How would you handle this patch? I'm trying to fit this fender patch, but the upper curve is pretty far away from the fender. I don't actually need it to go that high, but I need it to fit the fender a lot better than this. The fender is mostly flat, like a Shoebox. The old fender was brutally mangled by a prior owner's welding and filled with a lot of filler. The other trick is that the patch, and mangled metal go right to the edge into the A-pillar (see pic), but not enough to fold over. I also included a picture of the "good" side for comparison. I have an English wheel and shallow-throat shrinker/stretcher, but I'm not sure of the best approach here.
I’d say that you need a bit of shrink in the top of the wheel opening flange, don’t go crazy, do one and check fit , proceed from there
If you don't need patch that high up over the fender arch, don't. Don't replace any more than you absolutely have to.
I was thinking the same thing, but will I have more strength, and less likely to warp, if I go up into the curve?
Any thoughts on the edge? The patch goes exactly to the edge and I know you're not supposed to weld on a corner like that
From what I can see, I'd cut that "patch panel" out totally, build my own and run it around the corner into a flat area just inside the door appature. It doesn't seem like that hard of a panel to make. I don't like welding on corners if I can find a flat area next to it to weld to. ..
check out you tube " fitzee's fabrication" vids. he does some amazing reconstruction work with almost no specialty tools. highly recomended!
I did a little shrinking and it caused the panel to bow out a little rather than tucking the top in. I'm thinking maybe some pie cuts may be a better option. Iostone - I am cutting out that goobered up patch. That's the whole point. The new panel is black, but I still need to make a patch as well.
I s the wheel opening flange a 90 or is it rolled? By all I know ( which ain’t much ) shrinks on the inner lip is going to make the outer part of the flange want to be proud and make the upper part of the panel want to tip back in. Make sure that you don’t need all the patch panels before cutting any off, rust happens in weird ways , really ****s to have to make little patches due to mis calculation and finding an unexpected cheesy spot I’d be removing those ****py patches on the bottom to replace as one piece hopefully, except the inner structure probably needs repair as well
With no real indication of where exactly the panel isn't fitting to the body it's hard to say for sure. You shouldn't have shrunk anything in the wheel flange opening. You want to bring the outside edge closer to the body so it needs to be shorter to pull it closer so that is where you should be shrinking. A lot of it is just rolling the panel in while removing excess. I would try just manipulating the outer edge by had to try and get it closer and possibly more evenly spaced away from the original before I did anything. If the gap is where I think it is you need to shrink where the blue line is in this picture if it's not just rotate the line to where it sticks out. More shrinking where it is furthest out and less as you move either direction from the center of the high spot.
It looks to me that the bottom lip of the door has already been compromised to clear the patch where the rocker and fender meet. I would expect the rear edge of the fender was a folded over lip to provide a uniform curve. When the door opens, it will tuck inside of the fender at door edge. If the curve of the fender/door edge is too shallow, when the door is fully open, the door will make contact with the fender edge, about 3" from the front edge of the door. Everything on the patch job looks like it has been compromised, the gap looks good, but the question of the fender curve has me wondering, because of what looks like there are bends in the bottom corner of the door, near the front edge. I have to think that originally, the patch job on the rocker was a failed attempt of making the fender try to be part of the rocker panel, when it probably originally the fender overlapping the rocker that had an elevation change to go under the rear fender edge. If the fender and the rocker are suppose to be separated pieces that have been joined together, that would explain the patch panel looking to be incorrect. I believe you need to repair the front of the rocker. then you need to be sure the rear edge of the fender has the flattened lip, and the entire curve matches the curve of the front edge of the door.
Sorry for posting pics out of sequence. I have replaced the rocker and the nasty fender patch will be replaced (between the red line and black patch panel). The fender and rocker are meant to be fused. The new patch is not long enough to wrap around the A-pillar. It was probably meant to be cut short and welded to the old panel, but mine is a mess. I guess I need to make a new piece to weld the patch to. The red line marks about where the new patch leaves the fender. It also happens to be about where the panel started to bow when I did some light shrinking (blue line, you can see the shrinker marks). I will probably cut off the patch above the red line, but I was hoping to get it all to fit perfectly before I cut it. The black patch fits pretty good below the red line. Even with some shrinking, you can see how far away the patch is Here's how bad the previous owner's work was. You can see how much filler was in there to make the fender smooth. Almost 1/2" in places. No paint on the back side either! Finally, here's where the new patch and new rocker meet at the A-pillar. I cut out a mangled section to fit the fender patch better. It needs a little shaping here to fit correctly.
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