Hey Folks,
2011 Fit 5 speed. Hit by drunk driver in nyc who didn't have insurance.
Trying to do this on this cheap since I don't have collision.
any thoughts about tools / process for cleaning up my mechanics job though?
I've never sanded and painted a car.

New here btw. Was active in forum for my 1980 cx500 for a while. Met a lot of great people.
Psyched to be back in this space. Thanks in advance.

Thanks

Patch work by my trusted friends at #Newfoundmotors (hit them up for good deals)

 

What is your end goal?

There are plenty of Youtube videos showing how to do basic auto bodywork, sanding, and painting. Most of them show a final outcome that, in my opinion, ranges from "Why bother" to "sort of O.K. from 10 feet away." In general, they don't really show you the true amount of time, effort, and skill required to effect a satisfactory repair, and I've yet to seen a DIY bodywork video that shows you what the repair looks like a year later after daily driving on salt-covered roads. Hint: probably not great.

At the most basic level, you need remove any existing corrosion and seal the metal from oxygen, moisture, and contaminants (e.g., salt) to prevent future corrosion. If you don't care about appearance, regularly apply a liberal coating of something like Fluid Film and you should be able to keep the panel from rusting.

If you want it to look slightly better and (hopefully) not rust, you need to sand the damage back to bare metal, clean (degrease) really well, and apply multiple thin coats of primer, basecoat, and finally clearcoat. You could try to blend the new paint in with the existing paint, but to be honest if you're not repairing the underlying damage it's not worth the effort. Don't forget the inner fender area; if bare metal is exposed it will rust even faster than the outside of the panel.

If you want something approximating an undamaged fender you have a much bigger mountain to climb. Some of the Youtube videos will suggest that you can just slap a couple inches of bondo on the panel, sand for a few minutes, and hit it with some spray can magic. To me this will looks worse than what you have now. If you want a repair that doesn't immediately draw attention to itself you have to replicate, to the best of your abilities, a professional repair. That entails reshaping the panel by hand or by cutting out the damage and welding in new metal. Once the panel is very close to perfect, you use a very thin skim of filler material for the final contouring and filling of small imperfections. Then the whole thing has to be sealed (see above) and finally painted (primer, basecoat, clearcoat), with care taken to blend the paint in with the undamaged portions of the panel. The same basic steps apply to the bumper, except you're repairing plastic instead of metal so you don't need to worry about rust.

Professional bodywork is expensive because it is time-consuming and requires quite a bit of experience and skill.