Outer Wheel tub repair ? ? ? ? ?

[garyfish340]

Have you ever tried to replace 1/4 skins, and during the deconstruction, you pull away the old skin only to find a damaged outer wheel tub. Damage so minimal, that buying a new outer tub seems like a waste of money. Normally the front might be a little eaten away, sometimes the back by the trunk extension, maybe the weld in the center of the arch will pop out a hole. It always seems like a matter of snipping a bit of sheet metal, hammering a bend, and it should be short work.
You hammer out that little patch, fit your 1/4 skin to it, clamp every thing, and buzz a few tacks. But when final assembly time comes its off by 3/4 inch.
The sheet metal from the factory is pressed out with such a wicked curvature, that it seems impossible to create a patch with out some kind of fancy french wheel kind of tooling.
Well if anybody has been successful, and you happen upon this thread. Please share your success. Let me know your technique for victory. Hell, if you have photos post them. Too me, it almost seems comparable to replacing a front fender because it has a golf ball sized rust hole. I've seen rear wheel tubs where the zinc has held up pretty good in most of the structure, Leaving lots of thick metal, yet down lower where snow, and mud get hasn't.
Thanks...:blob:

 

[FISHBREATH]

I had the same problem when I did some rust repairs on my '68 GTX in the early 1980s. Because there was no replacement sheet metal of any sort available back then, I hand formed sheet metal taken from the roof of an old junker. I basically hand formed the metal off and on the car. It took a lot of time, but it was effective. The rusted areas were typical: rocker panel ahead of the rear wheels, outer wheel housings where they meet the quarter panels, and lower rear quarters from the wheel well to the bumper.