I'm in the process of replacing the driver side quarter of a 92 Z28 that belongs to a member in my local club. Here's how it looked Friday afternoon before I introduced it to my sawzall: After about 10 hours worth of drilling out spot welds, gently prying panels apart, hacking out big chunks of metal with the sawzall & double cuts, beating out wrinkles, and pulling my hair out it ended up looking like this: I have removed a little more metal since the picture was taken this afternoon. The replacement skin is part of a big chunk of a junk yard car that I am trying to separate it from at the moment. The junk yard literally cut the driver side rear quarter out of their car....It is a quarter of the whole car. I am not too far from having the skin removed from the donor quarter and should have it at least fitted on the car tomorrow and good start on welding it up. Unfortunately there was a good bit of internal damage that I did not see until I got the skin off. I have about 99% of it straightened out now with lots of hammer/dolly time in it. This is in no way a project for the faint of heart. I do custom sheet metal work for a living and this probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. In the past I have fabbed up numerous body panels from scratch for many different "classic" vehicles, but that is so much easier than repairing damage on the inner parts of a unibody. I will update with pics as progress is made.

Alot of progress was made today. As of around 6 p.m. I have the replacement panel hung loosely on the car. It fits fairly well. There are still a few places here and there that need a little trimming before I start welding it up. I cut it off of the donor "car" kind of big since it's always easier to take metal off than it is to add more. I'm finished working on it for the day. I'll hit it some more tomorrow evening once I get home from work.

Here's what it looks like now:

how hard would u gauge this fix? i know that it take a lil know how but ive never done it b4 and probably should instead of trying to beat out my damage. will a rear quater from a ttop or hardtop car fit a vert with some tweeking?i know how to weld and have most of the tools that i would think be needed

I would gauge this as a "I could live to be 120 years old and if I never had to do this again I would die a happy man." In all seriousness though it's alot of work, not real difficult, just very time consuming and tedious. I rate this as an 8.7 on the PITA scale. When using a panel from a donor it is very important to make sure you cut off more than you are going to use.

Unless you have MAJOR damage like this car had I would suggest trying to straighten out what you have. Most dents can be hammered out but this car had kinks in the structural metal that could not be straightened out or salvaged , not to mention the big rip in the panel behind the wheel opening. I wish I had taken a picture of the lower rear corner of the door jamb, it looked like an accordion.

There's really not a whole lot of welding involved in this. Well, at least not much bead running. It's mainly spot welds. You have to drill out all of the factory pinch/spot welds. Once the replacement panel is aligned you simply fill in the holes that were drilled for panel removal.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Eddy. I am the owner of the Camaro and I truly believe I have the best man for the job working on my car. I went to lend a hand but know nothing about metal work. So I was mostly there for moral support and the job seemed VERY TEDIOUS.

He makes it look so easy!


Save whatever sheet metal you don't use, to be used for small patches, like shaved antennas & door handles. If your not gonna save it, I'll take some for pieces of small stuff (like what the old quarter can be saved for).

Oh yea.....

While he's in there, might think about having him go ahead & cut the bump stop ridges out & weld in flat plates, if you think you might ever stick on some deep wheels & wide tires. Now is the perfect time to tackle that, since everything it out of the way already.

well here is a pic of my damage the day after it happend b4 i started work. i got it mostly out and straight but its still about 1in from the corner of the tail light but it looks straight down the panel so thats y i was thinking to just do the quarter panel. i will have an after pic put up as soon as i can find my cameras memcard in a day or so since its not at my house. tell me if u think that i should have just replaced the panel

dude grade a work on that quarter panel i didn't know there was neone left that was capable of doing it the right way wish u were my friend..
chris i hate the person that rearended u

i wish it was rearended it would be fixed by now... lol ill put it this way. i hate women drives that cant get off the phone driving mini vans. she came around a blind turn in my lane and to avoid a serious head on collision i went down in the ditch did a few 360s and hit a tree which threw me back on to the road.. and the b*tch never stoped.... and what sucks even more.. the car didnt have a scratch on it b4 that happend!!!!!!

Damn good work there. Looking good.

And the hit and run sucks majorly. My car has been vandalized twice....

First time they took a bat to the hood, windshield, and driver side window, also put a little dent in the fender...

Second time was a cinderblock to the hood and windshield...

Something to look out for... have your jack stands under the suspension when you weld the 1/4 back on so the gaps don't change when you drop it back on the ground.

Thanks for all the words of encouragement, everyone. This task was very daunting when I first decided to crack into it, but the deeper I got into it the more everything started to make sense to me.

Chris- I would try to pull as much of that out as possible with a come-a-long and hammer/dolly work. There is plenty of room to get to where you need to get to work on it if you take the spare and interior panels out.


I made some good progress this evening. The panel is on the car and I've started tacking it all up. The door closes solid and opens easily. I would have probably had the majority of it welded up tonight but I ran out of welding wire. I'll pick up another spool tomorrow and get after it again.

Here's pics:

Thankfully this little ordeal is over with. All I have left to do is put the interior back together and do a little sanding on the filler that was skimmed over the weld seams.

looks good man ill be doing that to my bird soon, but to maybe avoid any future problems when replaceing quarters like that have the suspesion fully loaded

I finally got a chance to finish up the car today. It's completely done and the interior and all is put back together.

I'm not the one painting it so I just shot a coat of primer on it.






Now I can get back to the body work on my 91 that has been taken apart since May.

To the guy with the convertible. I believe they make just and end piece that you can weld onto the end instead of replecing the whole rear quarter. I am doing a similar job with my 89 RS. No damage but they are rusty. So I have one quarter panel cut out on the donor car and working on the other side.

Nice work! I noticed something...is the end of the GFX always open like that in the last pic? Or is it usually covered up? I just never seen it like that before. WHat happened to it?

wow. this is just kind of amazing to me. I don't think i've ever seen anything that extensive ever repaired (very nicely i might add) before. great job!

incredible work there, buddy... i wish i was capable of doing that... quite a talent you have there... keep up the good work

For a guy that doesn't do this,you did a nice job! Very straight with great gaps!....BILL