And here's the almost finished...
And here's the almost finished project. The panel is in place, all sewed up and the grinding handled. All I have to do now is rebuild the rotten portion of the inner rear support and give the outer area a skim-coat of filler. Then, it'll be time to tackle the other side. Stay tuned for some upcoming peeks at replacing floor pans, quarters and other assorted panels from Impala Bob's.
Restoring a rusted hulk of a car is--to us folks in sunny So Cal anyway--by no means a common task. Here in the land of 50-degree winters and bountiful sunshine, project cars are relatively abundant and usually in extremely good shape--relative to the rest of the country, that is. So, when the guys saw the rotted carcass of a '66 Caprice I dragged home recently, they thought I was nuts. Why in the world would anyone in their right mind tackle building a car that most South Westerners would relegate to the scrap heap without a second thought? Well, perhaps it's because I enjoy a challenge, or because I'm originally from the North East. Relative to what I'm used to restoring, the Caprice was an acceptable project car. The honest answer is mainly because I'm cheap and I got the car for a song. Besides, with the availability of replacement and patch panels from Impala Bob's and the like, my biggest investments in the body resto will be MIG wire and time.
Impala Bob's catalogs are chock full of nearly anything you'll need to restore an early Chevy car or truck, and their selection of sheetmetal is extensive as heck, which is a good thing for me as I'll more than likely be using at least one of every panel they make for the Caprice, plus a 4x8 sheet or two before I'm done. With that said, I'm going to proceed to install the first of many repair panels in my, and the Caprice's, future. I'm starting with the first front fender lower rear patch and in future stories I'll tackle quarter panels, floor pans, and a catwalk panel, as well.
Follow me out to the driveway and see what it takes for an amateur to repair a rotten fender with a fresh, new, pre-formed patch panel from Impala Bob's. Hey, if I can do it than you most certainly can!
 Okay, here's where I started...  Okay, here's where I started (after removing the fender, of course). As you can plainly see, this fender is pretty well shot, but not beyond repair. |  I checked out Impala Bob's...  I checked out Impala Bob's Web site and spied what I'd need to bring this rust bucket back to life. Unfortunately, the Caprice is just slightly different than the Impala so some of what Bob offers wouldn't work in this case--but he did have quite a bit that would, like the fender bottom patches. |  The Caprice spent a lot of...  The Caprice spent a lot of its life in Mexico, and I'm guessing near the shore, as the rust was pretty extensive. There was a good amount of rust starting to come through above the obvious hole you see here, Luckily, the Impala Bob's patch is quite tall, so it worked out well. The first thing I did was to lay the patch panel over the fender bottom and trace its outline with a marker. |
 Once I marked the fender,...  Once I marked the fender, I used a cut-off wheel to slice out the section of the fender bottom, using my marker lines as a guide. You've got to be careful at the rear of the fender, as there's a brace that you want to save; don't cut that off along with the outer skin. |  Here, you can see how I trimmed...  Here, you can see how I trimmed this particular fender. The rear edge and the wheel opening edge were both still solid, so I left them in place when I trimmed the fender, opting to trim the new panel instead. This was my choice and you may want to use the complete panel in your case. |  This shot shows the repair...  This shot shows the repair panel with the old fender skin laid on top. I used the old skin as a guide to mark where I needed to trim the new panel. As I said before, trimming is not required. It's just the way I decided to go about it. |
 Here's the two panels side-by-side,...  Here's the two panels side-by-side, you can see the marker lines on the edges of the new panel, but I only trimmed the front and back, not the top. |  The trimmed panel was placed...  The trimmed panel was placed over the gaping hole in the fender and positioned. I lucked out and my trimmed edges lined up remarkably well--things gotta go smooth once in a while. |  In past years, when I was...  In past years, when I was redoing those typical, rot-infested North East cars, I invested in a set of these cool sheetmetal clamps from the Eastwood Company. They come in pretty handy for patchwork and I think they're still available. |
 The clamps hold the sheetmetal...  The clamps hold the sheetmetal in place, and with enough of a gap to fill with weld for a good solid seam. |  Once in place, I tacked a...  Once in place, I tacked a few areas around the perimeter of the panel to hold everything in place. Once the metal cooled, I went around the panel and begun to finish the weld a little at a time, letting the panel cool so it wouldn't warp from too much heat. |  Here, you can see the less-than-glamorous...  Here, you can see the less-than-glamorous backside of the fender and the welds all around the perimeter. This took quite a while to complete, as I tried to keep the heat and warpage to a minimum. |