[roger1]

Originally Posted by iceman411

When I did my ‘69 I used the outer wheelhouses and they worked fine... way better fit than the panels that are offered for the ‘70-‘72 body style...

What part of the panel not fit right?
When I did my ‘71 convertible I had to graft the new metal, from the reproduction panels, in like this, since no outer wheelhouse is offered in convertible...

It's in the lower rear part that they don't fit. Yours do not look like mine do there. I'm guessing there must be different manufacturers for these. I got mine from OPGI and they are black e-coated.

[iceman411]

Originally Posted by roger1

It's in the lower rear part that they don't fit. Yours do not look like mine do there. I'm guessing there must be different manufacturers for these. I got mine from OPGI and they are black e-coated.

Here’s some pics on my actual ‘69 that I redid and then sold... one place makes the panels and all the companies select from the pile...Mike

[dataway]

Roger ... I bought the Goodmark patches that are just the skins without the brace. Bunch of people were sold out of them, found a pair at Mill Supply. One fender has a good brace, the other .. we'll see, looks like it might just need an oval 16ga patch in the center of it. I'm going to give it a shot TIG welding them on the bench.

You SAY it's your last major project

Realistically ... bending equipment like I have is less suitable for body work than it is for the mostly industrial type fabrication I do. Now an English wheel, you could probably make use of .... I have zero experience on one of those. Not to mention how cool it would look in your shop.

[Greg Reid]

That should work out fine. I had some issues in that same area with mine. In fact, I wound up cutting the entire outer edge off my replacement inner and tacking it onto the factory inner. Then I made my wheel lip patch, which was cut off of a quarter panel skin.

[n20ta2]

That inside area was a pain in mine, the junk outer panels I bought didn't even extend all the way down like they were supposed to. I ended up having to fabricate an extension to get it like factory.

[roger1]

This is definitely a pain and time consuming.
But I believe as stock there was a little bit of exposed area of the inside quarter skin at the very bottom. Did you leave any exposed on yours?

[north]

If this helps here are some pics I took years ago of the rear of the drivers side rear wheel opening. This is all untouched original paint and never undercoated. What looks like some undercoating on the wheel opening lip is actually some factory overspray of the Shutz coating of the wheel tub, it was applied after the car was painted but before the wheel opening moldings were installed..

[north]

If you want any other pics of these areas let me know.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by north

If you want any other pics of these areas let me know.

Thanks for your help! Cool you have such a pristine original car.

[n20ta2]

Yes there was a spot open there,
I left the bottom corner open between the quarter and the outer wheelhouse. The factory stuffed that with seam sealer. Mine might have been a little tighter but there is seam sealer in there now too. I epoxy primed it after I was done installed urathane seam sealer then sprayed it with undercoating.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by n20ta2

Yes there was a spot open there,
I left the bottom corner open between the quarter and the outer wheelhouse. The factory stuffed that with seam sealer. Mine might have been a little tighter but there is seam sealer in there now too. I epoxy primed it after I was done installed urathane seam sealer then sprayed it with undercoating.

I readjusted what I had yesterday and finished this part up today. Here's the inside:



I've got that bottom part of the area fitting pretty tightly against the mocked up quarter skin. Sounds like our process of finishing off is similar. I will blast this all clean then coat with epoxy primer. I'll then add the urethane seam sealer and then coat it on top with another coat of epoxy primer.

Here's the outside:



Next, I will add metal to the rest of the wheelhouse perimeter where it is gone from the rustout.

[n20ta2]

That looks great, thays exactly what I did.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by n20ta2

That looks great, thays exactly what I did.

Thanks.

I finished the outer wheelhouse today. I added several pieces around the perimeter. Here I was working on the second to last piece:







Last piece in and all finished up. All that's left to do on the driver side is to install the quarter skin patches.





I did a little work on the passenger side today too. Got the patch welded in to repair the area in the lower rear of the inner wheelhouse. I also did some cleaning up on the outer wheelhouse to get clean edges to weld patches to.
As you can see, I had to cut more of the metal out on this side compared to the other.

[roger1]

I've worked on the passenger side outer wheelhouse at least some every day since my last post 6 days ago. It was very time consuming.





The lower rear section took the most time. Quite a bit more time than on the driver side since more had to be cut out.



Glad to have this part done so I can move on to installing the patch panel quarter skins.

[roger1]

So for the second time, I aggravated the sacroiliac in my lower back. This time I took over a week off from working on the car. And during this time I bought a special kind of creeper seat that was designed for this issue. Funny looking contraption:



Tried it out the last couple of days for short durations and it does seem to work. My back has continued to improve.
So I started working on installing the quarter panel patch panels on the p/s. I got the rear one tacked in place and have the front one clamped on and ready to scribe a line for the final cut on the existing metal.





I did have one issue where the 2 panels meet together. These panels come flanged on the ends and of course the best thing to do is not use them and do butt welds instead. So I cut those flanges off and this left them a little short necessitating an extension be fabricated and welded to one the panels.

[vertigto]

Wow...nice work.

Hope your back returns to normal quickly...interesting creeper.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by vertigto

Wow...nice work.
Hope your back returns to normal quickly...interesting creeper.

Thanks!
The creeper is helping. Glad I bought it.

I got a new goody for the car delivered today:



I won't be ready for it for quite a long while but YearOne had a price on that was so good, I figured I better jump on it. I got it for $1895 plus $46.50 shipping and no tax. I thought they had it on sale but I'm now wondering if they had it mispriced since they raised their price on it shortly after I ordered it.

Installing the quarter panel patch panels has been pretty time consuming. Several iterations of welding and planishing. It's coming along well but still have a little more planishing left to do on the rear section.
I've been using a combination of a hammer and dolly and slapper and dolly and I needed my wife's help for some of it.

[keith k]

Originally Posted by roger1

Installing the quarter panel patch panels has been pretty time consuming. Several iterations of welding and planishing. It's coming along well but still have a little more planishing left to do on the rear section.
I've been using a combination of a hammer and dolly and slapper and dolly and I needed my wife's help for some of it.

That is some nice work!

[Greg Reid]

That looks great to me. The front half weld seam is practically invisible.
As for back pain, my lower back...and upper too actually...bothers me on a regular basis, sometimes chronically where I can barely get in and out of a vehicle or lean forward even to brush my teeth without supporting myself on the sink. That one usually occurs when I do something stupid...but sometimes all it takes is something like putting on my sock.
I got one of those inversion tables. I used it today actually, and even 10 minutes on it does wonders for me. It doesn't 'cure' anything permanently but any amount of relief is heaven as I'm sure you know.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by keith k

That is some nice work!

Thanks Keith!

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

That looks great to me. The front half weld seam is practically invisible.
As for back pain, my lower back...and upper too actually...bothers me on a regular basis, sometimes chronically where I can barely get in and out of a vehicle or lean forward even to brush my teeth without supporting myself on the sink. That one usually occurs when I do something stupid...but sometimes all it takes is something like putting on my sock.
I got one of those inversion tables. I used it today actually, and even 10 minutes on it does wonders for me. It doesn't 'cure' anything permanently but any amount of relief is heaven as I'm sure you know.

Thanks Greg!
I'll get the rear portion looking like the front with a little more work. I tackled the harder part first. The area will need a few coats of polyester primer or a skim coat of filler when the time comes as I think it's pretty much impossible to install a patch panel with the quarter on the car and get it 100% perfect. My goal is to keep filler needed to no thicker than 1/16".

I haven't had any problems with my upper back but do have arthritis in my neck vertebrae that causes me pain. Been dealing with that for quite a while now. I've had a total of 7 injections but didn't get any improvement from them. This lower back pain is new over the last month or so since I've been working on these wheel wells. The creeper has helped but the pain is not gone. I may try a lower back support belt next. They are supposed to help sacroiliac (SI) joint pain.