I don't know for sure, but the fender brace seems like it was made from heavier gauge steel.  But that wouldn't explain the good condition of the wood. 

On my current project, the braces are in fairly decent condition, but the wood was gone.  

Tim

Why are PO's so evil to the fenders??  You have a few challenges, but looking back on your build, you'll make them look like new!

On my first 3A, I finally punted.  I cut the old tops out and replaced the skin with new 16 gauge steel.  I just couldn't get them to look flat.  That darn brace was messing with me.

Tim

I have had so little time to work on Hoover.      . . . most likely I am going to give up on trying to "hammer" the fender to straightness.   Probably going to cut it out, and replace with new straight metal.

Hoover has been neglected for too long!

Today was an amazingly nice weather day for December, and I pulled the tarp off of Hoover  . . (to remember what it looked like.  ) .. then, could not help myself, and decided to make somekind of progress today.

The worst looking area was the passenger rear corner,  so that was my goal.  I was planning to use 18ga,  because that seemed to be the original,  but only had a piece of 16ga large enough. . .  Wow,  what a pain!   I am amatuer,  so there might have been easier method,  but it was tough to make a consistent curve on the corner.

For the 90deg flange I used the trusty 2 angle-irons clamped to workbench with big C-clamps . . that went great  . . .  it was the corner that was a pain.   Using a rubber dead-blow hammer -> I tried forming around a 2.5" dia solid steel slug, and a 3" diameter tubing,  but got mixed results.  In the end I used some probably unconventional methods,  but got reasonably close. 

I will make sure radius at bottom and top are correct, (when welding the flanges)  plus it will be pulled tight to the spare-tire bracket in middle.   This should ensure correct radius,  when done.

Some before and after photos:

Today's progress,   some work on passenger-side fender.

This fender was oddly in very good shape in some places,  but rusted badly where it attached to body.   The photos below show the patches needed to replace missing or very thin metal.

Note the use of magnets from PC hard-drive to hold one of the replacement pieces.   

Looking back on the build it's almost as someone actually tried to kill the little beast but it fought back to live another day. Keep up the good work!

Oilleaker1 wrote on 12/17/15 at 23:51:14:


Thanks  . .  I have been using the fine cut fiberglass in place of plain bondo in some previous projects,  and was planning to use it for this.

Looking good!