Holes where the light guards were!

I took off my light guards the other day. (To paint them really) but i thought it looks better without them.

Now im left with holes all round the car!

Anyone got any ideas what i could do to cover up the holes or make them look better? some of them have a bit of rust on an im worried it might spread.

I dont really fancy having all the panels done i got quoted about £500 to do it.

Cheers

You are limited to a few chocies really, if your not going to put the guards back on.
1) Use grommets (and sealant) to plug the holes.
2) replace the panels.
3) fill them. (lead or filler)

As far as the corrosion. To stop this you WILL have to remove the paint on that area, treat rust and re spray. Or it will spread.Now obviously there maybe other ways I haven't mentioned but which ever route you take do it soon or you will have bloody big holes.

do you not have a firm like chipaway or paint medics in your area? they specialise in doing small dents and small areas instead of full panels, might be worth a try if ya decide to fill the holes

Yeh might be worth going down the small repair route. see what they say. i spoke to the bloke that normally does my body stuff an he says it jus difficult to blend the paint

How about getting the light guards chromed! I seen a p38 with this and it looked great. I've got the light guards and thought about removing them but it was more trouble than it was worth. Does anyone know how to go about getting the guards chromed?

Anyone got any ideas what i could do to cover up the holes or make them look better? some of them have a bit of rust on an im worried it might spread.



Cheers[/quote]

Depends on what was used to secure the guards & the colour of the car. My RRC used large(ish) self-tap screws, so black dome headed screws, with a drop of silicone under the heads, don't look out of place against the green paintwork. As for the rust, if the screw heads will cover it then an application of a good rust converter first should work.

Ill take some photos at lunch. The front holes are screw holes so i could use a black screw. on some the head has rounded off where theyve been in there for so long, so im going to have to drill those out, an i haveno idea how to get the rest of it out. an the back ones are rivited in so ill drill those out. ill take some photos inabit an see what you all think.

Here some photos


These are the back ones which have been riveted in. so ill have to drill them out. an theres some surface scratches.



This is on the tailgate theres a bit of corrosion so i was thinking of jus replacing the whole tail but then ill lose the balmoral sign.



Other side more corrosion. there just not a good idea really



Other side more rivets.



Side with a bit of rust



Last side not to bad but i cant get that screw out in there really tight.

So as you can all see theres quite a bit of work to be done. i just want rid of them all really. nasty holes!lol

excuse the state of the car hasnt been cleaned in a while.

I had a bit of corrosion on the front wings and bought replacements on ebay the same age and colour for 20 quid each might be worth a try

Bargin will have a look cheers

i would spray up the guards, nice n black, then put em back on and forget all about the day you had the silly idea that a p38 without light guards looks better than with!!!

that way you can look round for the panels!! and there'll just be the holes in the rear wing to do!!!

See what you mean, whoever fitted the bloody things certainly had little imagination/skills & no thought whatever for the future appearance of the car. I think my 'round-headed screws' fix is out of the window here & you are going to have think bodyshop.

Gav what do you mean! I personally think the light guards are hideous! Yeh thinking body shop, but it will have to wait jus purchased in car computer goin to fit this weekend.

any one got a cheap tailgate goin???

P38 DUB said:

Gav what do you mean! I personally think the light guards are hideous! Yeh thinking body shop, but it will have to wait jus purchased in car computer goin to fit this weekend.

any one got a cheap tailgate goin???

Click to expand...

keep piccies of the comp install!!!

ive got to sort mine out yet, still got to mount the touch screen in the spare facia i have!!!

Well im only mounting my asus eeepc net book under the seat then im going to fit the touch screen where the sat nav should be.

I will start a topic once its done with a few pics. over time i will take the screen apart an custom fit it in the dash. but as im short on time today (an still waiting for parcel force to deliver it!) ill jus plop it in anyhow.

Will keep you posted

P38 DUB said:

I took off my light guards the other day. (To paint them really) but i thought it looks better without them...

I dont really fancy having all the panels done i got quoted about £500 to do it.

Click to expand...

OK, resurrecting an old thread, but I was searching for some inspiration on this very subject last night.

I've never done any bodywork or spray painting in my life, but armed with a little spare time and optimism, I reckon I could give this a go.

If it all goes horribly wrong, then I can always take it to someone who knows what they're doing to fix it for me. For now though, I'm going to have some fun trying to do it for myself

This is the closest I have to a "before" picture. By the time I thought of taking any photos, I'd already stripped the lights out, and drilled through the threaded rivets (I'm sure there's a proper name for them), leaving me with a nice selection of holes.

You may notice the prep work I'd been doing ready to do a straightforward respray of my rear bumper before I got carried away with myself. This project all started with a slight scratch on the rear bumper!



So after some research (10 minutes on Google), I set myself loose... First I used a wire brush in my drill to strip about an inch of paint from all around the holes, then tapped the edges in slightly (about 1mm) with a ball-pein hammer. Then it was time to reinforce the back of the holes with some fibreglass filler.

I used Isopon P40 for this. With all the lights out all the holes can be easily accessed from the inside of the panels. I found it quite fiddly to use the spreader tool, so ended up applying the stuff with my fingers. I'm sure you shouldn't do this, but I'm equally sure that as long as man has been applying fibreglass filler to awkward spaces, man has been ignoring the health-and-safety instructions, and applying it with his fingers....


The fibreglass oozed out a couple of the holes, so once it had set (about the time it takes to have a cup of coffee with the neighbour), I ground them flush with my angle grinder. Noticing the adhesive residue from where I'd removed the badges, I reckoned I should probably have noted down the positions before I removed them....


Then I mixed up some Isopon P38 filler (how very appropriate!), cleaned around the holes, and spread this on in a single application, slightly thicker than necessary so I could sand it down...


I sanded this down ready for priming using my orbital sander at a low speed setting and some 150-grit paper. What I was aiming for was to be able to shut my eyes and run my finger over the surface without knowing whether I was touching paint, metal or filler. On one of the holes, I had to re-do the filler as there was an air bubble, and sand back again...


At this point, I popped to the village shop to buy some beer, and ordered a curry. While I was waiting on the curry arriving, I washed all the panels down with degreaser and had a bit of a tidy up.

Heartily refreshed after curry and beer, the last task for today was to ensure all the bare metal had it's first coat of primer. I expect I'll sand most of it down tomorrow, so I wasn't too bothered about the quality of masking for now, as long as the bare metal is covered....


All in all, it's been a pretty enjoyable day doing something I've never tried before. The next phases should be interesting though!

Total outlay so far - £24.46 :

Isopon P40 Fibreglass filler - £7.49
Isopon P38 Easy Sand Filler - £6.99
Halfords grey primer - £7.49
Alcohol paint prep wipes - £2.49

suggestion the paper should be raised to allow blending in.

You want some heat or it will run.

Depending on heat leave at least 2 days and G3 and T cut to cut back- do not go mad, gentle circular with pea of G3 and loads of T cut

Thanks for the tips - tomorrow I plan to mask it off properly - I actually have a scratch I've sanded down on one of the back wings, so am planning to allow quite a lot of over-spray to blend in, especially when I start attempting to do the colour coats myself!

One thing I forgot to mention, after a tip on the internet, I put the can of primer in a bucket of hot water while I was eating my curry to warm it up. I have Tesco food bags with zip-lok tops which were big enough to seal the can of paint so it didn't get wet - not that it really matters, I suppose.

Another thing I forogt to mention, earlier in the thread, someone commented on the brackets being a b*stard to get off - I had to grind through a couple of the screws with a cutting disk, and actually ground straight through one of the light guards since I knew I was only throwing them out anyway.

Will be interesting to see how good the colour matches.