March 2006

After removing the front bumper it appeared that the passenger front fender had been repaired, sort of. Here you can see that the seam where the fender attaches to the body was not straight. Also, the indentation where the fender edger is not crisp.

Here's a shot from above showing that the blinker area isn't smooth. At this point I decided to remove the fender.

I retrieved the fender I had previously removed from the blue car. A previous owner had removed the side blinkers, but had done a poor job of repairing the hole. So, I removed the patch.

This shows the inside view.

I cut out a new piece of sheet steel and trimmed it to fit. This show it prior to being welded.

After I welded it, I applied bondo, then sanded it smooth. This shot shows the differences between the front turn signal area. The new pieces is in a lot better condition.

After getting the donor fender ready, I returned to the old fender. I began chipping away the bondo, starting at the blinker area.

Another shot of the bondo removed around the blinker.

After getting the bondo remove from the blinker area, I began removing the paint/bondo until I found paint only.

I removed all of the bondo and paint to this section. Also you'll noticed that I placed a scribe line where I will cut the fender.

I began removing the fender by drilling out the spot welds in the front.

Here all of the spot welds have been drilled and the metal peeled apart.

After carefully checking the extent of the previous damage, I decided to remove only the damaged area, not the total area that had been bondoed. This shows the first cut section.

This shows the section that was removed.

Another shot.

Here's the section removed.

I also found rust/damaged area around the bumper attachment. I removed it.

This shows the patch that I'll weld in. After welding I'll drill out the holes for the bumper.

I rolled the car out of the shed and cleaned the fender wells. The wells were covered with dirt and road tar.

Driver's side.

Rear fender. The trailing arms were also covered with the road tar. There's still more to remove, but this is a good start.

This shows the car on jack stands as I clean the fender wells.

I also removed the fuel tank. I'll take it to a radiator shop and have the clean and seal the inside and paint the outside.

Reference shot.

Reference shot.

This is the old gas that I removed. The gas should not be orange. Also, you can see some debris at the bottom of the bucket.

Once I removed the fuel tank, you can see the dirt and leaves that were under it.

More stuff under the tank.

I also found this screwdriver wedged under the fresh air controls.

Here's a close up of the screwdriver. I came apart in 3 pieces. It's a Snap-On, I wonder if they'll give me a new one for this one?

This is the fuel tank. I appears to be in fairly decent shape.

Here's the underside. You'll notice that there is some rust areas. This is where the tank was sitting on the carpet strips, installed at the factory. When I reinstall the tank, I'll use neoprene instead of the water absorbing carpet.

Here's some shots of the area cleaned up.

I'll clean this area up better, just before I paint it.

More...

This shows the rust area where the carpet was glued down.