It’s been a pretty busy but productive weekend.
Saturday I finalized a deal with a fellow forum member that had a car he wanted gone for free. Went down and picked it up, paid $2 just for legality sakes.
Don’t worry, I won’t be restoring this one, the body is too far gone on it to be worthwhile. Instead, it’ll be parted out to hopefully create some spending coin for my cars.
Today I was back on the fender for nearly the entire day.
Got the patch finish burned in and ground down...
...then pulled the header panel back off and removed the fender:
As with the other side, the entire patch area requires quite a bit of hammer and dolly work to straighten it out, plus the backside needs to be ground flush and finished out as well.
Here’s the backside of the patch just after I pulled the fender off. Pretty ugly.
The bulk of the work on the fender will be done on the stand from here on out. This is what I get to stare at for the next foreseeable while:
😕
A little closer look at the area getting all the attention, the welds have been ground flush and the spot cleaned up a bit. You can also see where I ground down the backsides of the fender trim hole welds as well:
I also did some work that’s not readily apparent, hammer and dollied many of the flanges and edges nice and straight, plus trimmed the inner fender flange to a uniform width. Nobody will ever see or notice any of this, but it looks better overall and makes me feel good.
Lol
Here’s where I stand as of right now: The patch area is taking a lot of hammer work to get nice and straight again, I spent a couple of hours beating on this thing tonight if you can believe it, and I’m only about halfway done. Most of this is because I’m using a heavier gauge of sheet metal for the patch, it’s gonna provide the strength needed for the thin sliver that separates the signal light from the cornering lamp, but it’s very hard to manipulate.
My neighbors are gonna be some happy when I’m done straightening it, it’s been bloody loud with all the beating on it! Thank gawd for quality ear muffs.
That’s it for now, the shop is a disaster, my arms are aching, the compressor is hot and it’s getting late, so time to shut ‘er down. Hopefully tomorrow night I can get the rest of this straightened out and continue on.
Till then,
D.