Greetings from Mississippi! Hey can somebody here help with a body work question? I am shortly to bring home a '52 Chevy 2 door HT. I really think this car would look better w/ the rear fender wells radiused around the tires instead of horizontally across them. I don't know if the inner liners come all the way out to the fender opening or if they **** up against the insides like a 55-57 Chevy car does. I'm Diesel Mechanic not a body guy so talk to me like I don't know a Damn thing about body work! Thanks Andy
Remember to save them so you can weld them back in if you don’t like it.. You may consider copying the front opening also. A 55 Nomad will give you an illustration of that. I’m sure you can find a lot of photos of 49-52 “g***ers” which are normally radius.
The inner fender meets up with the outer fender skin pretty close to the wheel opening, so when you radius the outer part, you're going to have to do some work piecing the inner part to meet up with it. Highly recommend you look at pictures of those cars with radiused rear fenders....I think they look great with it radiused, IF the tires are sticking out past the fender. Otherwise, it looks kind of weird.
We’re radiusung some at school. We bent 1/4 inch rod the shape we wanted. Used the tire we’re running to make the shape. If my high school students can do it, you can. It’s just metal.
squirrel this is some of the info I was looking for, thanks. This car is a basket case, the man who owns it installed a 305/R4/Trailbazer rear axle. It is dis***embled again & he is smoothing panels & priming. Funny the 2 dr HT was always thought to be a funky ugly car compared to the Sedan, I don't know why it appeals to me, prolly since I never had one of this style car before. It is a Deluxe. Anyway when I get the car home I can think more about the rear fenders. I had a 55 Chevy 150 that had the rear fenderwells radiused. The metal was flared out & rolled back under, all by hand & it looked great. I would really like this car to wind up with one my 283s & a 4 speed. I've always had the at***ude that if somebody else could do it then so could I. F-one I promise not to do a hack job on this car, if it can't be done right then it won't happen.
Figure out the ride height you want and wheel and tire you’re gonna use. Cut the qtr and wheel house to fit. We used steel rod to weld in an edge and add strength.
I like that aria of chevys infact one of the four Chevrolets I've owned in my life was a 1950 two door. I had never noticed that as far as the car goes it reminds me that babies got back. Lol
you can also use tube, my Chevy II has 1/2" OD 1/16" wall mild steel tubing, bent around a tire, where it's radiused.
I did one once with electrical conduit. Bent around a bigger tire than I was going to use so the well had an air gap around the tire.
I'm with you, first time I seen it done was in a book, 40 years ago, and he used 1/2" conduit. Here's big Willie's car at Bowling Green. Looks good with the right wheels and tires.
I think the red and black cars Arkie posted are gorgeous! Customs, not g***ers. So it always comes back to what kind of car does the OP want?
Depends on the style you are building. 53 and 54s are damn fine looking cars as built. Hard to improve on. I ran Hurst cheaters on mine based on 235 casings and 7" wagon wheels and they fit fine without radiusing . And hard tops have always been considered the cl***ier of the lineup.
I use galvanized sheetmetal wear ever I can when rebuilding body's, I grind back the galvanizing so I'm not burning it when welding.
Back when I was even more stupid that I am now, I built a rail dragster out of 1" EMT conduit. VW transaxle and engine. Had to "magnaflux" it every Saturday morning before heading to the sand drags
I remember way back helping out on cars were we used conduit, then slit it so it slid up over the edge and then brazing it. Yes, this was a long time ago, but know where one of the cars still is and everything is still holding up nicely.
Yea there is always that. You have to grind the galvanized stuff off where you are going to weld, or you get mighty sick if you breath the fumes.
If you are building a faux-g***er, or an actual one, then it looks right at home. If not, then I would not do it. I have seen several done, and each one looked like a big mistake. Two owners even admitted that they made a mistake, but were in too deep, and could not go back.
Randomly pulled off internet. I'd love to see more of it too. edit: just did a search and found it https://kustomrama.com/wiki/Ralph_Tyrone_Scarfo's_1950_Oldsmobile
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