Made a '56 Chevy front fender into an Edsel quarter panel

And political campaign financing helped pay for my inner fenders. How?

I'll start here. I bought this '59 Edsel a couple years ago from Bob Bleed and I've decided to finally get to work on it. Didn't look too bad but I could see a lot of mud in it so I was planning on a pretty major project.



I welded patches in the lower front fender doglegs, the bottom corners of the doors (outside and in) I scored some NOS rocker panels and installed them with some inner rockers that I made, did some minor floorpan work, and fixed the areas above the headlights (someone stuffed DA stick-it pads behind the fenders and mudded over them to fill the holes!)

The rear quarter panels I figured would be the hardest, since (as far as I know) nobody makes patch panels for them. Once the mud was ground out, they looked like this.



This is the "good side"



My plan was to build new quarter panel openings based on a set of fender skirts I bought on eBay. Here's one of the skirts in place on the fender, showing the rusted away areas.



Edsel quarter panel openings always had a lip on them, they're not flat, so I needed a lip to work with. I have a '56 Chevy parts car in my parking lot right now that had junk front fenders, but the lips were good, so I decided to work with those. On first inspection, it doesn't look like it'll fit.



But I cut it into 5 different pieces and rearranged them, and it's looking a bit closer



I held my skirt in place, using the remains of the original quarter opening to line it up in the right spot, then started screwing the pieces into place using self tapping screws.

 

I trimmed down my sections a bit, then I made some pieces to fill in the gaps in front of and behind the skirt hole. I'm using a junk green '73 Cutl*** S hood as a sheetmetal donor since it has an expanse of clean flat sheetmetal.



A little more t******* and a lot of little grinder pads to clean the old paint off, and it looks like this.



Here's where the campaign financing comes in. I pulled my patch panel off at this point and took a look at the inner fenders. There wasn't much left. So to fix them I started by taking one of those campaign posters that you're supposed to stick in your lawn. I ripped the cardboard off and pulled out a nice piece of uncoated 1/4" steel round rod. I formed it into the shape of the quarter using the skirt as a guide and tacked it into place. It gave me a nice clean framework to weld to.



Then I was able to make cardboard templates and fill in the gaps. You have to look hard since my patch panels are grey. I admit my inner fender patches are none too beautiful, I just wanted it to be solid and have something to put undercoating on when I'm all done.



With that done, I put my patch panel back on and started welding. My buddy Bill is doing the filler work on the car and he wanted me to put my patch panel behind the original quarters so he wouldn't have to use so much filler in them. His wish is my command. I'm starting to get some welds down at this point.



And a few tacks here, and a few more there, and move around so you don't warp it. My brain wants me to weld starting at one end and going to the other, so I have to remind myself never to stay in one place too long. Just doesn't look as pretty that way, either.



Once I had it mostly welded up, I ground down my welds to see what it was looking like. I still have to tie the quarters into the inner fenders I made, and I have a couple gaps to fill. In the lower rear corner you can see a big gap, that little corner piece has some rust holes so I'm going to cut it out and make a little patch for that, and eliminate that big gap in the process. Here's where I left off last night.



A few more tweaks, a little more finishing and I can move onto the other side. I'm sure as soon as I post this someone will offer me some NOS quarters or nice cutoffs from a parts car, maybe direct me to a source of new patch panels. But for not having much to start with, I think they're shaping up nicely. What do you think?

 

Excellent work...gives me a few ideas to work with. Thanks!

 

Always nice to see some Chevy stuff in a Ford product...nice work...

R-

 

looks great to me, btw is that your truck in the back round? i love to have one like it.

 

Wow, that brings back memories of what we had to do with MOST cars since nobody was making sheetmetal for them.

 

Good save !

 

Thanks for the comments. I realize that patching a rear quarter panel isn't the most exciting pictoral but I spent a ton of hours on it and I want to show it off before it gets bodyworked and hidden forever.

The first picture was at Bleed's shop, that's his truck. It's even cooler looking in person.

I thought it was kind of ironic that I'm cutting up one of the most popular 50's cars to fix one of the least popular. Don't feel bad Chevy guys, those front fenders were rotted away around the headlights, in the doglegs and where they attatch to the inner fenders. There was no saving them.

 

way to go dude! the challenge of fixing those extremely ****ed up quarters would really have to be touted as well "BORDERING INSANE"! you must have a really creative level of insight. keep the pic's coming with some closeups.

 

Good job! That´ll be a great Edsel when done!
CHris

 

i just pulled the 9" rear end out of a 59 edsel for my 55 chevy, the circle of life is now complete!

 

great save. using that skirt was inspired!

 

Looks good, I've done this a few times in past myself.
What body style is the 56 you're parting? I could use some doors for a 57.

 

Alot of work, but it looks good. Job well done.

Saint

 

Quite the contrary. This post is better than the majority posted here. Nice work and it's great to see how someone attacked a problem and solved it.

 

Hey,

Great save of a 'rare' Ford product- and good on you of being able to make something useful from a Chevy!

In the top picture- the vehicle in the far left of the photo, is that a Buick
Skylark or the Valley Custom Mercury?

S****ey Devils C.C.

"Meanwhile, back aboard The Tainted Pork"

 

excellent save man! cant wait for the next update!

 

nice work J, as usual.

how's your "3" door coming?

 

excellent,,,,i was hoping you'd be posting pictures of this,,,been anxious to check it out since you mentioned it on one of my threads,,,,,great idea and execution

 

wvenfield pretty much summed it up. Well done!

 

Thanks again for all the comments.

The first picture was from Bleed's shop so I don't know much about the cars in the background. The '56 is a two door sedan but the doors are already gone and basically every part left on it is spoken for already, including the roof which I'm going to use to convert my '57 into a two door. The only extra pieces I have from that car are a ****ty hood ($50 if anyone wants it) and the dash.

The 3 door will have to wait until this one is done and another car (o/t) has to be painted. Still tracking down a couple more elusive pieces that I'll need.

Kustom7777, your post reminded me to take pictures as I was doing this. Glad you like it, it's not really 'custom' like your stuff is but it needed to be done.

 

Thank you for taking the time to take pictures and post this. The fact that you could look at the Chevy fender and mentally see that it could be cut into pieces and used on your Edsel is most impressive. And then to actually do it is even more impressive.

This kind of thread is my favorite.

 

Hello from Arizona! I see you are still doing first cl*** metalwork projects, nice work! Now it's time to enjoy a cold Leinenkugels brewed with Chippewa water at big Eddy springs....

 

+1 more. This is the kind of stuff I come to the HAMB for.

 

bad ***

 

Very nice. Good thought and great follow through. I see guys SAY you could use this to fix that, you are proving it. Looks great. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

 

Thanks again, I'll post some pictures of the other side when I get to it, probably this weekend (fingers crossed). Once that's done, and a little tail pan and trunk pan work, the car will be ready for bodywork and paint. I'm changing the colors to a blue-green and black, I don't like the brown, and after all the welding the jambs need to be painted anyways.

 

That came out awesome!
You definately have a damn good eye for metalwork
Looking forward to seeing more updates-Edsels are cool!

 

Nice to see an Edsel get saved!

 

Hey Squablow,
Good save on that Edsel and I learned a lot from your post! Thanks!