Rusty drop-off and wheelhouse edge

OK, another little upgrade on the progress.

The LH drop-off was showing some rust and also the LH quarter showed a bit of accident damage so I figured I should replace the drop off and lower quarter.

Rust in the drop off

Accident damage

I knew I was going to need a custom drop-off insert as the one that came with the lower quarter patch I bought was total shit. So I got a chance to work on my fabrication skills!

A custom made drop-off insert.

But then when I cut out the lower quarter I discovered more rust (surprise!) along the edge of the wheelhouse. It didn't look good...

To keep a little bit of progress I did weld in the drop-off panel to get that out of the way:

Now it was time for a bigger approach and I cut around the edge of the wheelhouse. And indeed, the whole edge was rotting away. Of course this is never cool to see but as I intend to end up with a rust-free car I am happy to tackle this now and now later.

Rusted edge.

Replacing the edge was a shit job due to misaligned pieces of metal, mainly the factory outer wheelhouse. It required a lot of welding, a lot more then anticipated.

Fixed wheenhouse edge.

Now I was read to replace the quarter panel completely. I sanded where I was gonna cut and made pre-cuts to be able to fix the new panel to the car before welding. This way when cutting along the sides of the panel, the old sheetmetal will drop out by itself.

Leaving 2 places to temporarily rivet the panel to the body.

Riveted.

I used these awesome welding clamps to keep the sheet metal flush on both sides and also to keep a 1mm gap. Also when you put uour first welds close next to a clamp, you get less shrinking in your weld thus maintaining the gap:

Welding of the spots in the wheelhouse edge. There were quite a few, I think over 30:

At the rear more accident damage showed itself. It was badly repaired and I used my little hammer and anvil to make it flatter. Filler will do the rest.

And then it was time for welding around the sheet. Lots and lots of spots, very time consuming:

My custom drop-off insert fits beautiful:

All done with one area that will need attention in the future. The welding heat was too much here and the tension pulls a dent in the sheet metal in the circled area. I am yet to determine the best way to fix this. For now though, I am very pleased with having this job done!

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Replacing the taillight panel

Long time no updates!

After the whole thing with the hood (which has been dipped and is waiting for the future in a nice coat of primer) I set upon replacing the taillight panel since it's rusty in a lot of places. For this I had to deconstruct the whole rear. Knowing that welding was required I first removed the fuel tank and lines as I did not want my car to go up in flames.

When I was ready to drill out the spotwelds I thought were holding the panel in place, I found out I was not the first person to do this as the panel was alreay brazed... Great, I had to put a torch to my car to get it out of there.

After a few very exciting hours of setting the rear on fire and exploding fume clouds (I did this outside, obviously!) the panel came out.

The next few months I spent on removing the bumper brackets inside the trunk only to find out rot underneath. Also around the fillerneck opening it was pretty rusty so I put 3 patches in the trunk floor. This was all good welding and metal shaping practice!

Eventually it was time to start putting the new panel in. First I welded the trunk latch support back onto it:

Then I prepped all the edges that were to come in contact with the new panel. I drilled new holes and prepared old ones:

Then One more round of sanding all the spots to be plug-welded. Panel ready:

Car ready:

And voila, it's in!

Very pleased with the results and also a little bit proud of doing this all myself :-)