Inner Fender Well Repairs

[Martin]

Took advantage of this slow day waiting on the hurricane to best out some repairs. This went surprisingly well. fit was pretty tight on the patch panel and only had 3 blow throughs while welding it up. cleaned up really nice. now just gotta finish grinding on the inside and put a little primer down.

 

[rklein71]

Looks like it will work nicely. A picture of a piece I made for my Barracuda. Rod

 

[340challconvert]

Nice work on that fender well patch.
I need a similar patch; the center section of my right rear wheel well is rotted and will need to be repaired. About a 3 in sq section. You make it look easy!

 

[rklein71]

Another view, you can do it. Just try, you can always make a 2nd or 3rd attempt with the patch.

 

[rklein71]

Another patch, just in the front. My car had a bunch of these.

 

[340challconvert]

Looks like I will to fabricate some small patches.
Trunk extension on the right will be replaced. May be on the left. (have AMD pieces)

 

[rklein71]

Looks like I will to fabricate some small patches.
Trunk extension on the right will be replaced. May be on the left. (have AMD pieces) You can do it!

You can do it!

 

[Martin]

doing some more patches. man was there some nasty junk in the rocker panels. between 45yrs of dirt and sand from the media blasting it was a mess. even found part of a rats nest. that was not a planned use of time in the shop.

 

[Martin]

 

[Martin]

got one side of my patch panel almost done. got clean up some welds and finish grinding. patch panel fit pretty well with some hammering and grinding. othersise is a different story.

 

[rklein71]

I elected to replace my entire outer wheelhouse on my 71 Barracuda. Rod

 

[340challconvert]

On-going nice work with the patch panels!
I know what you mean about the crud that drops out of the panels.
A pile of dirt fell out of my quarter panel when I cut the lower part of the trunk extension.

 

[Jim k]

I elected to replace my entire outer wheelhouse on my 71 Barracuda. Rod

View attachment 53103

Did you fit the new quarter to the new wheelhouse yet ? The fit with my new amd outer wheelhouse was pretty poor. Had to do some modifying. Kinda disappointed with the piece

 

[340challconvert]

Did you fit the new quarter to the new wheelhouse yet ? The fit with my new amd outer wheelhouse was pretty poor. Had to do some modifying. Kinda disappointed with the piece

I am lucky in only needing about 4-5 inches of a patch on the lower bottom of each quarter
I picked up two different patch panels to see how each one fit; one from AMD and another from Goodmark. AMD of course more then 2x the price of Goodmark.

I thought the AMD panel fit better at the back by the bumper indentation.
The Goodmark panel fit the contour of the wheel well very well. The Goodmark panel also was taller and had more of the upper wheel well if needed.
The AMD panel was not as tall, taking in only part of the wheel well. I thought the fit was ok in the wheel well area.
I am fitting the lower patch on the trunk extension first so I could maintain the factory contour. When I put the outer quarter panel patches, they seem to fit well in the wheel well area overall.

This is what I found as I rough out the patches. I am too new at this type of work and have to be extra careful.
(1st pic is AMD, 2nd is the Goodmark)
Hope this helps.

 

[Martin]

Did you fit the new quarter to the new wheelhouse yet ? The fit with my new amd outer wheelhouse was pretty poor. Had to do some modifying. Kinda disappointed with the piece

This was part of the reason i elected to patch the wheel wells. My new amd quarters fit good on the front of the wheel well but have a big gap on the back part of the wheel opening arc. using the rest of my sacrifice wheel wells are for more patch panels

 

[Jim k]

I made the mistake of assuming the amd piece would fit well I would have been way better off just using it for patches. Oh well. Live and learn !

 

[Martin]

Damn, I was doing so good on my panel cutting. maybe it should be measure three times and only cut twice. Luckily its in the wheel well.

 

[Jim k]

Rats ! I cut it three times and it’s still too short !!

 

[340challconvert]

Damn, I was doing so good on my panel cutting. maybe it should be measure three times and only cut twice. Luckily its in the wheel well.

View attachment 53117

I know, I get very nervous cutting 175.00 dollar panels into pieces. I am holding the panels together with clamps, thinking that I will fit all the inner and outer patch pieces first before doing any final welding. I am enjoying watching your work on your car!

 

[rklein71]

I don't have a good picture of the outer wheelhouse once installed, however I did not have to modify the AMD piece to get a nice fit. I did have to modify the dutchman panel as the contour was not great on the driver side to match the quarter. I made small slits underneath on the flange to allow me to smooth the radius out to match the quarter. I also had to make small slits where the dutchman panel sits up against the lower rear window opening to get a better match. Very small tweaks overall. Rod