I'm getting ready to patch the rust holes in the rear lower part of the fenders.
My question is: should I pull the fenders off to patch or should I patch with the fenders on the car ?
I plan on cutting metal from an old hood since the holes do not "appear" to reach to the edges.
I have not yet cut out all the rust.
( I realize the rust may be worse than it looks, but I know the car has always been in a semi-arid climate since it was new ).

Any input welcome
Don

Pull the fenders. They will be much easier to work on and you can coat the back when you are done.

Hi Don, Deffently pull the fenders. I just finished brazing in a patch in the same area on passanger fender,It was easy to work on it loose. I had to flip it in many ways to do the work,also easier to float the filler.Looking good so far. graemlins/thumbsup.gif I wish I knew how to post pictures. Good Luck ...Ed

Thanks for the replies.
Happen to have any tips or hints to make it easier to align them when I put them back on ?

My body man recommends leaving the fenders on the car for this procedure. He claims that if you want the fenders to fit properly, leave them on. That's the way mine were done.

If all your doing is patching the lower rear bottome of the front fender. I would do it on the car.. it saves alot of extra work....

My .02

do you then take them off and paint the backs or something or you just leave raw welded steel exposed on the back side

Remove the fenders so you can fully see the rust damage. Cut out any rust, might find that you will need to fix the brace on the backside of the fender. If you are replacing the entire lower section of the fender and the brace is rusted, dont cut off the brace and the lower section all at once. Carefully remove the brace from the fender by drilling out he spot welds down by the lower bolt holes. You want to leave some of the lower half of the fender still there so you dont lose any position, the fender can shift, when you cut out the brace.

Once the brace is in place, roughly trim the patch panel to fit the fender. Bolt the fender back onto the car and realign the fender to the door. Continue to trim the patch til it fits the fender. Also you want to make sure the new patch will match up to the body lines on the door.

If you trim the patch to fit the fender and weld it on with out hanging the fender back on the car you run a very high risk of the lower half portion of the fender not matching the door. The body lines might not match, you might have it bowed to much out or sucked too far in(as viewing down the side) The vertical gaps between the fender and door could be off.

Do all your final trimming and welding with the fender hung on the car to make sure that the fender will fit properly afterwards. Once you have the fender fully welded you can remove it and finish up any farther welding that you couldnt reach before and protect the backside with a rust resist primer like etch primer, PPG DX1791, Dupont variprime