, but I know enough about my get-shit-done-ness and time priorities that I'm better off having at the very least most of it done professionally.

I am aware that if my goal is to simply have a nice driver sooner rather than later, it would be easier and cheaper to just buy a car with a great body. But I'm highly attached to this particular car for personal reasons, so practical considerations are not the only ones. The car is an '81 Turbo that I have had since about 1990, when the original owner (a friend) gave it to my dad and I as a father-son project (it needed a top, turbo and general sorting.) The car came to us with no rust, but many years' worth of being parked outdoors (out of necessity) took its toll.


Major rust areas that need addressing promptly:

1)Hole in the left rear footwell, next to the trailing arm mount. This was caused by a bad drain in the top well that led to chronic water accumulation on that side. Also a hole on the edge of the drain plug in the same pan.

2)Hole at the edge of the front floor and trans tunnel, next to the trans mount.

I consider these the only two urgent ones because of the trailing arm and trans mounts. All other notorious areas - front and rear shock towers, front crossmember and frame rails, the rest of the floors, etc. - are perfect.

Other rust:

3)There is a hole in the tulip panel (filler between rear edge of cabin and front of decklid), next to the seam on the left side.

4)Typical bubbling (no rust-through that I can tell) on one door-skin bottom and several fender bottoms at the rocker panel seam.

5)One rocker cover will probably need to be replaced (I'd bet money there's rust under the sill plate), the other is fine.

6)Bubbling at seam at bottom of rear fenders and rear valence panel, on the sides.

7)Front valence panel will need to be patched or replaced, as it is rusted through on one edge of the center opening. Bubbling next to one wiper base, and a little bit on the edge of the hood.

Only 1) and 2) are really important to my driving enjoyment - I've driven the car for years with the other stuff. I realize it's hard to give really useful help without photos, but I don't have photos of everything and don't have access to the photos I do have. My lack of knowledge is in the real cost of professional body work. I don't want to just slather bondo on things. I'm not in any hurry, and would rather spread costs out over several years. I don't care if I spent a year driving a car with a great body and primer. For all I know I would enjoy driving something like a 1600cc Spider even more than a 2L Turbo, but this is the one I have and I have no desire to ever get rid of it unless either some major life circumstance mandates it, or slowly restoring it is so unrealistic as to not make sense (I'm more practical than I used to be!) The car is registered, insured and driveable (though I have a lifestyle that means I don't drive very much), though this summer I am prioritizing working on it over driving it. I have no idea what the bodywork the car needs would cost - $3k? $6k? $10k? That's what I'm going to y'all for Sorry to be so wordy.

thanks,
David
Chicago

I am going high end custom on mine. I did all the basic prep, ie taking it apart. Far a basic job you are probably looking at 1500-2000, the cost of paint is ridiculous!! But after that the sky is the limit, be sure to pull the sill plates and rocker panels, mine looked great but had tons of collected debris in them.

Good luck!

I see a MIG welder in your future.
Unless you have the money to throw. For what it would cost to have somebody do all that work, you can buy the tools and have fun doing it yourself and in some cases do a better job (ie, butt vs. overlap, etc.). When your done, you'll be all set up for your next project.
This is what I did and I never touched a welder prior.

There are a lot of variables, like where you are in the country, the type of shop (overhead makes a big difference), quality of work, etc.

That said I had my drivers floor pan patched by the seat mount and the car painted for $3200 in Massachusetts in a small two man shop well outside of any major city. I was not entirely thrilled with the quality of the work, but the car does look 100 times better than it did when I started (except for where I scratched it putting it back together )

I trailored a stripped shell to the shop and took it back to reassemble. They also did it as a filler job over the winter so it took about 4 months to finish.

fredguaz wrote:I see a MIG welder in your future.
Unless you have the money to throw. For what it would cost to have somebody do all that work, you can buy the tools and have fun doing it yourself and in some cases do a better job (ie, butt vs. overlap, etc.). When your done, you'll be all set up for your next project.
This is what I did and I never touched a welder prior.

Fred,

That's long been very tempting, as I love doing stuff myself. But I am not very good at doing things with any sort of efficiency, and I have another car project and other time demands. I'd probably be willing to learn on some easy things like patches, but I'd rather leave the more complicated repairs to pros.

David
Chicago

aj81spider wrote:There are a lot of variables, like where you are in the country, the type of shop (overhead makes a big difference), quality of work, etc.

That said I had my drivers floor pan patched by the seat mount and the car painted for $3200 in Massachusetts in a small two man shop well outside of any major city. I was not entirely thrilled with the quality of the work, but the car does look 100 times better than it did when I started (except for where I scratched it putting it back together )

I trailored a stripped shell to the shop and took it back to reassemble. They also did it as a filler job over the winter so it took about 4 months to finish.

A.J.,

I live in Chicago, in the city on the northwest side, so not exactly BFE. There is a good body shop near me (Elite Auto Body) that has done excellent work on a couple of other Fiats in the area, and they will be my first place to ask at. I'm considering paint as a separate expense, and figure a decent paint job will be at least 2500 even with my doing some of the prep work.

David
Chicago

body work on the rusty car can be very time consuming for an newbie.All the interior stuff doesnt require it to be pretty, just mechanically sound. The more basic work you can do, the cheaper the work, like removing seats, carpet, sound proofing where applies. If you see bubbles in the paint, then you have rust. if you have rust at all the places you mentioned, then expect to find 3 times that much rust once the paint is taken down and the metal is exposed. Your best bet it to take it to 3 or 4 shops, tell them your expectations of quality and time and see how the prices look. For stuff like the windshield cowling, and the rocker panels, replacement may be the best solution as they are just bolt on parts.

Removing all the dings, cutting out the rear center and lower valances, welding in new ones, and painting the whole car set me back $4800. And that's with me removing all the trim and the top. I like how my car looks, although the attention to detail was not what I would have expected for that much.

supplyguy wrote:Removing all the dings, cutting out the rear center and lower valances, welding in new ones, and painting the whole car set me back $4800. And that's with me removing all the trim and the top. I like how my car looks, although the attention to detail was not what I would have expected for that much.

Thanks - this is encouraging. I was WAGing $5k for bodywork - if I got bodywork and paint for around that, I'd be happy!

Fortunately I am ahead of the game financially, as the car itself was free and my dad handled maintenance until about 10 years afo.

David