FENDER REPAIR

How to fix a rusty fender.

As you have well seen all over this website are pictures of horrendous rust. Well how do we fix it without going poor? The easiest way is to buy metal replacement fenders which are no longer made by anyone. Remember we own a cuda and no aftermarket company wants to invest the time or money to produce a fender for our low production vehicles that make up only 5% of aftermarket sales.

However, numerous companies manufacture fiberglass automotive parts. As far as early cuda fenders go there is only one company, U.S. Bodysource, that makes a STREET weight fiberglass fender. Most fiberglass parts are used for racing as they are lighter than metal parts. But they are also weaker which is a consideration on a day to day street car. If you decide to buy any fiberglass parts for street use make sure they are heavy weight parts as race parts won't last . You will also have to do some fitting, drilling, cutting etc. to make them fit perfectly.

First off to the internet to find some metal fenders before anything else. I find a set of NOS fenders for $1100.00. Whew... I can buy a whole Chevy Camaro for that much money. A friend said he thought it was a good deal..hmmmm what is he smoking?
Well, after paint I assume they are no longer NOS so they are worth like $500.00 - 700 which seems to be the going rate for a mint pair of fenders. I have seen pairs in good condition for about $400 and one commercial place with the initials T.A. in Texas wanted $450 for ONE fender! What a rip off. That kind of bread buys a lot of beer but what is the real price of them?

Since I am an investment advisor lets look at this expense. Say the average Joe pulls $50k. Lets tax adjust that say $50k x 33% (income tax)= $16500, 50000 - 16500 = $33500 left over to piss away. If you have a state tax its about another 9% off of your gross $50k x 9% (state tax)= $4500. Then if we throw that insidious sales tax of about 8% on anything you buy with your remaining money these fenders are real expensive if you bought them from a dealer and had to pay sales tax. So our total tax rate is 33%+9%+8% = 50% (depending on what state you live in!) Whew!

Before everyone starts boo - hooing about taxes (which I detest too) we must compare the U.S. tax rates to the tax rates in Europe. Some of these eurotrash citizens pay up to 80% of their income to support their socialist governments' i.e. Italy. Well, I don't feel real bad but 50% is 50%. So those $700 fenders cost $1400.00 pre-tax and that is not including shipping which is like $65 bucks each after tax.
Sobering huh?

Well, I need to make another deposit into my stock trading account so I am going try to fix mine. The first photo is a poorly oriented one but you can see the twilight shining thorough the swiss cheese metal lip where the fender bolts to the top of the inner fender. This is a great place for rust to occur and it usually isn't easy or cheap to fix. However, nobody can see it so we can do a sloppy job here.

The next place where rust loves to munch away is the lower fender just in front of the door. If you look closely at this lower fender panel that I cut off , it has rusted through in two places that were once repaired by the previous owner. The old repair is quite horrible with poor panel welding and excessive bondo. It actually weighs four pounds from all of the plastic! If I ever come across the body guy who previously restored this car I will shoot him or at least kick his a$$. This is one of the reasons why I don't like to buy previously restored cars.
You will also notice that the lower part of the inner fender support is not attached. Well, I didnt surgically peel this panel off of the support it was actually rusted away and only a scrap of the lower piece which bolts the fender to the car was all that was left.
So we are now looking at a wasted lower fender panel, missing lower inner fender support, and the top of the fender is total swiss cheese.
Is it junk…probably….but the fight has just begun.

STEP ONE: HACK

It is time to cut out the cancer. I cut out the complete lower part of the fender as it was beyond repair. I then hacked out a full 2+ feet of the upper fender away with an air saw. I cut it along a line that passes through the slots where the rubber hood stoppers go so I could line it up with a replacement piece. The beauty of cutting it here is that you can do a half ass weld job and then coat it with seam sealer and nobody will ever know. Not a trailer queen concours level repair but acceptable for a street car. I then noticed some #$@^ bondo on top of the fender covering a rusty hole that I easily pushed through with a screwdriver. Well, now I had to cut out a 2" x 4" area up there to get that cancer out too. This fender really looks like junk now. Matter of fact it is a junk fender and I should have scrapped it.

Replacement parts. I contacted Auto Specialities and bought a lower fender patch panel for $42.00. I then had the problem of replacing the inner fender top piece and the inner fender support. Hmmm what to do.
Off to the salvage yard. I went out to Dr. Mopar near Austin and I found a 73 dart that had been smashed up in the nose so the fenders were useless to him. I cut out the lower 5" of the inner fender support and the top 2+ feet of the inner fender panel. The support is a perfect match, the top piece is another story. While the bolt and bumper slot holes were exactly in the same position Darts top piece is about ¼" wider. No problem we'll just gradually rebend the metal a little and taper it in. Now before you get all happy and start welding away on your panel I highly suggest you mock this all the parts on the car first. Bolt the pieces down, line up the fender and tack weld the pieces together. If all looks good and fits right then fully weld up the pieces. Nothing is worse than welding something up on a workbench and it doesn't fit on the car right. Been there done that.

This is the Dart piece we will weld in the top of the fender, Not a bad cut job huh?

This is the piece I will weld in the lower fender support ready to go. I cut off the supports old rusty end, cleaned it up, blew down a little weld through patch primer and laid the new piece on top. Weld through primer is horrible to weld through but it is heat resistant and won't burn off. This is necessary in a seam as you need it for corrosion resistance. After spraying the primer and clamping the pieces together just wire brush the area where you will be welding to remove some of the primer thus making your life easier.
In retrospect I needed a replacement piece 1" longer than I had cut. I didn't measure the extent of my supports rust and just approximated the proper length at the yard and cut it too short. Hence that little hole there I will have to patch. Then again a little blob of seam sealer on top will hide it.

STEP 2: LINE IT UP

The next step was to line up the lower patch panel and trim it to match. This is a pain in the ass! Once you figure out the location put a screw or two to hold it together and run back out to the car to see if it looks and fits right. It probably won't.

STEP 3: WELD

Once you are certain everything is lined right, weld it in. Remember we are welding sheet metal so you want to tack weld it in a few places then run like 1.5" beads in different places not one whole long line. This is because we don't want to warp the panel too badly.
Once all is welded bend the edge of the patch panel metal over the inner support (like the factory did) and tack weld it in a few places or spot weld it if you have one of those welders.
Next tack weld the very bottom part of the panel to the support again like the factory did.
I then sent the panel out to the sandblaster to clean up the inner fender rust before I went further. I have not received it back yet so stay tuned for step 4.

UPDATE 7/99

I can't believe it. Another tragedy strikes my mopar. Three days ago the flatbed towing company picked up my doorless car and all of the panels I had loaded inside it and on route to the blasting complex the fender fell out of the car onto the highway. It was subsequently crushed by another truck following behind. Thank god it was the crap drivers side you have seen here.

I purchased another fender which was pretty much worse than the one I bought. I re-welded in the lower fender patch panel and it now looks like the following.

Welded in just ok but that curve around the door is going to need some work to make straight. I dislike patch panels, very hard to work with. Lines up like crap around the door. Much more work needs to be done until it is acceptable.

UPDATE 10/99

I had this fender sandblasted too. The fender was found to have a lot of bondo in it and some pinhole rust holes. Discouraged, and with winter on the horizon, I bought a new fiberglass replacement. Too burned out fixing junk.

To complete this page we will use the passenger side as the example. It too has some pretty bad rust problems but not as bad as the drivers side. The rust is below the body line factory "crease" which is a godsend. So after plenty of cutting and rebuilding of the inner support, like with the drivers side, and cutting out a patch panel we get to the following picture. Here you can see my patch clamped on to the fender which was offset "flanged" so it sits level and is ready for some welding. You will notice the very 3/4" of the front fender was good. So all I had to do was work from there backwards and make the door line bend / edge.

STEP 4: FINISHING WORK - Almost done!

Ok now after we weld in the panel and grind it down we have the following.

The hard part was to make the corrrect bend where it runs flush with the door line. This one is very close as you can see and after a bit more work lined up very well. Next we lay down a nice thin layer of aluminum waterproof filler we have the following ready for final block sanding and primer.

Not bad huh? A little more work and this panel is ready for paint

UPDATE 10/99

I went back to do some more work on this fender and after sanding the whole panel down with a DA sander and a 80 grit pad I found some more surprises. The following picture tells the tale.

INSERT PICTURE

I found a nice rust hole right near the front point of the fender, a nice dent on the top edge of the fender, and some accident damage around the wheel well. As you can see I cut out the old metal, offset flanged the fender hole, and made a replacement patch. For the rest of the damage it was fixed with good old fashioned hammer / dolly work. Once everything was all welded up and hammered flat then its good old fill, sand, prime and paint.

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