I finally had a chance to remove the godly spoiler on my Tiburon only to find some lovely damage left from the previous owner. Four large holes and some roughed up paint that needs some TLC. Do you guys this this can be repaired or will a new hatch be needed? If I can be repaired, how extensive is it to repair holes in a body piece such as this. Something that should be left to the professionals?

 

can you weld? solder maybe?
if so id fill the holes with welds or solder and smooth it out.
if you cant id just take it to a body shop and make sure they don't just use bondo.

 

nothing wrong with using bondo to patch up some tiny screw holes. soldering could come off. welding is a better idea, and then polishing the weld flat and buffing it out. i'd have a shop to do it. i don't trust myself with cars anymore.

 

^
just what i was thinking but with the soldering, there is a solder for this in a restor magazine i get.

 

welding would be your best bet but if thats not an option I would beat the holes down to where theyre not sticking up first, then cut tiny squares of sheet metal big enough to cover the hole and then some and then from the inside secure that piece and fiberglass it with a couple good layers, I did that and I also tried using bondo once which held but didn't have the same solidity as the f/g. but yeah definitley weld if possible

 

I filled the big hole where my antenna was shaping a piece of sheet metal (cut it off 3"ss exhaust tubing) that was bigger than the hole and use some epoxied it over the hole from inside the car. This gave me a backing to apply body filler on the outside. The epoxy I used was some kind of epoxy used to secure stones to metal so it is a very strong bond.

If your going to weld it use a heat sink.

 

the epoxy way might not be a half bad idea if you can't weld it. Plus I always heard welding sheet metal sucks.

They repair cab corners on Trucks (the show) one time that way. They cut the corner off the cab, epoxied in a lip all the way around and the epoxied in their patch. Pretty cool. they make body work specific epoxy so you might want to check on that.

 

I just glassed over the holes. .. And sanded.

 

wow, you did it the hard way lol.. with those small holes, there would be much more work in sanding it to get the curves right on the hatch than if you attacked it from the bottom.

i would put some tape on the bottom of the hole, and then fill it with epoxy, let it dry, then sand it.



or the best way to do it, is welding and then some sanding cuz then you will never have to worry about fiberglass/bondo cracking.

 

I'm going to be tig welding some small patch panels on, sanding, and primering the hatch to get it to paint.