Bent or Rusted

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

The bonnet on the ute suffered a "fly-open at speed" with the previous owner and is a little bent. The only straight bonnets I have are rusted out at the front.
I would say my options are -

1. Straighten the original

2. Fix the rust in the spare bonnet by cutting good metal from the original bonnet.

Any suggestions? Can a bent bonnet be saved? You can see from the pics the extent of the damage. Not too much by my reckoning.

[Brad]

Gday stinky
                 Bent bonets can be saved .
 But it realy should only be atemted by a qualified and competent panelbeater , and that will probably cost much money . Also the same applies to constucting one bonet from two or three
   The third option is to obtain a good clean and straight bonet with no major damage and fit It to your ute. keep the bent bonet as a second maybe.
  I can see by your pic that you have gone to a lot of trouble to get the ute nice and straight  ,It would be a pity to have to fit a dodgy bonet .
    However the bent bonet is repaired it will still have to be boged up regardless, and most likely the repairs will show  on the underside when the bonet is open
 My FB had a similar repair and even though it looked great on top when I opend the bonet  the fix was still there, hardly anyone noticed it but I thought It was an eyesore
        Something to think about anyway
         Brad

[customFC]

Hey Glenn.
The bent bonnet can be saved and should be able to get done by someone with a bit of experience with slapper and dolly and a body file. The rear corners of bonnets are fairly strong and forgiving, only issue would be access if the ding is behind the reinforcing that is on the inside.
The rusted bonnet can have patches welded in with a skim of filler over the top, or if only pinholes, can be cleaned up and lead filled. If you put in patches, use new metal, not the front of the old bonnet.
Regards
Alex

[zulu]

Don't forget to check the dog cock  

I have had my bonnet pop open on occasions and found a horizontal groove had formed where it locates the latch.

I fixed this by turning it around to the other side & tightening the adjuster nut.

It's lookin good

[Stan]

Hi,

Just saw your ute on the Q & A section. Would like to see some pics of its progress. You have certainly put a lot of work into it!

Am wanting to know how you dealt with the surface rust and also if you found a good panel beater. I am looking at a FC ute that has some minor damage to a fender and some surface rust beginning.. Wanting to know the best way to deal with such a problem before I offer a price.

Thanks,

Stan

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

Most of the story is here -
http://www.fefcholden.org.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=album;action=display;num=1137834026

Surface rust went back to bare metal then etch primed, painted etc.

I found a good panel beater, but he was too expensive (and busy) so I did the panel work myself