a lil intro I guess: so I sort of "inherited"/ traded my now ex my vehicle in exchange for this ride at the beginning of this year. This truck had been in some serious need of affection attention and love for longer than he owned it (5years?) and his best bro had it for a few years prior to that (3-5years). He'd found it in the middle of an over grown field type thing bought it as a fixer-uper, and almost didn't touch it.

So the "cancer" has torn through the usual spots, both rockers, underside of the bed, and of course both of the fenders and quarter panels got hit the hardest.

So I've been plugging away at my not-a-clue version of a cosmetic resto (Mechanically, the truck is pretty great).

I'm having serious issues trying to reshape the fenders. Specifically attempting to bring the correct curves and dimensions back into them.
Between me and who know how many other people over the last 25 years I'm not sure how many times these same areas have been re-done cuz along my way I've found multiple instances of many different "styles" (knowledges attempts) and colours and at and of various depths littered all over the truck.

The rear quarter panels have definitely been done atleat a few times regardless, and from such, have lost most of their shape.


Front Left: Basically after I'd taken outa lol the rust and structurally weakened metal, i had only the top inch left of the wheel well and not much more of the sides of arch left either. Ended up grabbing some sturdy scrap pieces of metal, shaping them to fit in the inside of the remaining arch and extending to where it was supposed to be, and welding that into place. Then shaping it as a whole, then came the fibreglass matting and resin, then bondo, and just started sanding down the finishing putty.



Right Rear: I didn't have to do nearly as much work in fabricating the body but did have to use proform's body filler foam to fill in massive voids in the structure.


Does any one have any tips, points, ideas, or 'hacks' on how to do this so I can stop cursing and threatening to tow this truck to the scrap yard? lol – cuz I really do love this truck but this project has stretched far beyond my reach of capabilities and nudging at my sanity.

Thanks!!!
Much appreciated!

😇

 

First off, welcome to YT!

I'm not much of a body man, but wouldn't it be easier to see if you could find a truck with decent sheet metal and somehow graft pieces of it onto the truck? I assume you probably live in a part of the country where good sheet metal is worth its weight in gold, but car-part.com has helped me out finding parts like that… Otherwise, its kind of a crapshoot getting your "style" down, let alone the correct dimensions. lol Just a thought!

 

Front fenders are fairly easy to bolt on and off. Rears a fair bit harder. Most people say go cut out a bigger piece at the wrecking yard than you need and weld it in place. Other who know what they are doing will chime in soon. Welcome to YT