Question: Is a burned Explorer's metal still good?

[Marc Dykeman]

i have a chance to get an explorer that had caught fire. it burned all the paint off and now the metal has surface rust. I want it as a long term project but i need to know if the metal is still good enough to reuse for the project? Any thoughts or comments will help thanx.

 

[yob_yeknom]

As long as the rust hasn't eaten through the metal, it should still be good. A little heat isn't going to hurt metal.

 

[Longs]

I think you'll find that the panels in question - hood and fenders, at least- will be warped from the heat. You won't be able to see it with the paint burned off, but when you refinish, you'll find high spots and the waves will be visible in the finished paint job. If I recall correctly from my days hanging out at my buddy's body shop, the metal will also be brittle and harder to work with after the heat treatment.

To be sure, call a few body shops and as their opinioins. My guess is that they won't reuse panels that have been in a fire. I could be wrong, though...

 

[yob_yeknom]

Me and my dad primed (and put in an engine) an old Falcon for a friend of his. It had caught of fire at the carburetor and burned the entire engine compartment, hood, front end, and front fenders. Everything on it was fine, just a big mess to sand off all that burnt paint.

 

[Ray Lobato]

Monkey boy,
That might be true, but the key words are old Falcon.
The metal on those things were alot thicker than what is being used today. I would get a few second opinions from a few body shops just to make sure.

 

[yob_yeknom]

Originally posted by Ray Lobato
Monkey boy,
That might be true, but the key words are old Falcon.
The metal on those things were alot thicker than what is being used today. I would get a few second opinions from a few body shops just to make sure.

Good point. I never thought of that.

 

[JDraper]

I would be really careful when thinking about using a vehicle that was burned. Whenever you heat thin metals quickly, they have a tendency to become very brittle. One of the uses for the equipment my company mfg's is for detection of metallic parts that have been overheated (or heat treated). If the temperature of the fire reached over 1100° F or so (called the Curie point). The lattice structure of the metal can be altered, damaging the structural integrity of the material.

Just my .02.