Found some old damage above tail light

After some preliminary smoothing of the epoxy filler from last week (photo #1) I got curious why there was so much filler above the RH tail light. I used my CP orbital sander to taper off the good paint to the left, and when that failed to turn up any high spots I cut four exploratory notches with my grinder (photo #2). As it turns out there is a wide indentation above the tail light, most likely the result of collision damage. The high points are at the right just after where the body curves forward and at the left directly in line with the tail light opening (photo #3). On the left the high point is steel, but on the right it is lead.

Photo #1


Photo #2 Looking for high spots.


Photo #3 Blue tape marks high spots.


Having worked out the extent of the low spot I decided to take it all down to bare metal and build it up new with POR-15 Epoxy Filler. After a whole lot of grinding I did the Marine Clean - Metal Prep thing, then globbed on a thick layer of filler. Next week will start with a lot of grinding, mostly by hand.





The last two pics show a wider view of the rear end and some stuff my friends at the shop gave me, a storage bin, a tool box, and a set of BMW of Honolulu license plate frames.