SAAB 900: Body Repair

900SAAB.com: Body Repair

This page illustrates basic body repair procedures. Although I'm showing repair of a quarter panel, this would apply to just about any dent or rust repair on the vehicle.

My black 900SE was a Massachusetts car for the better part of it's life. At some point in it's life, one of it's prior 12 owners ran it along a guard rail, denting the fender, rear passenger door and rear quarter panel. This page details the repair of the passenger rear quarter panel.

This is the damage to the rear quarter panel. The panel was dented inward in some areas and outward in others; the paint was scraped off and the area rusted in the Massachusetts winters.

To fix this, I first cleaned the area using a wire brush cup mounted in my angle grinder. This removed the paint and rust in the area and showed me what I had to work with. I then sanded and feathered the paint, hammered in the low spots with a body-hammer and applied a layer of body filler to restore the contour of the fender. The resulting repair is seen below. Note that the white-appearing areas on the lip of the quarter is body filler that was added and then sanded and contoured.

With the shape of the fender restored, a layer of high-build automotive primer was applied to the area. Several coats were used until all pinholes and sanding scratches were filled. The area was masked using rolled masking paper.

To blend the repair to the surrounding area and to prepare for paint, the high-build primer was sanded to 320 grit using wet-or-dry paper.

Once the body work is complete, the area was masked, again, and the base coat was applied. The paint was applied in several thin coats until uniform coverage was achieved. Since I used a basecoat/clearcoat paint, the basecoat need not be very thick. Each base coat was allowed to flash for 12 minutes before the next was applied.

After a 30 minute flash time, the clearcoat was applied. The clearcoat was allowed to dry for several hours before being blended into the original paint with 2000 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper. This is the finish after sanding, but before final buffing.

Finally, the entire quarter section of the car was buffed with 3M's fine-cut rubbing compound. I've included a picture of my buffer and the compound, below.

All-in-all, not a bad day's work! To maintain the shine and finish, the quarter will need to be kept clean for the next several months. After three months, the area will be re-buffed and waxed.