Inner Fender Repair

Earlier in the spring I had a friend, who owns a powder coat company, sand blast a number of large parts to get them cleaned up and prepped for paint.

Over the years, battery acid completely destroyed the battery tray and ate away at the driver side inner fender where the tray is mounted. Before I could prime the parts with epoxy I needed to replace the missing metal.

The first step was to create a pattern that I could transfer to a new piece of metal. I just used a piece of paper and made reference marks so that the holes that are supposed to be there would end up in the right spot. I traced the pattern into sheet metal and then hammered the edges over a form to create the compound curves. A couple of relief cuts in the corner made things easier. I used a cutoff wheel to remove the cancerous metal as marked.

With trimming, grinding, and several test fits, the piece was ready to weld. Then it was just a matter of recreating the two holes that are supposed to be there. The larger hole is for access to install a J-nut into the smaller one. The battery tray is anchored here with a bolt.

I finished the day out by laying down some epoxy primer to protect a number of large parts until they can be finished. The dash frame has some rust pits to be filled before it's resprayed black.