Removed the outer wheel wells from my 70', but the seems to be some sort of ribbon or band weld between the two wheel well lips.
Anyone seen this before? Is it necessary to completely remove this excess metal to install the outer wheel well, I have ground most of it off but can not get at it when it is overlapped by other structuring pieces.
The inner wheel well is borderline, I don't know if I should replace it or patch the two problem areas, what is the difficultly of replacing the entire inner wheel well. If it's easy I will do it, if not it will stay in place,

Advice on this would be greatly appreciated

If you already have the quarter panel and outer wheel house removed, then the inner is pretty much a piece of cake. You will need to be careful drilling out the spot welds where it attaches to the trunk floor, but you should already be good at that removing what you have up to this point. Also, take a good look at the trunk extensions for rust...now's the time to replace them if needed.

I just did a '72 and had to fab up some small patches where the trunk floor meets the inner wheel house...one side required a trunk floor brace. These were small 90 degree strips that replaced the vertical lip that rusted away.

Just take your time fitting the inner & outer wheel houses and DO NOT weld them in place until you test fit the quarter panel. We had to clamp the wheel houses in place, fit the quarter panel, then unclamp the outer wheel house to let it "float" enough to get the quarter panel in it's proper place...then clamp the outer wheel house in this position, before welding.

Are you using full quarters like the Goodmarks?

BTW, there always seems to be a bit of trimming involved to get all the panels to slip into place. Don't be afraid to trim off excess material, just do it a little at a time. I'd say we had the quarter panel on and off at least 5 or 6 times until it was fitting correctly.

good luck

Perfect advice here... Just did the same thing on my 71.. DO NOT WELD a thing until you have the 1/4's, doors and wheelhouses on and lined up.. CLAMP them down then TACK or SCREW them into place, re-fit everything, then weld.. I had to seperate my drivers side wheelhouses TWICE to get everything to fit correctly! Not a tough job, just time consuming! Good Luck!!!

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This is how I would and have done before. First fully remove the outer wheelwell, like you have already. Then install your new outer wheelwell only with clamps, get it to fit with the old inner. Once it fits ok now install your new quarter, it might take some readjusting of the outer wheelwell to get the quarter to fit right. Get the quarter to line up with the door and all the other parts.

Once you are happy with the fit of the quarter, make some line up marks with a felt tip pen or tape so you know where the quarter needs to be when it comes to weld it on. Remove the quarter, drill and place several sheet metal screws through the three layers of metal where the outer and inner weld together. These are line up marks for the outer and that other layer of metal.

I like to replace one piece at time and fit it to the old pieces instead of trying to fit all new pieces together. If your quarter extenstions are rusted too, now would be a great time to replace them. Replace them before you remove the inner wheelwell as that piece is a structual part of the car, and if remove that inner wheelwell to soon, you might shift or flex the car.

So replace the quarter exts first, get them to fit to the old inner wheelwells and the trunk floor. Once you have the fit you want reinstall the quarter panel to check the fit at the quarter exts, you might find some farther adjustment is needed.

Once the quarter exts fit to your liking now you can replace that inner wheelwell. But before you remove it, first take some measurements. Measure the distance of the that rib that runs through the inner to the height of the trunk floor. Also the distance of the that rib to the quarter exts. This will help when you go to install the new piece, the more you measure of how the old part fit to the car the easier and faster it will fit.

Remove the inner and fit to the measurements you took. Once that fits clamp it down and check the line up holes that you drilled through the outer and that other layer of metal, they should line up. If they dont line up you know that something shifted and you need to find out what shifted.

Now that everything fits to where you want it start welding. Weld as much as you can with the quarter panel on the car, that way it holds everything in place. When you got as much welded with it on the car remove the quarter and finish welding.