[dataway]

I've got a situation on my 68 GTO rear quarter. I've replaced a section of the outer rear quarter by the lower rear wheel well opening, the typical rust location. I rebuilt about 6" of the lower well lip, the innermost piece where it pinch welds to the wheel house, and about 6" x 6" area of the outer corner cut from a lower quarter patch panel. Looks great from the outside, all nicely welded in ... however on the inside of the wheel well, where the wheel house, outer panel and the vertical section of trunk floor come together at the very inside tip of that corner I have an irregular hole about 1" square where not all the panels meet.

Is there an alternative to trying to jam a tiny piece of sheet metal in there from inside the wheel house and weld it in place? It's an extremely irregular shape .... on about 5 different planes and axis's. Filling it with bondo is out of the question of course, welding in a piece would be sketchy as it would be impossible to clean all the surfaces well enough. Needs to be filled to prevent water from entering the trunk from the wheel house.

I guess one option is wait till I sand blast the underside and see how well that would clean it up for welding.

Another question .... during the surgery to remove rust in both these corners on both sides I noticed two things ... between the outer panel and the wheel house there appears to be a thin cardboard or paper seal placed in before it was spot welded ... normal? Also ... in those corners I mentioned above there appears to be a small area of orange colored sponge of some sort, like a sealer down in the very corners .... again, something factory did?

I've owned the car for 45 years and it's never had any body work of any kind done to it, well, not any post delivery from the dealer anyway ( I knew the first owner).

[dataway]

OK then ... I'm going with expanding foam insulation

[Scott Stoneburg]

I would take some time and slowly shape a piece of metal to the hole. Then weld where you can, seam sealer the spots you cant

[400 4spd.]

Originally Posted by Scott Stoneburg

I would take some time and slowly shape a piece of metal to the hole. Then weld where you can, seam sealer the spots you cant

Yep.

[400 4spd.]

Originally Posted by Scott Stoneburg

I would take some time and slowly shape a piece of metal to the hole. Then weld where you can, seam sealer the spots you cant

Yep. Foam can hold moisture, seam sealer won't.

[JSchmitz]

Like has already been said, large gap = more steel. It's 1 square inch. You could have welded it in in about the same amount of time it took you to type that paragraph long question. LOL!

[TAKerry]

Originally Posted by 400 4spd.

Yep. Foam can hold moisture, seam sealer won't.

We do a lot of rot repair on houses. In most of the cases we find that the homeowner has filled the hole with spray foam then sealed over with something. The spray foam acts like a sponge and only makes the problem 100% worse! Spray foam is ok for insulation around a window or door but dont put it someplace that will get wet.

For this repair I would def. try to make some kind of metal patch, maybe can be put into place with panel adhesive? Might be a pain to do now but will be much worse to do it twice.

[dataway]

Good ideas, I'll give it a shot. Metal work is my occupation, but sitting inside a wheel house with my face 3" from the gap I'm trying to fill didn't appeal to me .. but that's the only way I can see it. It's the inside of the very tip of the lower rear wheel house where it comes to together with two other panels ... so truly a pain. Maybe I'll press some modeling clay in there to make an impression and see how close I can get with a patch on the bench.

Panel adhesive seems like a good idea too.

[steve v]

Make a pattern out of a piece of thin cardboard or poster board first to get a close sizing then do it in sheet metal. It likely won't be as bad to do as you think.

[TAKerry]

Good Luck, theres always at least one of those spots that seems worse than the entire car to fix!

[Greg Reid]

I had a very similar area on my Datsun to repair. It took four or five separate pieces and some hammer/anvil work to make the patch. Mocked it up first with manilla folder paper.
You can't see it here but it is inside the patch area that you can see.

[dataway]

Yep, exact same scenario except on the rear wheel opening ... without the car on a rotisserie it's a real pain to get to.

[Greg Reid]

Yeah, head up a hole. And if your eyesight has deteriorated like mine, it's hard to get far enough away from it to see well.

[einstein]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

Yeah, head up a hole. And if your eyesight has deteriorated like mine, it's hard to get far enough away from it to see well.

I can relate to this! I stack up 2 pairs of 2.50x cheap readers, $7.68 for a 3-pack at Wally World. Bright LED headlight from HF helps too. This ridiculous looking get-up keeps my hands free and my clients laughing when I have to do this working inside our equipment.

[Greg Reid]

Yeah, and having a welding helmet on top of the glasses doesn't help either!
I wonder if anyone makes a prescription welding lens....

[326HO-Lemans]

Check out Fitzee’s Fabrications on YouTube. He’s got some unique solutions to panel replacement.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dataway]

Greg, do you have a cheater lens in your helmet? I use my readers and the helmet cheater so I can work real close.

[Greg Reid]

No, never heard of it. I'll look into it though.
I never needed glasses until I reached my mid 50s. Then it went from no glasses, to readers to bi-focals in just a few years....So I have this issue where things are not quite close enough or not quite far enough, even with my prescription bi-focals on.
The last time I welded I tried the strongest readers I could get under the helmet and put the prescriptions aside. That worked fairly well but far from ideal.

[dataway]

They are very common, just do a search on welding helmet cheaters on Amazon. Can sometimes be a pain to get them mounted in the helmet, some are made to accept them, some aren't, but you can usually wedge them in somehow. I've been using them for 20 years.

[Greg Reid]

I definitely need one. Thanks!