[Kell]

Anybody ever weld in the air vents on the TA fenders before? After blasting, my driver side TA fender I picked up looks like a LOT of work, might be easier to graft this on my old fender I am thinking,

BUT

everything I weld ends up warping, and I know, I know, only short amounts, move around etc. but they warp anyway. I have a small welder that doesn't put out tons of heat either (small gas hobart)

Anyway, is this even possible? has anyone tried it successfully?

thanks,
Kelly

[Cammer-6]

guy stopped by here the other day with his custom 68 Bird droptop.
He had installed 70+ extractors in the 68 fenders and it looked factory
so short answer is,yes you can
spot weld it and go slow so you dont warp.

[Formula8]

yes, and it is easy if you go slow. you are going to get some warpage but the good news is that for the most part, the warpage goes downward. After some grinding of the weld and minor hammer and dolly work, I used a relatively thin coat of all-steel before filler. Search Norwood's postings as he has done this as well and is far better with metal work than I am. This was one of my first welding projects and it came out just fine. I butt welded my vents in but if I had it over to do again, I think I would have done a flange on three or four of the sides.

[Kell]

Thanks,
I will have to try this, my driver side is horrible, I will probably post a picture, nightmare after blasting.

I have tried overlapping (flange?) and butt welding with some air gap in between, but I always seem to get warpage. Does seem to do better with my little 110 gas welder at home as opposed to the larger one I usually use at work.

[scott w]

here's my 74 Lemans fender with the vent welded in. You can also warp your metal during grinding, so take it easy there also.

[Norwood]

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...ghlight=fender

[Kell]

Thanks guys,
Well, I have to get the car together quick because we have sold our house so I welded that puppy in there this afternoon (before reading the link). I probably should have butt the metal together but to be honest the neither the 72 fender or the donor fender are all that great, though the 72 is far less "crashed".

My only warping is the top right where there is not as much support from the structure behind it, I will fill it in and forget it, not nearly as bad as the bottom which warped like crazy. I did it a couple of years ago when I thought the 72 would actually be restorable.

Anyway, the passenger fender turned out to be completely rust free, which around here is scarce as hens teeth, so I will fix the dent in the front and run it even though the tops are not going to match now. You can see in the picture that the donor fender looks horrible, the sandblaster didn't even get the bondo out it was so bad, but the bottom is riddled with rust as well, and the inside was really rusty everywhere. I just can't pony up the $465 to get a new fender shipped to me at this point. If I had the time, I wouldn't hesitate to do this again (except the right way) if I found a really nice firebird fender, but it seems every single firebird and trans am fender has been crashed severely as well as rusted through around here. At least I got my radiator support blasted, repaired, and epoxy coated, and I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't been forced to (from the crash).

donor


after welding, almost embarrassed to post it after seeing the others


my awesome rust free passenger