Enjoying your build. It is nice to see the forming of complex shapes with manageable pieces to get to the final shape. It is practical and well thought out. Your work shows what is possible with careful planning & what can be fabricated with tools, wood and equipment that a regular builder may have or easily afford. Cost is mainly time, metal & patience to walk the car back to its original condition. That is a budget that works for a lot of builders. Nicely done & keep up the good work. Thank you for sharing the details of your work. Glenn
patterg2003 pretty much said what I was going to. (thanks for saving me all that typing) I will add that watching you do this is what brings me to the HAMB.
Agreed. There are a lot of skilled builders with fully equipped shops to making magic with ordinary garage tools. A great place to learn & have an appreciation for all those who take the time to post their detailed threads. It is appreciated and shares their work well beyond their bench. I am sure that some take as much time detailing their work for the HAMB as it took to make the part. The HAMB is full of masters & appreciate them all.
Thanks for the kind words! I haven't posted in a few weeks so I have some new stuff... The new quarter is welded solid. Inside: This shows how many features this area has A pillar again with subrail in place. I got into the habit of wiping Ospho on the panels to prevent rusting. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The passenger inner fender well is equally toasty... New patches in place: This point is a mini milestone: the lower body is completely done! There are still patches needed where the fenders bolt on to the body, trunk edge, etc. but I will probably do that after blasting. I decided to check the fit of the trunk panel made earlier. Overall not bad, the curvature of the inner fender wells needs to be tweaked and the two "tails" as well. A couple of flanges needed tweaking and few cuts here and there. The entire trunk floor has a 5/8" flange which is pointing down which will be spot welded every inch or so to the body. I'm quite happy with the fit. The trunk will only be welded in after blasting and primer. I'll start on the fenders next. They are pretty rough and will take a lot of work, as well as radiusing the wheel opening, to allow a wheel change once the rear is lower and also to allow 40 Ford fender skirts to be mounted. The stock openings look awkward, too. Stay tuned. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Here's the passenger rear fender. There is plenty of fiberglass and bondo on this poor thing. The round hole is where the taillight mounted and at one time had a round backing plate on the inside. After some clean up. There also is collision damage along the lower edge. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
First order of business is to patch the front edge where it meets the running board. In order to establish the exact geometry, I decided to mock up the running boards and screw the fenders on. Looking at the rotted area from inside the fender towards the front. I already placed a paper template between the fender and body to trace the bolt hole locations. Here's the template next to the section to be replaced. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Bolting the patch in place for initial shaping. Creating the basic shape, followed with some hammer and dolly. And English wheel planishing. Already fitting quite well After a rough trim. Leaving about 3/8" from the initial trace. After some more tweaking I'm ready to tack weld the patch on top of the fender for final trimming. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Jumping the gun a little bit: I held up the repro 40 Ford fender skirt and traced the outline to determine how much of the wheel opening can be trimmed back. The rear corner will also require a little tuck, as the Mercury fender is more rounded at the bottom. But more later... Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I am doing similar work and am getting a LOT of inspiration from your detailed posts. Thank you. What I need now is motivation
I guess I should quit complaining about the crappy rear fenders I have accumulated for my 39 Ford project and just fix them when the time comes. Thanks for the inspiration to give it a try. Oh, and nice job by the way.
What are you planning to do with the new wheel opening? I am thinking about going at it the exact same way, but am unsure he that new opening should be "finished". Great job! Keep the updates coming! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
This is amazing. I guess there´s pretty much no car that you would ever look at and think it was too far gone. It´s just a matter of time and if it´s worth the effort.
It's funny, I'm going to do the opposite of you to some 40 Ford fenders. I'll lower the openings a little to give it a more Merc feel.
Great comments, all! Voh: there are at least two options I considered to finish the rolled edge. The one I will try is what the incredibly talented Chris Casny successfully pulled off on his Merc build by bending a rod or tube to the contour, tack welding it in place and the carefully bending and hammering the trimmed edge around the rod, then removing the rod again. The other method is to use thin walled tubing shaped correctly, then sawed in half and welded to the trimmed fender opening. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I partly do this out of necessity because I'm stuck with a project in worse shape than I initially thought, but then every time I get discouraged I have to remind myself that this is my hobby which gives me tremendous satisfaction even if it seems overwhelming at times. I have to focus on one task at a time. If a problem is too big, break it down again and again until you can make it your bitch. I have machined and fabricated for a long time, but never really done any sheet metal work before this project, so I am learning as I am going. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
A hurricane, work and such made me take a break from working on the car, but today I got some time in. I welded in the patch on the fender and made a backing piece for the inside where the running board attaches. I started out with a slightly larger patch but it was hard to form the patch to exactly match the fender contour so I trimmed it down a little more in order not to end up with dead space between thee two pieces. Here is the reinforcement patch from the inside of the fender. It is plug welded every inch or so along the entire perimeter. The edge is slightly smaller to allow seam sealer to be applied. Everything is wiped down with Ospho, which accounts for the full look. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Next is the patch for the hole where the tail lights used to be. Started with a flat piece after making a paper template. Gave it a couple of good whacks with the plastic mallet to stretch the metal, then went on the English wheel to smooth the bumps. Had to repeat the process a couple of times to get the right amount of curvature into the panel, every time followed by manually shaping the panel for best fit. Working on one side will also affect the other sides so it is an iterative process. Next step will be to cut out the damaged area undersize to allow the patch to sit flush with the underlying fender. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Perfectly legit. Bitching goes up exponentially as you move into the 3rd dimension. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
This is an excelent reference for me, Im just about to start the same body repairs ut up until now had zero reference.. please keep posting as much as you can so I can be inspired by your progress.............and copy your repair sections LOL
This was probably the most challenging part so far. Fitting and cutting probably took me 3 hours. I first cut about 1" inside the finished size to get the panel to fit closer, then scribe the outside, cut one side to the final outline, repeat the process until all sides fit. The problem is that when making an adjustment to the contour on one side, the other two sides move to compensate. I ended up with a slight misalignment at the top edge, which required a couple of pie cuts and hammer and dolly work to flatten the area. I will still need to run the thin cut off wheel along the edge to create an even gap before welding. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The Jalopy Journal
