Gerahead's 71 Dart

132068Dodge said
Hi Jim,
Took me a while to get back to you. Practice is always good and the durablocks are great. I used a combination of those and the 27" AFS (adjustable flexibility sander). I don't know how far you have gotten with the quarter panel but use of a good 4 foot level would be a great place to start just to see how bad the previous damage really is and to consistently check you progress for accuracy against the other side. Hopefully it wasn't bad enough to compress the inner wheel housing! If so, that adds a bit of time and fabrication skills into the fray. Sounds like someone sideswiped the PO or he got into a pole. Good call on that one :-). Keep in touch. I would love to see some pictures of your current progress and maybe one with a flat edge against your damaged panel stripped to bare metal. There is a chance you may be able to salvage the quarter with some righteous metal work :-).
Chris

Chris,
You must be clairvoyant! Between last night and tonight, I scraped the mud out of both quarters to see what I really had to work with. I'm afraid it ain't purty! The right side has been caved in between the middle and lower body lines. In the series of pix, you can see from the straight edge in the first one that the area between the lines near the door jamb is convex. Moving back toward the bumper, just in front of the wheel well and just behind the wheel well it is concave. There is also what looks like a lateral crease from about the rear of the wheel opening to just in front of the marker light hole. It is tough to see in the pic, but there is a buckshot arrangement of some serious heat shrinking marks goin' on. The flange where the wheel house is welded to the quarter is also pinched together with the middle of the lip forced upward. It really doesn't look like the outer wheel house got dinged. The driver side isn't as bad and if it wasn't for the rot at the bottom rear of the panel, it could probably be saved. Both sides have some pretty good oil canning going on now. I think this would be a PhD level exercise in metal work! I have pretty much resigned myself to the realization that new quarter skins are now in the plan.

The last pic is of some stuff that fell out of the nooks and crannies while I was scraping the undercoating off the underside. Nothing quite like a good vibration while on its side to uncover treasures! Does anyone have any idea what the bolt might be for (I'm thinking it looks like it might be from an exhaust manifold?). I also have no idea what the other parts might be from, if they are even from this car. The larger flat piece looks like it could be an inspection cover from a bell housing? Any thoughts on what the spring clip might be from? Looks like it could be used on a square shaft, but I can't think of any of those located anywhere.