1969 Dodge Charger R/T - The Paddock Project Charger Part 3: Quarter Surgery

After removing the old brace and prepping the area, spot-weld holes are located on the replacement brace.

Mike gets ahead of himself and tacks in the trunk floor extensions before replacing the rear crossmember brace (the new crossmember hasn't arrived yet, and Mike's not one to sit around and wait). The whole back of the Charger is "woven" together during construction, and everything interlocks. The rear brace goes behind the back of the trunk floor extension and attaches to the top half of the valance, which goes on after the trunk floor extensions. You'll have to pry pieces into place in several instances while replacing the rear sheetmetal on a Mopar, so pay careful attention to how it comes apart. Once everything is located, the brace is spot welded into place.

After the rear crossmember is in place, we move inside the trunk and install the trunk floor extensions, or "drops." Here, you see the new panel being compared to the old one from last month, before the rusted area is removed and the mating surface is cleaned up in preparation for the new piece.

Don't expect new panels like this to be a perfect flush fit. This is the front end of the trunk floor extension, where it butts up against the back of the wheelhouse. Though it's not a perfect fit, it is correct-this is precisely the reason the factory used seam sealer. Get it close, get everything properly aligned, and then apply seam sealer to literally fill in the gaps.

From underneath the car, use locking pliers or clamps to hold the down-standing flanges of the trunk floor and extension together for welding.

After the rear crossmember is installed, the rear valance has to be installed. Here's the new, fresh valance panel being held up to the car before the back end is fully disassembled.

During the removal process, as Mike begins to remove the rear valance from the car, he rethinks his decision to remove and replace the entire rear valance. With the number of spot welds that have to be cut out to separate the rear valance from the taillight panel it will be Swiss-cheesed and become pretty flimsy. Also, by removing the section below the taillight panel, there will be nothing holding the back end of the car in place, as both quarters are already removed. In essence, all that will remain if Mike removes the whole rear lower valance will be the top surfaces of the quarterpanels, the deck lid opening, and the taillight panel, with nothing to hold them up. Gravity will pull them down and completely blow all our alignment and reference points.Mike's solution is to simply leave the good part of the lower valance-between the taillight panel and the trunk floor-intact. He removes everything below the trunk floor (as viewed from outside the car), and cleans up the ragged edge.

Mike puts the new lower valance in place, with the quarterpanels temporarily in place, and checks the fit and alignment of the valance and the end caps. Mike uses self-tapping sheetmetal screws to hold body panels in place during the fitting and tack welding stages.

Once everything is fitted, it all comes apart and spot-weld holes are punched in with a pneumatic panel flanger (top) and crimper. Once the spot-weld holes are made, everything is clamped and screwed back in place, and the spot-welding begins. Here, you can see Mike using a bar to press the flange of the new lower valance against the old one. Mike uses a layer of seam sealer between the two panels to keep the moisture out and inhibit rust. After the car is painted, everything will be sealed.

This is what the back of the car looks like before welding. Notice the gaps on the end cap. This is the way they were fitted from the factory, and the gaps between the pieces were filled with a bead of seam sealer before the car was painted.