with the help of a guy with some basic body working skills, i hammered
the mangled side panel on my van back to within an inch or so of it's
original position, then secured it there with some metal brackets.
now i'm going to cover the gap with fiberglass, but this brings me to
another question.  i have been told by several people that fiberglass
should only be applied to bare metal (it even says so on the resin
can), but the guy at the body supply shop where i bought the resin
said that i should primer over the bare metal before i put the glass
down, because fiberglass "sweats" moisture when it gets warm and will
cause the metal to rust underneath it.  then he pointed me to some
special metal etching primer and directed me to apply that before i
started with the fiberglass.

any ideas on this?  has anyone here tried putting fiberglass on to
freshly sanded steel?  did it rust?  has anyone tried sticking resin
to new primer?

thanks for the advice guys.  i'll have some photos to post of this
gruesome tale once it's over.

Ben.