Week #82

I last left with the drivers quarter panel clamped in place for a test fit. It fit flush all across the top and most of the way down the front and rear edges. However, the closer you got to the wheel house, the farther away the panel was from the bottom mating surfaces on the car. The culprit… a way out of whack re-pop outer wheelhouse (from here on referred to as "wh")! This driver's side wh is, at the very least, an inch too deep. That is if used as is, the area of the quarter panel around the wheel well would be 1 inch farther away from the car than it should be. The "flared" look might have been the way to go in 1977 but not here… not on this car. I had to think of the easiest way to correct this. I don't know that I did.

Now I try my hardest not to get "anal" about things that you can't easily see or can see at all. For example, way back I had to replace a large portion of the back half of the package tray. I spent WAY too much time trying to replace the areas exactly even though no one would, or could, ever see these spots. I finally forced myself to just make the area structurally sound with less regard for what it looked like when exposed. I was glad I saw the light. With this wh, whatever I do to correct the problem will be difficult to see. If I bend a new lip with pliers, the joint between the inner and outer wh'es could be seen if your head was 2"wide and you were stupid enough to insert it between the tire and car. Knowing this, I still couldn't bring myself to bending this expensive piece of sheet metal all up and leaving a nasty, bumpy lip. I know, I know, you're asking "but Sandy, what about not being so anal?" Well, the way I chose to fix the problem left a somewhat visible scar… maybe.

What I chose to do was to make a cut sort of parallel to the lip about 2" from the lip on both the front and rear edges of the wh. I then clamped the wh back in place and the hung the quarter panel over it in it's place. Again, the quarter panel fit flat all around the edges. But now with the wh front and rear edges "adjustable", I just allowed the cut edges to overlap each other as I pushed in the quarter at the front and rear of the wh. Once the quarter was pushed in to where the bottom edge fit flush at the bottom of the car, I clamped it in place. I then stuck my head in the wheel well and scribed a line down the edge of the overlapped metal. This would be where I would weld the 2 free edges together to get the exact depth I needed. Smart huh?

I yanked the wh back out and prepped it for surgery. I cut the pie shaped piece from the wh front and rear edges, pulled the 2 sections together and butt-welded the whole kit-and-caboodle. After a bit of grinding and a test fit the thing fit beautiful. It will take some filler on the trunk side of the seam because the splice is in pretty plain view. The wheel well side I'm not worried about, as I will spray undercoating to cover the entire area.

The only thing I might do different with the other side is to forget the butt weld and just leave enough overlap between the 2 free edges to weld down both side… give me a break… you don't become "non-anal" overnight!