Unfortunately, rust is a way of life for many musclecars. We caught up with Mike Flaherty of Custom Designs to find out the right way to fabricate a steel quarter panel repair patch for a 1969 Dodge Daytona that had gotten soft over the years.
The car is pretty wild… it’s a black Daytona with a red Wing – one of only a handful in this color combo. It’s also a factory 440-powered car with a bench seat and a column shift! Bizarre!
The goal today is to create a patch for the exterior. Mike likes to leave the inner trunk floor extension in place (regardless of how crusty it is) so that he can use it for a guide on the new panel. Start by measuring the size of the patch needed, and give yourself a few extra inches.
Mike came up with 34” by 6” to completely cover all the flanges, plus get us into clean steel. If you don’t cut into metal that has not yet rusted, your patch will end up being a rusty mess again in no time.
The next step is to cut your steel. Mike uses 20-gauge cold-rolled steel for his panels, as it’s the same stuff the factory used.
Once the piece is cut, Mike runs it through a Roller on his sheet metal brake. This puts a slight “crown” in the metal so it matches the contour of the quarter panel.
Now it’s time to measure it again and determine the size of the flanges. The front in the wheel well is about 7/8ths and the lower is right at 11/16ths. Take this back to the sheet metal brake and bend your lower flange.
To begin the front flange, Mike grabs a pair of pliers, a hammer, and a steel anvil. Begin the bend with the pliers, but you’ll need to shrink the metal to get the lower 90 degree bend to form. Keep tapping the high spots with the pick side of your hammer and the metal will begin to flatten and form. It takes time, but it will go! When it’s looking close, you can use the flat hammer and dolly to crisp up your front flange.
Test fit again! You’ll have the panel on and off the car a whole bunch of times by the time you’re through. Use a shrinker to regain the crown you lost when you bent the flanges.
Only when you’re sure the panel fits like you want it to should you begin to cut off the old piece. Use the new panel as a guide and scribe a cut line on the quarter panel. It’s easier to see your line if you then mark it off with masking tape.
Mike uses a cutoff wheel, a hammer, and a chisel to remove the old panel. He cuts the panel, than grinds the Original spot welds and chisels them apart. This way, he doesn’t warp or distort the quarter panel.
Trim up the new panel and the quarter after repeated test fits to make a tight gap for welding. Then, clamp the new one in place and weld it up! Mike likes to create a series of spot welds to keep the heat and distortion down. All that’s left is to grind the welds flat and metal finish the panel.
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