wells, a section of frame, and a quarter panel.
I bought a nibbler and rough cut out the qarter panel to see exactly what I had. The quarter had been repaired several times before with patch panels, pop rivets and bondo. It was poorly done to start with but got worse when the previous owner stuffed in 275 wheels that hit the fender. This caused pretty much everything to come apart. Chunks of bondo had come loose, the old pop rivet repair seperated, and the fender had split apart from the wheel well. All of this damage dicated a new quarter instead of patch panels. Once the quarter was off I drilled out the spot welds and popped it all loose with a cut off wheel and an air chisel.
A picture of one of the several patches on the wheel well looking at it from the inside of the car.
The flange held up as well as could be expected considering the amount of rust in there. A little hammer and dolly work will have this straightened out.
As rusty as this looks its just surface rust and really in pretty good condition. A little rust converter paint and then some encapsulator paint and it should look great and be solid for another 40+ years. A little more hammer and dolly work with striaghten this rigth out as well. The spot weld holes that I drilled will be used for plug welds when I install the new wheel well.
It took the better part of a weekend to get this apart and I was pretty happy with how it all went. I got really excited to shove the new wheel well in place to see how it fit and my excitement disipated quickly when it didnt fit very well. I will keep playing with it but right now it looks like a lot of work to get it lined up right.
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