Earl,
I had the same situation on my car, a 1959 TR3A. I have no prior body work
experience. While rust was somewhat of a problem, damage to the body panels
was more severe. While I don't have a complete history on the car, it was
supposedly raced by a George Warner out of New Jersy. Judging by the body
damage, he spent a lot of time exploring the track fringes. The front
valance was hit so hard that it was split in three places and pushed in about
10" across the entite front valance where it probably came into contact with
a guard rail. I was going to toss it when a visit from another lister, Don
Dsforsa, convinced me to save it. I still wasn't convinced that it was
usable, but was bored one afternoon and decided to take a hammer an dolly to
it. Well 10 hours later it started to look pretty good. I did have to add
some body filler but it is less than 1/8" deep at it's thickest point. A
friend of mine who is a Corvette enthusiest can't believe how well it turned
out, It looks 100% original.
Give it a try, it won't cost you too much. For $20 you can get a cheap
hammer/dolly set form Harbour Freight. I would also recomend that you pick
up the following book which I found quite informative. "How to Repair &
Restore BODYWORK" by David Jacobs.
God luck!
Gary Bouffard TS58399
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