MTFCA Forum

I have seen many different ways to fix rust holes, but this is a first. Shove a piece of tin inside the body behind the holes and hold it in place with screws and nuts and then wood screws thru the tin into the wood sill.

I came across a similar repair technique years ago... only in place of fresh tin, they used old license plates

My '23 roadster had aluminum screen door panels cut and pop riveted to the steel. That marriage didn't work out too well.

I have seen similar repairs many times. There are worse ways to treat that problem.

When I discovered my 1915 tourer, the front cowl panels had an extra rolled in swage about 1/3 the way up the panels. The swage was the same as that rolled on the edge of the doors and on the top panel where it met the side panels on the cowl.
When the time came for its restoration, that swage was in fact rolled on the top edge of a patch panel which was fitted over the rusted out bottom section on each side. Of interest was the fawn paintwork underneath the patch panel, and the chocolate pinstripe on it. Someone had obviously treasured the car some time.

Allan from down under.

When repairing combat damage to UH-1E (Huey) helicopters in Vietnam, Marines in the field opened up beer cans and cut patches to size and riveted them over the holes. When the war ended in January 1973 and the helicopters were returned stateside, we came across many of these patches at MCAS, New River NC with the Budweiser lettering painted over with olive drab spray paint. Turns out beer can metal was the perfect material for this type of repair and God knows, they had plenty of repair material. LOL! Semper Fi. Jim Patrick

Seeing that they used slotted screws, the repair is probably pretty old and therefore may have been a practical rather than aesthetic.

If so, it's a decent repair, especially for someone who could only afford a used Model T as their car.