gholian

Hi,

I am replacing the rear passenger side quarter panel. The inner wheel arch isn't in great shape either. I have a donor car and was going to use the inner wheel arch from that. I had a look at it earlier and it doesn't look that easy. The inner wheel arch looks like it extends up into the sail panel to the roof. I don't really know what is the best thing to do.

Do I try and patch the one that is in the car or replace it. I would probably have to cut just the wheel arch section out and spot weld in the replacement section. If I cut the inner wheel arch out and spot weld in a new one am I weakening the structure of the body.

Will the body go out of shape with the quarter panel and wheel arch removed.

Any Help,
Thanks.

Maverick H1L

iTrader: (8)

When you get the quarter panel off, you'll be able to see better what you need. It's been a few months since I've seen the arch, but I don't believe it would have been that difficult to replace.

Yes, if I were you, I would brace the roof first. If you don't, there will only be a couple dinky little sheet metal screws holding the roof up, on the inside. Mine came out of the holes and the roof sagged, so I literally had to jack it back up into place. After which, I put bigger screws into the holes and used body panel adhesive to hold the roof in place for good.

gholian

Yes I see those Dinky Little screws. The wheel arch section is not a nice area to work on. I will take the quarter panel off first and I will be able to have a better look.

Also the section where the the spare wheel sits is also rusted to nothing so that area will have to be replaced also. I think that is a common area to rot out.

Thanks.

Fordvette

I just did mine, but we didnt have to the inner wheel arch thankfully.. What we did do thought was cut out only the metal we had to, so we didnt lose too much shape in the car.

Even though the replacement quarter panel was big enough to wrap up and back to the weld seams, we put Lapped weld joints about 1 inch in from the edge, so as not to lose the overall shape of the car



Good luck with your project

Oh btw .. I took out the spare wheel holder, and cut out about a 6x 10 inch area of the cubby hole to replace the rusted out.. I dont plan on carring a spare wheel anyway..

stealtht/a

iTrader: (1)

i wouldnt worry too much about it falling out of place. there seems to be enough redundancy to keep things stable enough while its just sitting.
heres a pic of the car I took your QP section from that might also help view what underneath. This car was winched on to a car hauler for scrap with even more than this removed and I did not see any noticeable body distortion. it did not have an engine or tranny in it, doors were in place.

gholian

Okay I see. I was going to replace the full quarter panel on the passenger side. Looking at the inner wheel arch it extends up to the roof area but also goes to the bottom of the sill behind the quarter panel so replacing the whole inner wheel arch is not a nice job. I should probably just cut repair pieces and lap weld them as suggested by Opshesquishy.

Thanks for your inputs guys. Let you know what happens.

Maverick H1L

iTrader: (8)

If I were you, I wouldn't lap weld the quarter panel. Do it right. Get a skin or whole panel from a donor if you need to, but the quarter should remain in one piece unless you plan on butt welding it. They make special clips for this (go to Eastwood's website for an example) to hold the panels together while they are butt welded. If you lap weld the quarter, you WILL use a lot of body filler. FYI, body filler is comprised of talc, the same as baby powder, and hopefully you know how absorbent baby powder is...

I've seen what happens to lap welded panels. It's not pretty. And it's one of the reasons I was forced to junk my otherwise good 87 Bird.

stealtht/a

iTrader: (1)

Well, that makes me feel better about my decision to butt weld in my QP replacement, but it sure is difficult!
I'm welding in the piece I cut from that car in the pic. Almost done, but the fitting was a long tedious process. I used the clips described above and thy help a lot, but still tricky to get everything perfectly aligned. I'll get some pics up soon when it redy for paint.
The way the QP is fitted to the rest of the body is pretty complex, not impossible, but you really need to be carefully in removing donor parts and plan the install very carefully.
Use the smallest replacement area you can and consider what will be the easiest paces to make the welds.

Fordvette

Hmm Ill have to keep a eye on mine, I actually didnt do the welding, but helped my brother do it. I now bondo is like a sponge so I kept it dry till I had final coat of Grey primer on.. and even then I only dry sanded it to 400 before primer.. then I wet sanded the primer to 600 for paint

gholian

Okay Guys, I have removed the quarter panel and repaired the inner wheel arch as can be seen from the pictures. When I removed the panel I also removed the part of the inner wheel arch that attaches to the panel as the inner wheel arch is in two sections. I don't know if I should have done this as will that make it more difficult to put on the new panel. but I felt I needed to remove this piece to do a proper repair.

I have left a small piece of the old quarter panel in place just above the sill, If you look at the picture you can see that the quarter panel is spot welded to the sill on the inside. My question is when putting on a new quarter panel how do I spot weld it to the sill as I can't get into that area when the panel is in place or do I not bother welding that piece.

Thanks.

Fordvette

I cant really comment on how to weld in that area, You've taken out more metal than I did.. which is good, I hope someone else can help ya out

stealtht/a

iTrader: (1)

I think you will just have to weld where you can on the outside.
This is why I made the comment about only cutting out as much as needed, you don't want to get too far into the jigsaw puzzle. But you probably had to remove the rear door jamb area for rust.
You might have to make some ugly welds in places that are hard to see.
You certainly have one of the more challenging welding projects on the forum!

gholian

Challenging isn't the word. I will post another picture tomorrow. I have the quarter panel in position now and aligned. Some welding done on the bottom. I still have to cut it at the top to align with the roof.

mmadden55

Looks like fun