Pics from this past Saturday's wheel opening patch/repair project...

[DKM]

I have a 74 tub that I'm working on to put on my 78 frame. The PO had cut the wheel opening and put on fender flares. I had flares on my old 40 in high school and have no issues with them, just thought it would be fun to try and patch them up. I bought the replacement panels from CCOT. I watched a few videos of how others had done it. I hung the body from a rope using a forklift:

Then I placed the panels over the cutout and traced out where I would cut the patches. This was taken before I married them up better. I had to do some work to the rocker panel side cutout. Just showing the pic so you could see from the inside.

Cut the patches out using a plasma cutter:

Fit was pretty good, I leveled the panels and did some tacks:

Welded it in, taking time to space out the welds to avoid warping the panels. Also filled out the rivet holes. .023 wire, 190 speed and 18.5 volts seemed to work well. The phrase of the day was "weld a little, grind a lot." Long day, but felt really satisfied when done and really happy with the result. Still some more to do to the tub before blasting.

 

[Rocky_LC]

Really nice work.

You’ll be happy with it when you are done!

 

[charliemeyer007]

So how is the thickness of the replacement metal compared to stock? What wire type/brand are you using? I was told the small wire is better for auto sheet metal work. Maybe a thick copper bar (perhaps aluminum) "clamped" on the back side as a heat sink/stiffener. Post more pic's.

 

[DKM]

Yeah, been a while since I have worked on the body. Been working on mechanical. Need to get this thing done before my wife leaves me. One last thing to patch before getting it blasted. Tailgate corner had some spotty rust, cut it out, used some paper to make a template. welded it in. I ended up cutting out the complete corner as I was burning through the rust, so more was cut out than what is shown in the first pic. Happy how it turned out considering my level of non-expertise.