Betty (my felly) had a bit of rust around 2 of the wheel arches, so i grinded it out, filled it in and resprayed it.

But my efforts look terrible in my opinion. People say its not that bad, but i prefered it with the rust if im honest. How would i go about doing this over if i wanted to?

Im looking at selling her... shes got no MOT at the moment, and no tax. Is it worth getting her MOT'd and taxed and sell? or keep?

Really dont know what to do. Bearing in mind im 18, so whatever i drive the insurance is sky high, what would you do?

Fix it properly bud, theres not much cheaper out there to insure.

Im young too but the felly fun was cheaper to insure than a 1 litre hyundai!

yeah ive just got a quote on a 1litre hyundai seicento, £2600, and my felly is £1900...even though its a 1.3 litre. a bit strange if you ask me haha

Edited 28 July, 200916 yr by rharris118
wasnt meant to say 3 litre, oops

3 litre? eh ?

prob got the special edition

I had a go spraying my Felly arches once and totally bugged it up leaving sticky **** on the arches as I used double sided sticky tape.

The next attempt was much better as I had a better idea of what I needed to do.

The rust bubbled through my paint job about 18 months later.

I used some rust remover to clean the area then primed it.

Personally I'd prob keep the Felly, learn more about car maintenance etc.... plus your insurance will go down as you get older so you can then start looking at getting another car depending on how much you have saved.

yeah sorry about that, wish it was a 3 litre haha. its a 1.3, which you probebly guessed

any recommendations for redoing the body work then? i think if i get that done properly, i'll keep it.

My brothers Felicia failed its MOT, due to rusting on both rear arches near the sill. Simply grinding away and filling was not an option, as this part of the body is considered structural so that would have failed to. He had the MOT place fix both arches by welding in some new metal. The finish is crude and they are both painted black, but it past its MOT and is good to go again for another 12 months. The fix including the cost of the MOT was £200, not bad really. I am hoping to get some green paint to sort the colour out in a few weeks.

so they charged about £150 to weld on 2 metal plates?!? either seems extremely expensive or im not getting the point of what they did...

I believe they cutout a lot of bad metal as well. His car looked ok from the outside, just a few rust bubbles in the paint. However the tester discovered the paint was all that was left holding the good metal together. They did what a bodyshop would have done, but more cheaply. He doesnt really care what the end result looked like, as long as it keeps going. There is no point just welding a plate over the rusty bit. as the rusting will continue behind it and eventualy affect the new metal as well.

oh right i see...well what i did on mine was grind away the little amount that i could find, then use body filler to recreate the bit that i'd removed, didnt look amazing but got rid of the rust, i took the paint off the surrounding areas to make sure there wasnt any more rust from that area so im guessing that was alright.

would that fail the MOT the way i'd done it?

I think they can fail it if it's structural or if it's hazardous because of sharp edges. A small amount of filler in a wheelarch shouldn't fail it so long as it's away from the sill like Mannyo said.

Has anyone tried anything other than spraying though? Those little spongey gloss rollers you get for doing household radiators give a decent finish if you can get the right colour paint. I did a Metro bonnet with Hammerite garage door paint. Masking is a lot less hassle. What let it down a bit was poor prep giving some uneven surfaces but the paint was great.

I brush painted a car once too. This one I did all over, building up lots of thin coats and flatting back and the finish on that was as good as any spray job and most people thought I had sprayed it. I took doors, boot and bonnet off to do them layed flat to stop any runs. It was hard work and a long job but cheap - a set of good brushes and a few tins of yacht paint:)

I tried spraying a car once too and achieved an awful orange peel effect. Took a lot to flat it back and the finish was never even.

Experiment:)

haha i like your style, if im honest, i'd love to do my car like that, all the panels seem to be a shade different to eachother. i'd do it but im too afraid that it would go horribly wrong and look a state.

and its not near the sill, its at the top of the arch so that should be fine, its not sharp etc so sounds all good.

on another note, while im on about repairs etc --

where would the best place to get a puncture repaired be? its in the middle of the tyre (bit that makes contact with the ground) so its in a safe place.

AND

my battery doesnt seem to hold charge for long, about 2 weeks just sat there. is that normal?

if not, what can i do, buy a new battery or just charge over night and keep charging every few days?

Thanks guys!

Could be the alternator. my cars not used that much these days......

I might upload some piccies of my wheelarch job so you can see what it looked like

I would agree with a lot of people on the experimenting with paint jobs etc. The first one I did wasn't great, and I think I ended up doing it again. I kept at it though and in the end the results were good. There is no harm in trying on something that isn't worth too much, and in the end it will look better than when you started.

I did a lot of work on my sisters fiesta last year, some of it has lasted well, others haven't. She does live by the sea though - so rust does form quicker!

Your battery probably isn't holding its charge very well because the car is sat around. If you were using it on a regular basis it would keep being charged up by the alternator. If you leave the car sat aorund it may be worth charging it every so often - once running though you may be able to establish if there are problems with the alternator if it doesn't hold its charge then.

yeah ive just got a quote on a 1litre hyundai seicento, £2600, and my felly is £1900...even though its a 1.3 litre. a bit strange if you ask me haha

Hyundai ? don't you mean Fiat Seicento