rocker & quarter panel repair

[steverine]

Is there anyone else out there still trying to keep one of these cars on the road IN THE RUST BELT? I’m working on repairing rocker & quarter panels on an ’88 DX. I’ve found a number of old threads on this topic, but very little since about 2007/8.

Mine has “only” 200k on it and I’d like to keep it on the road a while longer. I am a fairly accomplished do-it-yourselfer, automotive and otherwise; but have never done welding (and would rather not start). Anybody able to give advice on, or interested in discussing, this repair – I’d love to hear from you. (Especially from people more experienced than I.)

I started a thread in the main 3G forum but thought I’d ask here too, to increase odds of getting reply(ies). Hope that’s not a violation of forum etiquette – I’m pretty new at this.

Thanks for reading.

[Vanilla Sky]

If you're going to replace the panels, you're going to be learning how to weld. Welding in patch panels is really easy. You weld a tiny bit and then move to the other side of the panel so it doesn't warp. The welding is the easy part. It's getting the parts in the right shape before welding and holding it in place with cleco fasteners makes it pretty easy. I've done it with a MIG welder before. It can be done with flux core if you're careful.

I'm moving your post because oddly enough the technical sections of this forum get more traffic than this forum.

[steverine]

(...)I'm moving your post because oddly enough the technical sections of this forum get more traffic than this forum.

OK, thank you.
I don’t know if you noticed, but this post (Classic Chat, 1:27 AM, 8-2-15) was actually a shortened version of a post I originally submitted in the main 3Geez Accords forum a couple days ago, 7-31-15. So, sorry for the now 2 very similar posts in 3Geez forum. This morning I also considered posting same to "Project Central", “Restoration”, and "Interior & Exterior Care" – for same reason, i.e., to increase odds of more people seeing it - but now I am glad that I didn’t do that. Should I not do so at all – is that against forum etiquette?

Will put some pictures up shortly, too, of my car at current stage of work.