When a customer’s classic Chevy C10 truck bed came back from the media blasters it was clear the custom-widened inner fender arches needed some help.
Below shows the custom widened arches that were on the truck bed. After media blasting, you can see that it was a poor custom job on this classic car from a previous restoration/custom job.
The previous custom work was carried out to a poor standard and the customer did not want to reuse these fender panels.
After we took delivery of the truck bed from the media blasters, we had the customer check out the arches for himself. After a brief study of the bad workmanship he asked me to make him a new set of custom arches for his Chevy C10 truck.
We always evaluate and look for the quickest, most economical way, to complete a job for a customer. This particular job highlights this perspective. The inner fender housing only needed to be 2″ wider than a standard factory pressing. To take one aftermarket pressing, cut, add in 2″, and weld in two joint lines so close together, would cause a distortion problem in the metal finishing process. This would also add a considerable amount of time to the project, not to mention the amount of welding to achieve this option, as opposed to another route.
The second option involves buying four aftermarket pressings and making them into two inner fender housings. To make one custom inner fender for the left hand side you need two left hand pressings. The picture below demonstrates below a left and right hand pressing.
So now we have all the ingredients together and laid out, let’s operate! We have two right-hand panel pressings sitting on the table. Take the first panel and mark and cut the bolt flange off, here we went half an inch from the edge. Take the second panel and mark 1/2″ lost on the first pressing, plus 2″ for the custom width (as prescribed by the customer), from the bolt pattern flange. Then cut to the line and tack weld the two panel sections together as shown below.
Photos of custom-widened Chevy truck fenders
Once we tack welded the two panels together, then we TIG welded them, and then we metal finished each panel to complete and ready for the truck. Once the panels are metal finished to this high standard there is no body filler required, only primer and paint. Which can save you time and money in the long run, – block sanding takes a lot of effort!
So there we have it, a paint-ready fender panel for this custom Chevy truck, with one weld line instead of two. We have initial extra costs for buying four inner fender panels – but did save a considerable amount of time and money by welding each inner fender panel only once.
Check out our other Chevy projects, and other classic, vintage, and antique cars from the categories on the right-hand side of the page.
Contact our team The Metal Surgeon for more car and truck fender restoration information at 303-761-4884! You can also see how to get an estimate.