With both Quarter Panels replaced, I am focusing on remaining areas of rust. The areas behind the front wheels are known rust zones. Using a magnet was a tip off that I needed to check them out. So I pulled the right front fender. Here is what I found.


I checked into removal methods, and found that it is possible to remove one fender at a time with hood in place. Not sure you gain a lot by doing it this way, but I tried it and it works. Found a two by four, cut it to support hood in full UP POSITION. Put a screw in the end of it and left it protruding so that it fits into a hole in the hood to prevent the prop from slipping.



Stuffed a pillow between cowl and hood.



With hood hinge FULL OPEN it can be removed. Hood is still reasonably stable with one side removed. I’ll clean this up and maybe paint it? Looks like it never had paint on it?


Fasteners at front bottom of fender.



Fasteners at top rear end of fender



Fasteners right behind headlights. These are reachable by removing coolant overflow tank. Other fasteners located at edges of plastic wheel well. And of course there are two at the bottom right behind the wheel. They were rusted in badly. Fender can be removed with bumper in place, but easier I would think without bumper. For sure placing a new fender with good paint would be less risky without the bumper.


Sunny day, so picture is a little hard to see well.


This area is rusted and will need to be replaced. I have ordered patch panels, left and right.

 

There can be significant hidden rust between the outer sheetmetal and the inner brace. You can repair the brace when you cut off the bottom metal to install the patch panel. I would spray rust convertor in between the 2 pieces and place the fender standing on edge so the rust convertor liquid can run into the pinch weld area. After it dries spray a liberal amount of rustoleum paint or some other product to seal it against future rust.

Rodney


Backside of the front fender


This is the hidden rust on the fender brace lurking between the metal


Stripped & prep'd the rust then sprayed with industrial Rustoleum paint to protect from future rusting.

 

Thanks Rodney. Great post! If you have more pics to share jump right in!

Looks like you went the extra mile and separated the two parts to get to all the corrosion. I have never used the rust converter chemicals. But I agree with your methodology. Rustproofing the two pieces of metal in close proximity is something that just needs to happen. I had already concluded that best way to do the repair is to cut the panel above the brace, and fab up a new piece and weld it in, and then weld in the panel last. As you said, this will provide some room to do the work.

Updated work includes getting the old fiberglass patch off, and making some wood profile blocks so that I can get the new patch panel lined up well.


A little torch heat on the backside loosened up the Bondo, and the patch came off easily



Backside of patch



Frontside of patch



After scraping away all old Bondo, this is what I have to deal with



I made two profile blocks by scribing and bandsawing 3/4” lumber to fit the factory metal. I anticipate cutting the old steel at about the edge of the existing paint line. That would appear to provide room to deal with the vertical brace. I think I’ll cut and fit the brace and tack weld it goodly before cutting the Sheetmetal.

 

Nice work and use the same trick for the hood. I’ve learned to cut the inner brace out and repair the outer panel first. With the inner brace removed you can take a light behind the welds after they are ground down and make sure there’s no pin holes. You can actually finish the inside of the outer panel with a good primer before you install the brace.
Dustin

 

Thanks Dustin,

With the patches ordered from JEGS, I am focusing on some bad stuff on the car. Rust got through the fender then ate away part of the inner structure. So doing some home made patches to restore this area as much as possible.


This 16 gauge brace is welded to the 20 gauge metal at the top and connects to the fender flange mount at bottom. I could tell that the fiberglass wizard had tried to do some wire welding on this piece. It was quite a mess, with rust eating a hole clear through



With the brace removed, there is also a hole through the 20 gauge metal



But thankfully, the metal flange where the fender bolts up is in pretty good shape.




Left over 20 gauge scrap from the Quarter Panel work is used to make the first patch. I coated this with weld through primer, as once welded in place, I won’t be able to paint it at all. Probably why it rusted away.



It fits up pretty well. I can plug weld bottom and side flange and fillet weld across the top, sealing the first hole.



This is one ugly piece of 16 gauge metal. It connects to the first patch at top, and to the fender mount flange at bottom.



I don’t have a Sheetmetal brake, so bending this metal is a little difficult. But I mimicked the rusted up piece of junk as best I could. Worked pretty well really.

 

KILL THAT ROT. Nice metal work.

 

you may want to check behind that hole for hidden rot.

been there done that https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...5/#post1370487

 

Exactly! I could have just ignored it. It will be behind a reworked fender that would hide it all, but it only takes another day to make it better than what it was, so why not do it?

Wow! You had so much more to deal with than what I have. Found this pic in your thread. Looks a lot like what I am doing.



Tim, you even put the hole in the new piece!

steve

 

The patch panels left and right arrived. Checking them against the profile blocks revealed that they are close to factory profile. Not exact, but it may also be that my fenders have seen a little damage somewhere and been tweaked already? Anyway, I think they will work Ok.


Got the hole in the blower housing patched. Top weld in the pic looks bad, but it is better than it appears. Flash lighting maybe?



The JEGS panels. Made in Taiwan. I called AMD and they do not make ones for 68-72 Cutlass.



Wheel area profile is pretty good.


Door end of patch is not quite as good, but holding the panel by the door it seemed to match up pretty well.

 

Saturday I made brace parts. If I had bought a full fender, then I would expect that they would have the bracing. But that is about $1500 to my door. Two patches is $250. And I am keeping most of the stock fenders this way. But the braces are not much fun to make without good supporting tools such as a box and pan brake. So it was heat, bend, cut, weld. They are Ok, but I surely would have been glad to buy them if they are or were available.


The vertical and horizontal braces are too far gone to save them at the bottom fender area.



My attempt at the 20 gauge vertical brace. Nothing straight on the entire piece. So I banged it out as best I could.



Here it is largely done, ready to fit to the fender.


The 16 gauge bottom horizontal brace is a little easier to make. I still need to weld a 5/16” nut on the end tab.



The two parts nest well into the new patch. I still need to cut out the slots for the bottom 3/8” fender attach cap screws.



Black line is approx cut line for the vert brace. I think what I need to do is use my profile blocks and black marker to make reference points that will allow me to cut and remove bad areas and then get the new parts spliced to the fender, using it as the determining point for the braces, that will be welded in lastly.

 

Monday. Had a little time and got a few tasks accomplished.


I welded in the 16 gauge brace to the upper patch and the bottom fender flange mount. Primed everything that I could get to.



Used the two profile blocks to trace positions on the fender. Pop sickle sticks are used as stop blocks.



Here I have traced both profile blocks and used reference marks to provide positioning after the rusted area is cut away.



I marked the cut line. Started the cut using a jig saw and hacksaw blade. I have found that for me, I get the most accurate cut using it. I cut to the brace, and then switched to a Dremel and cutting disk to finish the cut.

Fender skin is cut away, revealing th rusted brace beneath. I will make Final Cut on this after the fender skin is tack welded in place.



I used the profile blocks to transfer the cut line to the patch panel, and made the cut with the jig saw. Fit was very close, but used the air file to tune it up a little



These welding magnets are sometimes helpful to align parts. I’ll start the welding tomorrow



Glued on popsicle sticks define bottom position of new patch

 

I did as Dustin suggested in Post#4, and fit up the patch, leaving about a .025” gap for welding expansion. Welded the exterior patch in first. The vertical brace and horizontal bottom brace will be nested into the exterior piece.


Profile blocks clamped in place to the fender, and then the patch clamped to the profile block. Patch final fit with a welding gap. Then tack welds about 3/4” apart. Used welding magnets to carefully align the Sheetmetal



Welder set to provide 1/2 second bursts at the 14 gauge setting. Generous use of compressed air to cool the welding operation to minimize distortion.



No detectable distortion that I can see. Welds ground down.



Laying the profile block in place shows that the original profile has been maintained.

 

Nicely done! I especially like the popsicle stick stop blocks.

Rodney

 

That’s very nice. Lots of preparation but you will save time in the end. The contour block is a great idea
Dustin

 

Nice comment Rodney! I bought 1000 popsicle sticks at the craft store. I use them for the strangest things sometimes. But mostly I use them to mix and apply glues of all kinds.

Thanks Dustin. In thinking through the order of tasks, I decided that your method of fitting and welding on the fender patch and then working on the bracing lastly made good sense. That way there is something to work to. The profile blocks helped a bunch. Really important to know where things will be placed and positioned, even before removing the bad rusted parts.

Today I did not get a lot done. Did final fit up of the two brace parts, and glued them into position. I’ll do the welding tomorrow, I hope.


This little tab on the end of the horizontal bottom brace is where the wheel well bolts up. Factory looked like they welded on a piece of 1/8” metal that allowed for a drill and tap to 5/16” NC threads.



So I did the same. Welded on the backer and will drill and tap through the wheel well to final locate the hole.



I used a stick to markup locations for the bottom brace.



Up and down location



Using the front end of the fender as a datapoint to locate the bottom brace. These measures were done before chopping out the old rusted steel.



Found the bottom fender anchoring hardware on eBay.



Back side of the new patch. I primed it just as Dustin suggested. I also slid in a piece of copper plate behind the vertical brace weld joint, so that I can hit it with good heat and get full penetration.



There is about an 1/8” gap between the fender and the brace.



So I used some metal pieces to fill the void, and welded them to the brace.



I used 3M panel adhesive to glue the interior vertical brace in place at the fender wheel rim area. That is a terrible place that traps water and rusts.



Glued and clamped.

 

Finished up welding on bracing, and filled some holes in the fender. Also found other damage covered up by the Bondo Man.


Bracing is done, just some paint priming left to happen



Filled holes where SS fender well trim attaches. I will need all new, and I am sure holes would be different, so a piece of copper behind and a quick shot with the welder fills them.



Also filled beltline trim holes. I will permanently eliminate them. I like that look rather than trim pieces clear down the sides of the car. I think intention was to prevent door bangers from ruining paint. But while working these holes, I found Bondo.



So I started to sand out all the Bondo. I had noticed a crease in the fender visible on back side, so not totally surprised that once again someone had taken the quick easy way to do a repair.



Grinding out the Bondo showed two areas of metal damage.



So I will hammer and dolly these creases and dents as best I can. The edge of the wheel opening is also damaged. Bondo was over the top of rusted metal. I am amazed it held up so well.



I found that the front of the fender at the headlight area was separate parts that could be removed by removing some speed nuts.


Once removed, cleanup and prime painting will be easier.



The very front trim piece looks to be die cast aluminum?



The 1/4” anchor studs are cast right into the piece, so be careful when removing. Not an easy fix if you break one.

 

Removed some dents in the fender today. Experimented with paint removal chemicals and tried a sandblaster


Using a piece of metal scrap and a c clamp to press out dents along the wheel rim



Damage done many years ago. Scraped the front part of the fender and then the wheel rim edge. Bondo man just covered it all up. Did not try and remove dents and scrape lines at all



Circled ares are after hammer and dolly work to remove depressions as much as possible. It worked very well really.



I sprayed just a little guide coat



Then sanded down again. Dents are way better than before. But at the bottom of the old scrape line was rust, and if I had not removed all the old paint I would not know about it. There are just too many unknowns to leave any old paint on the car.



I used two coats of this. There are four layers of paint on the fender. 1” putty knife worked ok to scrape away the paint. Lacquer thinner on a paper towel cleaned up the mess pretty well.



Once the paint is off, I will sand with 80 grit as final sanding before epoxy primer.

 

Continuing with old paint removal. Found more Bondo and damage from fender benders covered up.


Letting the zip strip sit for about a half hour works pretty well



Top side front of fender. Looks like a fender bender that was puttied up without benefit of straightening the metal first. Zip strip will soften up the Bondo and make it easy to scrape out.



This is front of fender, where the bumper recesses into. Looks like the accident snagged this corner and inward dented the metal. Light under the straightedge where there should be a gentle crown instead.



Three areas where I will straighten metal



I went to the left fender to make a profile block, so that I would know how to straighten the right fender.



But knowing the car, decided to poke into it a little, and found Bondo there as well. So I don’t know exactly how the fender is suppose to look. Settled,on a gentle outward crown.



Used the profile block and C clamp to bend the metal. Much better now.



This bumper recess area was snagged and torn in the accident. I clamped a copper backer in place.



Hit it with several dots of One second bursts with the welder. It did a great job of welding



Took the air file and worked it down. Really turned out well.

 

I decided to remove the fender well and see what I found. Everything behind it is now way easier to get to and cleanup 53 years of slow degradation. Not something I really want to spend time on, but once the fender is back in place, the task gets much harder.


I will cleanup and paint anything that is now corroded, that is easily reachable



Blower housing is fiberglass. I’ll remove the motor ground wire and clean up the contact point. Just brass brushing the motor made it look a bunch better



The gob of putty in center of pic is where factory assembly worker cleaned off his putty knife. I took a chistle and removed it, along with other seam sealer that is flaking away.



This area of firewall is now easier to cleanup and paint



Using a sandblaster to finish paint removal in the hard to get to spots



This little depression where the bumper nests is easily cleaned up with the blaster



Well…..I’m starting to think I have something good going on with this fender. All steel, no Bondo. I’ll epoxy prime it tomorrow. Maybe do a little body filler to cleanup small depressions. Then it will sit for a while until the right door has been removed, hinges rebushed, door edges repainted to new color. Door hinges reinstalled and body gaps adjusted. Then the fender will reattach

 

If your gaps are good you may want to drill 1/8 holes in a couple locations on the door hinges and fenders in order to align them to the same location when reinstalling.

 

Great tip! Finding ways to index or otherwise locate panels and parts after the hard work of alignment is complete is a really good thing. My hinge bushings are shot, so I will have to remove doors and hinges, rebush them, and then align the door off of the new QP’s. And then set the fender. I have some mean work to do. Somewhere along the way I need to paint door jambs and interior painted door parts. Don’t have this all sorted out just yet.

Anyway, got the right fender primed with epoxy today. Put on three coats, maybe one more than needed. I have a three day chemical bonding window where fillers will bond without scuffing. I may scuff anyway.


Fender bender somewhere along the way. Will need a little fill.



A lot of work to get to this place.



Several spots will need minor fills.



Patch panel weld will need some fill



While paint is drying, I worked a little on heater blower. Made in Canada. Had a ten millimeter nut on the motor shaft. So first metric fastener I have found on the car.



Blew the dust out of the motor cooling hole, and oiled the rear bearing



Removed squirrel cage and oiled front bearing. This helped quite a bit, as shaft now turns better.

 

I started to put stuff back together today. Got the blower motor back on the car. Cleaned up grounding points so hope it works well. I have noticed that the high speed setting on the motor does not work. Assuming there is a resistor or something else that I have not found yet that needs replaced. I’m done removing and cleaning up parts, well, almost. Turn signal housing is a mess.


The polypropylene Fenderwells are right on the verge of needing replacement. I tried this product and it helped cosmetically quite a bit.



Tried a test spot, and next morning it still looked good.



Two of the fender attachment points are torn out. I enlarged the spot and tried some polypropylene welding, but am not happy with results. There comes a time when I just have to realize that replacement is the better option. I don’t want to get it back together and have to try and shoehorn new Fenderwells in once the fender is replaced, along with new paint that will be at risk. So new ones are on the way.



Decided to disassemble the headlight assembly.



Releasing the tension spring by grabbing it with a vice grip shows that there is once again that 53 year rust patina.



I blasted all the steel. First coat of rust oleum is already applied



Last thing on the front right corner that I will check out. Inside of turn signal housing is a rusty mess. I have a spot blaster on the way, that I am eager to try.

 

A multi tasking day today. Drug the fender outside, scuffed the primer and started to Body Fill several areas with thin coats. Using Evercoat Gold filler, so getting used to how the yellow filler looks with the blue catalyst. Got one batch to thin on catalyst. While waiting for the plastic filler to cure and sand, I worked on finishing my rust cleanup and paint operation on front right quarter of engine bay and frame. Headlight assembly will be ready to put back once paint dries.


Last time I was into body fillers was with a corvette, so relearning a little. Best part is that there now is just a small fraction of filler on the fender as compared to when I started to work on it. By end of day, I am now comfy with spot epoxy on the fender and then it will be ready to reattach to the car. I’ll do the urethane high build on the car.



This is what this area looked like before digging into it and cleaning it up.



This is what it looks like now. I went berserk and did the caliper in red. I envision chrome Cragars eventually and it would seem like this might work? If not, then I can black it out easy enough.

 

Slowing down on this, with some health issues, but did receive the new polypropylene Fenderwells today, and had to take a look at them. Bought from Fusick. I like the quality overall. Material weight appears to be the same as original part. Most holes are located, sometimes undersized, so that they can be enlarged in the right direction, if that makes sense. The four holes on the outside edge that meet up with the fender wheel arch are not located at all, and that is a little messy to do. Do I do it now on the workbench, or try to integrate the hole work as I hang the fender? I decided to take some measurements off of old Fenderwell and drill the holes on the workbench. The holes as designed by factory are oversized, with a clip in U nut that has some wiggle room, so location has some error built into the asssembly, but if you miss location too badly, the part will be weak at the edge.

Some pics


Old part by the new part



Setting the old Fenderwell in the fender to get an idea of what fit up will look like. See the big gap where light is shining through? That is where all the salty sandy road gunk gets through and lodges in the nice little brace gap and rusts away the lower fender area.



Set the new Fenderwell in place, using a wood block to force the parts together at the fender rim area



The new Fenderwell actually fits tighter against the steel fender, and should be better at keeping road debris contained in Fenderwell and not behind in the brace area.



These two holes in top of Fenderwell are pre drilled, and is a great starting point to fit new well to the fender. Putting in two of the 5/16” cap screws with the large washer heads kind of locks position. From there, it is just force the plastic out to the rim edge. But you do need to have the fender in an equalized position. If the fender is twisted, even a little, it will change final locations of attachment points at the fender rim.



Installing new A arm seals. Old ones, totally shot, and mostly gone. Stainless steel staples are attachment methods. Here I have it glued and duct taped.



I decided to augment with Sikaflex urethane sealant. I have used this stuff for years, and know that it is perhaps one of the very best adhesives around. Down side is that it take at least two days to cure out.



So, glued it up and dropped it in the trunk to cure. I’ll add the staples after the sealant cures.

 

Urethane caulk/adhesive fully cured on the A frame seal attachment to the fenderwells, So I backed it up with the traditional steel staples. So glue and staples will give a long life, I hope!

I used a wood jig to drill 1/16” holes for the staple legs . White masking tape is used to provide a clearly marked distance layout.



Inserting the SS staple through the plastic Fenderwell recess. Used channel locks to bend the staple legs halfway



Just getting them bent part way isn’t easy.



I used a bucking bar and ball peen to finish the clinch



10 Stainless staples.



Ready to go back on the car. Wheel rim to fender attach holes are marked, but not drilled yet. I think I will do a final fit check and then drill for the final placement of the U nuts.

 

So, really good to see something go back on the car. The new fenderwells seem to fit pretty good, and look good on the car.


New Fenderwell, with new A frame seal.




Cleaned up and painted canister and headlight parts. Things are gettin better!

 

Today I test set the right fender. It didn’t work out perfect, but it could have been so much worse.

This work is in conjunction with the right door remove/repair/replace. It is here https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...5/#post1641738. If interested.


Fender has collected dust for a couple months while I worked on the door. Door is test hung now, so thought it would be a good idea to see if entire right side Sheetmetal is lining up?



Door on. New Fenderwell in place, but the four attachment points do not come drilled. Best way I could figure to drill location points was to hang the fender and back drill through those holes.



Laying out new and refurbished hardware. Been awhile, and even though I inventoried stuff, I didn’t do it perfectly. I do have the Drivers side to check for proper hardware placement.



3/8” cap,screws, 1/8” horseshoe shims to hold fender bottom to car



Fender attachment at top by the windshield. I had previously used red tape to mark the fender before removal. This helped a bunch



I had to remove center bumper braces to swing the bumper forward. I had jerked the fender out without doing this, but it is time to be more careful.



Front panel joint. Door and Fender. It seems too wide to me. But the very top yellow tape point, when I open the door the metal rotates inward, and even with the wide joint it is close to rubbing. Door is just a little proud of,the fender, so I’ll try moving the top of the door inward tomorrow. But a 3/8” joint just seems too much



Door / QP joint. Not perfect, but it ain’t bad. So I need to decide what to do with these joints.

 

I took gap measurements and plan to move the door forward, I hope tomorrow. In order to move the door, I needed to remove the fender to get to the hinge cap screws. Before doing so, I marked the four fender rim holes where the wheel well attaches to the fender rim. I was then able to drill these four holes off the car, and install the 5/16” capture nuts, or whatever they are called?


Oldsmobile actually called this part, the Filler. I call it a fenderwell and it is a new one that comes without the rim edge holes drilled. So I marked them while on the car, and then drilled them.



These spring type nuts then slide over the plastic edge of fenderwell.



I did a test fit of the two parts, off the car. I think I am going to try setting the fender in place with the fenderwell attached. I think it will be easier than mating them up on the car.

I supported the door, marked present position of the body mounted hinges. I want to slide the door forward .050”. And see how things look then.

 

So pulled the fender and moved the door forward today. I reset the fender with the fenderwell loosely bolted to it. This seemed to work better than putting the fenderwell on the car, and then setting the fender. Just a lot of fighting with the fenderwell lip trying to tuck it in behind fender rim edge. Your mileage may vary!


One thing I have noticed about my car is that fit and finish is a little sketchy in places. Assembly Manual shows nice even gaps, but the parts I think sometimes slipped through Quality Control. Also need to realize what was able to be built on an assembly line, without the aid of Computer drawings inputting to NC machines for production. They got it close, but sometimes not perfect. I found that my fender has a noticeable dip or change in plane about 10” up from bottom at front of door



Hard to see in this photo, but there is a gap. And this is not an area reworked in the rust repair. The gap at the top of the wood straightedge I believe was created in factory. I am gonna watch for other similar cars and see what they look like in this area.



Fender hung. Next task is assembling a shim pack for the two bottom attach points behind the wheel.



When I disassembled the front fender, there were I think two horseshoe shims at each bolt. So 1/4” total thickness. Things were so rusted up and parts missing. I think my rebuild resulted in a bigger gap between bottom of fender and the body attach points. So I used a stack of fender washers as a shim



The two horseshoe shims. One thing to be aware of, is that you can change the outward arc of the rear edge of the fender by changing shim pack thickness. More shims will smooth the arc, and less shims will sharpen the arc.

 

So… I think I will make my last progress post on the Fender work. I reworked the lower 8” of the fender to straighten the gap line. Not fun going backwards regarding work already performed, but I just couldn’t live with that funky looking gap the way it was. Cut it apart, straightened the gap line, rewelded it, reprimed it. I like it. Dealing with the gap issues are dealt with in this thread, so I won’t detail that out here.

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...lasses-187389/


I will then just post this final picture. Entire right side of car is now steel, and not a mishmash of fiberglass and Bondo. Lots of work to get to this place, but strangely rewarding. Eager to get the left side done, probably a winter project though..

So hoping the treads of QP remove and replace, fender patch up, and door work will help others along the way. I am hoping that this car will be painted and on the road early summer of 2026.

 

Enjoy the posts. Great work. Looking forward to the left side series

 

Thanks Turnpike. Nice comment! I won’t do another thread series on Driver side door and fender work. I am expecting much the same as Passenger side. If I find something that I think worth reporting, I will. I am researching using a company that media blasts to blast the hood and trunk metal. So may do a thread on that work

Steve

 

This has been a wonderful help! First timer doing my 72 I have had since 1982…..

Chassis, engine, transmission refresh this winter, bone stock refresh..

Off to a body shop for new GM quarters

 

Wow! You are deep into it. You should have a major project thread going! I understand why you don’t. It does take more time and work than you would imagine to photograph and post. Did you find NOS Olds QP’s?

 

Steve - I really enjoy following your threads. You're doing some awesome & meticulous work - really shows how well you're doing. Kudos.