Flip My Ride: I Bought a Car Online, Sight Unseen. Part 3

      In part one, I told you about my impulse buy, in part two I showed you a few of the challenges I found that will need to be solved to make this car flipable. In part three, I'm gonna show you the transformation of a cancer hole from "this is hopeless" to "I can live with that."

      My fist order of business was to cut the cancer out. 

      Next, I traced the approximate shapes I needed on wax paper. Then I cut the shapes out of the wax paper and transferred the stencil to some 22 gauge sheet metal.

       After cutting my metal shapes I trimmed as needed to fit correctly and welded the whole mess up. 

      Then I ground the welds with an angle grinder and applied a coat of body filler.

       Sanded the first coat with 80 grit sand paper.

      I eventually did a second coat of filler, also sanded with 80 grit, and a coat of glazing putty sanded with 80, 120 and  then 320 grit papers. After wiping it down and priming, I think I have something that's passable.

      I also did some reconstruction of the front of this same fender arch, and the rocker panel with the same methods. I repeated the same process on the passengers side. 

       To finish this off I needed some paint. A huge point of cost in any flip is paint. I could prep and paint the whole car for around $200, or I could spot paint it for much less. I chose to spot paint for $20, finding a close color in a duplicolor rattle can, figuring that I can paint it later if I it doesn't sell. I've never painted a car before, so I followed this tutorial for blending a rattle can touch up (nsfw).

       The final product came out fairly decent. I'm obviously no expert, but my guess is the person shopping for a car in this price range can't be to picky. Each car is practice, and I'll get better on the next one I suppose.