Well to date I have made strong effort to building an addition to my existing 20x20 garage shop to make it a 20 x 40. With that said, my attempts to fix the 59 apache fenders were put on hold. But I was able to find some decent stock replacements and when the addition is done I will be putting time into taking the 59 apart for some serious fixes/upgrades.
As a note of caution to others, I did make an attempt to purchase repro fenders and the fit was terrible. If I were not a beginning "builder" I probably would have grafted the repro sections onto the stock fenders. Either way, I still have the original fenders, returned the after market ones, and a set of replacements from a donor 59.
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this is where the bondo was REAL thick. A half inch by my calculations. Similar to the inside upper corner, all the body lines were fixed using bondo. The metal did not even mimic it in any way. I have purchased the replacement aftermarket metal for this. And it does match up. It will not cover the entire patch. I guess I have to fix this patch partly and then add the lower section. I am trying to make the parts before I lose any valuable guidelines. At least I did know the fenders had good fit prior to taking them off.
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This is the inside corner, you can see the previous persons handy work. As is the case with other parts of the truck. He/She/They lapped replacement metal on top and then caked on the bondo! I cut thru the welds on this patch not knowing the damage underneath. The patches were in good shape, but the underlying metal continued to rust and allow moisture to get up into the bondo and "mump" the paint.
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These three fotos show the front eyebrow of the fender. Lots of pin holes on the front portion and the metal has thinned.
2nd foto shows the replacement metal I made up after making a paper template, then hammering, tapping, shrinking, stretching it up using various pro jigs like my socket set for getting a proper top curve, and the head of a small ballpeen hammer for the main curve.
3rd foto shows the replacement metal away from the fender, just to show it off some.
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While I was very please with the truck, I knew that it had paint mumps. As some had read in previous posts, I tried to put after market fenders on her, but they did not fit. So it was time to see what lie beneath the paint... this is the drivers side rear portion. I already cut out some of the rust. The paint was holding it together.
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