74 Dart Sport Restoration

Starting on the rear body work. From preliminary inspection both right and left rear fenders will have to be replaced.

Also both right and left rear tail light panels need replaced. Repairs done from privious owners was not done correctly so a lot of rust problems.

I'm going to tackle these problems a section at a time. First the right tail light panel. The more I got into it the more rust I found. I purchased a complete rear tail panel in really great shape for a 74 Dart from craiglist. This was cut off the donor car about 6 inches into the fender so I had plenty of material to work with.

I cut out the bad metal as a whole piece and used it as a templete to get my donor piece cut from my new rear tail panel and then clamped everything in place to eyeball the fitment. I overlapped the body with the new tail panel 1/2 inch and off set the edges so that it was an even fit with the original body. I used sheet metal screws placed 2 inches apart to hold the new tail light panel to the original back and side panels with a spot weld hole drilled only into the replacement tail light panel every inch.

Using a mig, I filled the spot weld holes up alternating the holes so as not to warp any of the panels. Once that was done I went back and removed the sheet metal screws one at a time and welded the hole shut again alternating holes so I wouldn't warp any of the panels. Using a flap disk on a grinder I sanded down the welds and coated everything inside and out with primer.