Quarter Fitment Problem

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gerahead

gerahead

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I am in the process of installing a new quarter skin on my 71 Dart project and think that I am hosed!!!! I have the panel tacked all the way around, about an inch apart everywhere except the pinch weld areas around the drop off and outer wheel house. I have about 8 plug welds done in these areas. The problem is that I cannot get the flange on the front edge of the drop-off to mate up with the lip on wheel opening. There is just no way that I can bend, shape or otherwise coerce the drop off to line up to attach it to the wheel well lip. At this time, it looks like about the only option I might have is to bend teh drop off lip down and weld it along the edge rather than on the flat face.

Any ideas, I am desparate and looking for a high window. disgust Thanks.

Jim
 
Pics may help...You may be able to cut a slice in it with a cut off tool.Then bend it where it needs to go,and the weld up the slice.I had to do this on my outer wheel house to make it line up with my trunk extension.

Jim
 
Pictures in this case would very helpful. Are they AMD quarters, or another type from another vendor? I have seen a similar problem on a challenger. But post some VERY DETAILED(good lighting) PICTURES, as they will better describe what you up against.
 
Pictures will help. I have run into these problems before and had to slice like 383GTS is talking about. Unfortunately repro panels force us into these situations.
 
68383gts,440abody and turbodart68,
Thanks for the responses. I first thought that maybe I should post pix of the area that I was talking about, but didn't. I hope that these help....
The first pic is the area where I am having the problem. The first hole above the outer wheel house/drop-ff seam has good contact. Between there and the corner, you can see from the shadow that there is reasonable contact along the inside edge, but the gap grows as you move toward the outside of the body. The second pic shows that there is good contact along the bottom side of the floor extension. The third pic is from the back side showing the gap in the corner. I have tapped the lip of the wheel well lip back so that it makes contact along the edge, but I will start to distort the outer surface of the quarter if I go much further. The last pic just shows the back side of the extension lip. The panel is welded right at the corner on the bottom side and I do not want to have to split that joint 'cuz it would likely be difficult to patch it back up. These are Sherman panels and were skins,not full panels.

As I tried to describe earlier, it looks like I could get away with welding along the edge in this area and try to plug the holes that I drilled originally to weld along this seam. I am open to any suggestions at this point. If you need another view, give me a holler and I'll try to get it for you. Thanks again. L8r

Jim
 

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The gap in the corner is supposed to be there for water to drain out, from what I can see they fit pretty good. You can use a block of wood and a fairly large hammer to convince the trunk floor extention into place. Then use a set of C-clamp type vise-grips to hold it place while you weld it up.
Just remember that these things were mass producced and were FAR from perfect from the factory. The big picture here is make it fit but don't allter the outer skin, if you do all you've done is create more wor for yourself in the end.

Hope this helps. It was really hard to see what you're seeing from the pictures, but anyway good luck and keep us posted.
 
440abody said:
The gap in the corner is supposed to be there for water to drain out, from what I can see they fit pretty good. You can use a block of wood and a fairly large hammer to convince the trunk floor extention into place. Then use a set of C-clamp type vise-grips to hold it place while you weld it up.
Just remember that these things were mass producced and were FAR from perfect from the factory. The big picture here is make it fit but don't allter the outer skin, if you do all you've done is create more wor for yourself in the end.

Hope this helps. It was really hard to see what you're seeing from the pictures, but anyway good luck and keep us posted.
Click to expand...

440a,
It is hard to see in the pix. The problem is that there is good contact along the inside edge of the seam toward the inside of the car. In the lip where the two layers should lay flat together so they can be plug welded. Instead, the two layers separate as you move away from the loose edges. I do not see how the extension could be stretched far enough forward to have a good enough contact to plug weld it. Did I correctly understand what you are trying to say? Thanks.

Jim
 
Get some self tapping sheet metal screws and screw the two panels together tight.Then weld it together.Take the screws out and weld up the screw holes.I have found this works very well...


Jim
 
If what your refering to is what I think I can see in picture #2, you should be able to drive the inner lip of the extension down (outward) with a good piece of hardwood or something hard and blunt. You may have to hammer and dolly the quater panel lip up slightly to make the contact that is needed. Then clamp the two together about an inch apart and work each weld separately. When it's all said and done you may have to tweak the two joined pieces back out or down in this case, to "square up" the lip.

Again really hard to give advice when I can't physically touch, feel and see it for my self. Hope this helps.
 
440abody said:
If what your refering to is what I think I can see in picture #2, you should be able to drive the inner lip of the extension down (outward) with a good piece of hardwood or something hard and blunt. You may have to hammer and dolly the quater panel lip up slightly to make the contact that is needed. Then clamp the two together about an inch apart and work each weld separately. When it's all said and done you may have to tweak the two joined pieces back out or down in this case, to "square up" the lip.

Again really hard to give advice when I can't physically touch, feel and see it for my self. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...


440abody,
I can appreciate the difficulty of working a problem like this from pictures. I think that we are talking about the same thing. I need to "tuck" the metal into the back side of the joint. An alternative might be to tack weld the edge of the seam to join the pieces together and then weld the drilled holes shut. The aggrevation has subsided, maybe I'll come up with something now that I have calmed down 8) Thanks. L8r

Jim
 
Jim, If your having to pull the quarter to the trunk extension then I would slice the quarter skin from the bottom and follow the wheel oepening up towards the top going just past where the quarter fits good. I would then either clamp it with some vise grips or cleco pin it or even tech screw it. The thickness of the blade of the cut off wheel will get you there. One thing to avoid when putting panels on a car is creating tension on a panel especially a large on like a quarter. You are very fortuante that those Sherman panels even come close to fitting. I had to totally reshape their parts to fit on my last Road Runner. I hope this helps.
 
68383GTS said:
Get some self tapping sheet metal screws and screw the two panels together tight.Then weld it together.Take the screws out and weld up the screw holes.I have found this works very well...


Jim
Click to expand...


X2. It's all we did in the body shop. The gap your talking about is not bad at all... If your worried about it after welding,use seam sealer.
 
My auto body instructor 15 years ago always said, you have to get your panels like your girlfriends, Clean and tight. :)
 
turbodart68 said:
Jim, If your having to pull the quarter to the trunk extension then I would slice the quarter skin from the bottom and follow the wheel oepening up towards the top going just past where the quarter fits good. I would then either clamp it with some vise grips or cleco pin it or even tech screw it. The thickness of the blade of the cut off wheel will get you there. One thing to avoid when putting panels on a car is creating tension on a panel especially a large on like a quarter. You are very fortuante that those Sherman panels even come close to fitting. I had to totally reshape their parts to fit on my last Road Runner. I hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Turbodart,
I am not sure that I follow where you are suggesting that I cut????
Do you mean that I should slice just outside the arch of the wheel well, kinda following the the lip but on the flat part of the panel?

It looks like an easy option is to weld along the edge where the two pieces do come together and then weld the holes that I drilled for the plug welds back shut. I will be able to make a "partial" plug weld at the most inner quadrant of those holes. So I ma thinking that between the edge being welded and the partial on plug welds, it should be strong enough because it is limited to a pretty small area. Thanks. L8r

Jim
 
1968FormulaS340 said:
I'm having a hard time seeing the problem.
Click to expand...

1968FormulaS340,
If you go back to the first pic in post #6, I am talking about the three plug weld holes in the middle of the pic. You can see the shadows from about 9:00 - 12:00 in the holes that indicate the separation between the two surfaces. The right angle bend in the trunk extension is too far toward the rear of the car to allow the bent flange to mate tightly with the lip of the wheel well. Thanks. L8r

Jim
 
Clamp it and spot weld it. You will never get a perfect fit with after-market parts.

And from what i can see, the gap is rather small. I bet it is within production tolerances from 40 years ago.

What didn't fit back then was covered big globs of seam sealer or slathered with filler.
 
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