LOWER QUARTER PANEL BEHIND WHEEL

All cars rust....even Corvettes (in the frame that is). However, cudas are unibodies with lots of yummy sheet metal that rust can munch on. Both quarter panels on my car are junk so it is time to start hacking away at the cancer. After my first initial cuts I notice the severity of the rust damage. Even the inner panels are rotted out too. Of course no patch panels are made for these areas, only full quarter panels. You can buy a full qtr but most that have done that have told me stories of pure misery trying to get it to fit correctly and wave free and to avoid them at all costs. Then again you can cut them up for parts and just replace the sections.

So what to do. We can make inner fender panels pretty easy with sheet metal but lets not cut it all out yet as we need to make some outer quarter panels first and need the inside for reference. For the quarter repair panels we first go out to the junk yard to see if any other car has a similar shape and could be modified to fit.
Guess what no panel comes close on any other car and most are rusted in the same areas anyway. So I hit the net and every parts car on there has rusted lower qtrs which shows me that it was an inferior design. My next possibilities include buying replacement qtrs and cutting out the parts I need or making up a set of my own. It doesn't seem that hard of a piece to replicate so lets try to make it ourselves.
Off to the sheet metal shop where I bought two 20 gauge sheet metal 3' X 15" pieces as I have to make two qtr panels. Next I put the metal against the car and take some rough measurements, drawings, and cuts. The next step is to create the natural 45 degree angle of the lower edge of the quarter where it wraps under the car. We do this by first creating a rough bend by hammering the panel over the edge of a 2X4 to get it started.
Then I move on to hammering the bend on my barracudas bumper to smooth it out to a nice gradual curve rather than the sharp 90 degrees the 2'x4' will leave me. Note: When I did this I had some newspaper on the bumper as not to scratch it, the photo is just an illustration.

Once that is done I need to create the gradual curve to the flat sheet steel to match the curve of the lower qtr panel. Off to the outside of my apartment where I find a nice circular street light post and I roll the panel over it until I got the gradual bend I wanted.

Next we put it up against the car again to make sure our bend is right and then we draw an inside line where we want the wheel well lip to be. I bend that wheel well lip up with a pair of vice grips. Before I do that I make a few small cuts so the panel can keep its curve as the metal gets compressed and wavy if you don't. The next step we will do is make those cuts tighten up and weld them. Now we have the following panel:

After that I am going to cut and offset flange, 1/2" inch, of the existing quarter panel to match the new piece I made. I then temporarily screw or rivet it to the body. These next photos are a look at the quarter panel from the inside and the outside. Also notice I cut off the rotted part of my inner panels which I will replace later but NOT the rotted wheel well portion as I need it as a reference point to finish my outside skin.

The next photo here is of the rear valance patch panel and the back end of our quarter panel. The original valance is very thin from rust and has a few pinholes. I have since sandblasted this area and POR15 the inside of it to stop the rust.
I normally would cut the old panel shorter and weld my panel in. However, due to the fact it is in a bad area to remove and I wanted to keep some reference point for my new quarter panel to join up it I decided to cover it up with my nice patch and plug weld it to the original. This patch too was created by bending some 20 gauge steel around the same light post to get the shape which is perfect. Next we are going to deal with making my two panels meet each other in the some manner. I will be making slits and cut out material in the end of the qtr panel and weld it back up to make the curve. I am sure it will not be as pretty as the rest of this panel but thank god for fiberglass and also metal reinforced specialty body fillers which will smooth out any mistakes.

UPDATE 10/1/99: The drivers side quarter panel replacement I made 3" longer than the passenger side as joining these two short pieces proved to be a bit too challenging.

Ok, I finished the drivers side before the passenger side so all pictures will be of that side now. The drivers side had much more rust damage than the passenger side so a huge piece of metal had to be formed to fit. It was a bit more of a challenge than I had planned.
This next picture is of the car with the lower panel removed and the wheel well trim clamped in place as a reference to make sure the replacement panels wheel well curve is pretty close.
You will notice the car is white. I got the car back from the sandblaster and he warped the metal somewhat along the edge of the cutoff. I was a little pissed off. I am restoring this car outside so I needed to throw a little paint down on the freshly sandblasted metal and primer. Primer does NOT seal out moisture so DON" rely on it to do so! I sprayed white urethane on it as it is the cheapest color paint one can buy and I will be sanding most of it off anyway.

Ok so here we are. We need to make sure the replacement panel fits in nicely behind the trim and ends up exactly in the lower rear valance panel. The last 1.5" of the valance panel was rotted too so I had to make a curved patch for that. Out to the light pole again to bend that piece of metal.

Looks good so far but what a big panel I have to install!

Next picture is of my roughly made qtr panel replacement piece clamped in to check the fit. The curve of the wheel well must be close but doesn't really have to be 100% perfect. Where it does have to be perfect is the curvature of the panel itself. That is why we bent it around that light pole. A few slots in the metal allows one to bend it more or less using the trim as a guide and tack weld it once the curve is perfect. The trim will give the illusion of perfection. Notice how the rear panel extends well out from the valance panel. Something I should have done to the passenger side.

Here my panel is welded in along with the valance patch. And we have two problems.

1) The qtr panel has a crease in it around the wheel well. We have to replicate it. A little hammer and dolley work gets it close and a little filler sculpture will finish it off. While I don't sugggest using filler to create anything I have no choice here. I would have rather bought a replacement patch panel but only FULL quarter panels are available. At $169 a pop not including shipping which is expensive for such a large piece.

2) You have to join the qtr panel with the valance. Pain in the a$$. I drew a line inside my qtr panel and carefully cut it along the valance curve. Once that was done I carefully welded up the edge of the whole thing. There is a little gap there you will notice which I filled with a litle piece of metal.

Here we are with our work finished ready for a coat of Aluminized waterproof filler. Not bad! Look at the hammer / dolley work to get that inner quarter panel accent crease close...acceptable for a novice who doesn't own one of those fancy wimp English metal rolling tools you see professionals use in the car books. The inner wheel well curve is pretty good too, although it is a bit too straight but the chrome trim makes it look perfect. But what about the back where you joined the qtr panel with the valance?

Here you go! This picture shows you that hard to fix area and I think it looks good too. All I have to do now, besides repair the inner fender for support, is to fill, sand, and paint!
In retrospect I should have used 18 gauge steel over 20 as I would like this area to be a bit stronger. However, I don't think I could have bent it correctly as 18 gauge is real stiff sheetmetal. This repair should last me a couple of years until a quality replacement panel becomes available on the market (hopefully).

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