Posted 01 January 2008 - 07:47 PM
As said there is definitely no way of deseaming a mini without using body filler. As for lead filling, it's very expensive to get someone who can do it properly these days, and it's still filling, plus it adds alot of weight. Modern polyester body filler is excellent stuff and if used right will work perfectly. All body shops use it, in anything from a Ferrari to a fiesta. The aim when doing any body repair is to get the area as near to perfect as possible, but 99% of the time you will require a certain amount of filler. Anyone who just fills a dent with it rather than removing the worst of the dent first doesn't know what they are doing, and it's people like that who give it a bad reputation amongst some people.
To deseam, start by cutting sections of the gutter off in 4 inch sections, leaving about a ml of material still remaining, so you have some metal to weld to. it doesn't matter if the weld is slightly proud of the surface, it can be dressed and tapped in slightly if required. carry on this process, cutting off sections, welding them cutting another etc, until you're done. Obviously you'd have to remove the interior etc to prevent setting anything on fire. Unless you're an experienced bodywork person, it's not an easy job to get it looking right. Also, before you cut any of the gutter off, make sure that the roof skin lines up with the top of the windows all around, as it hardly ever does, and can make the job even more tricky.
