A semi-hero day yesterday as I got a lot done the past week or two.
Started by creating a wooden hammer form that would let me create a new patch panel for the rear wheel arch. The aftermarket patch panels for that area don’t have the small bead that runs around the wheel arch section so I had to build one myself. I laid my paper template over the wood and then used a fat marker to run along the edge which gave me a nice black line to use as a reference.
Once I cut on that curved line, I formed a steel sandwich that followed that curve and trimmed them to match the wooden form. I cut a section of the fender arch out to check my dimensions and it looked good.
I originally tried screwing the sheet down over the wooden form, but the screws pulled out too easily when the hammer put any kind of force on the panel. So I glued up a custom plywood clamping block that matched the curvature of the form. This worked very well. You can see the edge of the 18g sheet sticking out of the form ready to be hammered into compliance.
I wish I could say I got it right on the first try but this was my forth and final attempt at forming it. I had to create some metal shrinking pliers to get the lower section to fold the way it needed to and also used a torch to soften the folds enough to hammer them flat after I removed it from the fixture.
Here’s my tuition pile starting from left to right.
Trimmed and welded the patch back onto the fender arch. I got 4-5 blowouts with the TIG but once I discovered that I need to initiate the arc on solid metal and then drag it across the joint to the other side, I could just about fusion weld the panel without filler.
And there it is with the welds ground down and hammer planished. It looks and fits really well. Feels really good seeing that fixed and even opens up the tires clearance a bit more.
If there’s any interest in the video of the process, I’ve got the first one up and 4-5 total to go that I’ll be able to upload over the next few days.
also started a rumble channel for those that hate youtube.
