Major Surgery Part 1

A little hammer and dolly work is always necessary around the wheelopening after breaking and drilling out those sometimes stubbornspot-welds.

On the flat areas, John prefers a 3M 8-inch, 24-grit grinding disc.Clean off all the crud and loose rust, but don't remove the rust down toshiny bare metal. The POR 15 product we'll be using later needs a littlesurface rust to form a tight bond with the metal.

The quarter has been removed, leaving the upper bodyline, the door jamb,taillight attachment points, and the original marker light opening.

A 3M Clean and Strip Disc works great on the edges and in the grooves.clean up all the loose stuff, but don't polish it shiny.

Mask off the inner wheelwell lip to keep it clean for the Weld ThroughCoating that we will be applying a little later. Any POR 15 on this areacan potentially interfere with the plug welding you'll use to attach thepanel.

Using a throw-away brush, apply a good coat of POR 15 to all the rustyareas you've just cleaned. POR 15 is not like regular paint. It convertsthe rust into an inert material and bonds solidly to the metal. You'renot painting over rust. You are actually removing it by converting itinto something else. it is impossible to mechanically remove all therust from rust-pitted metal, and if you don't get it all, it willeventually come through whatever paint you apply over it. Unless you arehaving the entire car dipped and E-coated, POR 15 is the way to go.

Now you can remove the masking tape and spray some 3M Weld ThroughCoating on the inner wheelwell lip. Weld Through Coating, as the nameimplies, allows you to weld to those areas, while providing good rustprotection in the wheel-opening seam.

Now comes the really fun part. Grab a propane torch and a putty knifeand start scraping the old undercoating from around all the edges. Thelast thing you want is melted undercoating getting into your welds asyou are attaching the new panel. The heat from a standard propane torchis pretty safe here, but watch that you don't use any more heat than youreally need to soften the coating. Sorry, guys, there is just no otherway to do this than heating and scraping, heating and scraping, heatingand scraping.

There you have it--a body ready for it's new quarter to be grafted inplace. It's as important to notice what was left behind as what wasremoved. Especially note the retention of the factory marker lightopening.