FYRCHKN

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.

FYRCHKN

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:

quickkris2006

iTrader: (2)

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

FYRCHKN

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.

flu_by_u

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.

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

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).

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

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.

quickkris2006

iTrader: (2)

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

tomclayborn

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

quickkris2006

iTrader: (2)

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!!!!!!

Bullydawg

iTrader: (7)

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...

1piece@atime

iTrader: (1)

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.

FYRCHKN

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:

FYRCHKN

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.

L0tuS

iTrader: (3)

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

FYRCHKN

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.

kevmann

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.

chevydrvr

iTrader: (1)

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?

aciddrop2804

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!

DiscoMaster

iTrader: (1)

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

RPOZ28

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

iroc_you

i went through something like this.i had a friend who had a tree fall on their car it was a 2001 smashed the whole roof in. i cut a roof off a donor car at the bottom of the pillars front and back,took forever lining it up but got it done and all new glass in you couldnt tell it was touched. it was a friends and they dont realize the time and work that goes into a project of like that.like fry said,its more the tedious stuff like fitment and measuring that gets you

Chicago88gta

my 16yr old son and I have to do this job on our 88 gta. We're chicken, already have donor quarters. Anyone in chicago that canb help guide us?

91rs-t-tops

That's a real nice job from the pics hop you used a zinc weld through primer on it it's the best to use when doing pannel repair

89firechicken89

How much would it cost to have someone do this rough estimate?

ZsTransAm

Prices will vary a lot from shop to shop, but at the last body shop i worked (ironically in Fondy where you live) at it was 5-6 thousand including the cost of parts and paint.

89firechicken89

how much would that quarter chunk from the junk yard cost?

Z28REGAN

It's nice to see some fellow Wisconsin people on here. I'm going to be doing a similar project on an 87 IROC.

michael

iTrader: (1)

Ok gotta dig this old one up. FYRCHKN would you be interested in doing something like this again? Although my panel isn't as screwed . There is a wrinkle above the right rear tire and the corner where the spoiler end piece bolts on is all mangled. Along with the rear tail light panel needing to be replaced. As to what's under the bumper I'm not sure. I went to pop the hatch several years ago and put on the replacement bumper cover and hatch and nothing happend when I hit the trunk pop. Popped the hood to hook up cables and noticed a squerrel (sp) nest up by the booster. Along with that the harness where it goes into the firewall was chewed to hell. So I just closed the hood and walked away. Eventually I ordered a donor harness for cheap and I was going to replace the end and the first foot and a half or so of the main harness that was chewed to hell and I noticed they chewed the hell out of everything else. So it's just continued to sit on the driveway.

If I ever get around to getting it running again would you be interested in tackling a similar job in the future? (several years more then likely). I can take pics of what I can other then under the plastic in the trunk and what's behind the tail lights and rear bumper cover since I can't get to the inside of the trunk right now to remove stuff. :-(

I live in Arlington but could get the car down to you.

Just went out and looked at it again. The panel is probably fine. Just needs the be straightened above the rear wheel and maybe the corner piece that the spoiler end cap mounts to can be fixed. If not I think that section is sold still. Now the tail light panel for sure will have to be replaced. I doubt there is any damage under the bumper cover. Let me tell you why:

Several years ago at night at old apt complex. We heard squeeling tires then a loud bang. Opened the balcony door and there was a suburban sitting at an angle behind my car and at the time my girlfriends formula. Black guys got out and took off running. One of them got back in and drove off in the burb with now no headlights. Apparently what happened is they were around the corner breaking into some ladys car and she caught them. So they took off in the burb. Well the sprinklers were on that night so the parking lot had streams of water flowing across it. They apparently hit that and slide. First into the back of my car then into the left rear corner of my at the time girlfriends formy.

The only point of impact to my car was their bumper sliding across my taillights and then hitting that corner piece of the quarter panel that the spoiler cap mounts on. Their headlights got busted out by the spoiler. Of course my glass was shattered and still held together by the tint. (Have the video from our apt of this all happening.) :-( The next day I went to beating on the tail light panel so I could get new tail lights installed. Took the hatch off my 87 I had at the apt which needed a new oil pump and body work also because of a different idiot in a G8 in the ice at the apts a year or so earlier. When we went to mount the hatch apparently the impact tweaked the roof where the hatch mounts bolt in because we had to use a crow bar and tweak it back down. With the hatch mounted the edge of the glass is still a little higher then the roof line so there could still be some tweaking that needs to be done or its just a 87 hatch on a 91 car. Because there is a difference in the decklid and spoilers. So for all I know there is a difference in whats going on at the roof line also or it just needs more tweaking.