I finally did the last repair to my green car which was brutalized by a wayward deer. A new fender. Here's a picture of what I had to start with. We had tried pulling out the damage, but decided it was too much work. We also decided to never drill holes in metal again. Next time I have damage like this I'll buy a stud puller.



Here the fender has been removed. I left the back part because it's very very difficult to remove and would have quadrupled the work time for this repair. This technique worked out really really well.



Here is the new fender during test fitting. Almost ready to weld.



And it's all welded in. Pretty straight forward repair. It's an almost seamless weld and will only take a tiny amount of body filler to make smooth. I'm very happy with the result. You can see the replacement window frame in this picture as well.



There are a few more pictures here.

Mark, great job, looks awesome.

How did you know where to cut to line on the new fender, in relationship to the old fender?

I just did it little by little. If you look at the rest of the pictures you can see I started with a whole fender and then I'd hold it up and draw a line. Cut and repeat little by little. If it's gonna come out great it takes a million steps.

So you didn't make a template?

Instead, you took the old fender and placed it 'inside' the new fender then started cutting, carefully?

WhooHoo!!!

Thanks so much for posting these pics. They are really helpful for those of us who are contemplating similar jobs on our cars. Often the biggest hurdle is just trying to figure out how to approach the problem in the first place!

This is almost exactly how I did it. I laid the black fender over the top of the remaining green fender and then scribed a line on the inside of the fender. I then cut close to the line (not exactly on the line) and held it up again. Each time you cut material away you can get a more accurate line. Each time you can cut closer to your latest line with confidence. I probably did this 6-8 times. Once it gets really close I used an angle grinder with a grinding stone to finalize the line. Grinding a bit at a time. The line is a guideline always, never a cut line. The line shows you how close you are, not where to cut. Never cut exactly on the line. Go slow, do it slowly and painstakingly. The more time you spend here, the easier it is later and the better job you'll do over all.

One last tip, make sure things fit up 100% without having to force anything into place before you start welding. If you can hold the piece in place with two fingers and have it line up on its own, then you're going to do a great job. If you plan on welding a little and then bending or forcing or hammering things as you go you're going to make crap. It's all about the prep work, not the welding.

Hi Mark,

Nice job welding the fender on! I like the way you sneak up on the final trim.

You mentioned never drilling holes again, I came to the same conclusion when I was doing body repair, it damages the metal way too much. I would rather cut out inner structure if necessary so that I can bump the dents out with a dolly, or pry them out, then hammer and dolly, and shrinking disc to smooth.

The same thing goes for the stud welder dent pullers in my opinion. They are a time saver for body shop type production shops, but superior work is done by working the metal out from the inside instead.

Now that you have the original fender cut off you could try the bumping method on it just for fun...clamp it on the bench, and see how it works out.

John www.ghiaspecialties.com

Looks good Mark! Great work. I'm glad you were able to save your car.

Why not leave a little extra material on the car (where you'll weld the new panel on), overlap the new fender in it's precise position, and then cut both at the same time? If you use an air saw or plasma cutter they leave a pretty good gap to butt weld the two pieces together.

Obviously your results are very good, but it seems like a more tedious method than simply cutting both pieces at the same time for an exact fit.

PK

PK,

It's better to have no gap on thin stuff. You do have to look at the backside of the weld to make sure it looks like a weld, not a line. Leaving a gap makes it possible to pull the fit out of shape when welding...not too big of a deal, but it is a factor.

John www.ghiaspecialties.com