Alright, so as mentioned in the comments from the RHS fender, I got stuck into the LHS Fender yesterday and some of it is better and some of it is worse. So it’s probably drawing even with the RHS, I’ll let you see for yourself;
Take 1 Panel
Add Stripper & Glad-Wrap
Let sit for several minutes…
A reaction occurs
Remove Paint. Discover Filler
Thar be more!
Close-up
aaaand from the back, there’s quite a bit missing again with the evidence that there was little steel there to begin with;
Squeeze that fibre-filler in until it touched the inner support. Mmm!
At wonder at what point the previous owner considered it to be a reasonable amount of filler in the car. Who knows.
I should go get a replacement for my replacement drill and finish both the fenders off. Maybe I’ll do that tonight… We’ll see.
-Michael
Doesn’t look too bad so far. Hey if it helps I can always send you just bits of one of the fenders I have to use as a repair section. I’ve got two LH wings and I seriously doubt there’s going to be any demand here for them so I’m happy to chop one up for you.
I may be speaking out of turn. But with all of rust and repair work involved in bring the steel up to standard, have you ever considered fibreglass panels. At least for the removable ones. There must be something on Yahoo. Credit to you all the same good sir for this valiant rescue.
Interesting proposal, Ed. If the bottom section of your worst one isn’t all too bad, including the rear support section, I might well take you up on that offer. I’ll continue with the stripping and see how it looks, let me know what you think would be the best option when I’ve updated with the results.
As a side note, your work on the Dodge is amazing! I tried to comment on it but you have to be a member in order to comment, I guess that might just be a case of registering on your site specifically as my wordpress login failed miserably.
Screw Yahoo! Hahah, there’s most definitely parts available though they do have a significant price. I will go to glass in the future but it’s all still strip and evaluate at the moment. It will cost around $2500NZD for the purchase of the panels that I’m after, that’s without even considering shipping and associated costs for Fenders, Bootlid, Bonnet. Double it and I could get a pair of full glass doors. The weight saving on the doors alone would be immense. Considering the car weighs 1180kg, I would think replacement of all such panels including the doors could bring it down significantly, of course when I cage it, it’ll jack back up again but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?
Yeah, to have to register as I host it myself rather than via WordPress. If you want to register and have any bother with registering just fire me an email (ed-at-ratdat-dot-com) and I’ll sort it for you. I know a few folks have had issues but i can’t figure out why!
Both the fenders I have here are new so the metal is great. Even though you’ll still have a bit of work to do, at least having what amount to genuine repair sections should save a bit of work.
Mercifully, the van’s been fairly solid so not much welding so far, although i did discover some really nasty welding underneath deep filler on the left sill this afternoon. I’ll discover the full extent tomorrow I expect.
As for GRP, could you get that kind of work done locally for less than buying from Japan? I’d actually love to have a go at making GRP panels some time, but I don’t really have the space of facilities. I’m tempted to have a go when I eventually tackle getting my 510 back together.