Attention was now turned to the front area, namely the radiator support. Due to the accident it was rippled and buckled where it had been connected to the inner fender. The only area damaged was the first few inches in from the passenger side and the only reason I worked on repairing it. If it had been badly damaged or rusted I would have replaced the whole thing.

Looking at it I decided the best way of straightening it would be to press it between two surfaces. It's too flimsy of a panel to try to hammer and dolly successfully...........I know, I tried. I raided the scrap barrel at work and found some pieces of aluminum and steel. Now I needed clamps to press the panel with. I bought two 8" C clamps and two 6" C clamps from Home Depot. They worked out perfect. With the panel being squeezed between the blocks the metal had no choice of where to go. After all the pressing the metal came out being about 95% where it should be. Much better than what it had been and even better than I thought I would get it. This now gave me a flat area to weld the new inner fender to.

Here I'm working on getting the top portion straightened out. With the large C clamps doing this took little effort. Those are two 8" clamps on top and a 6" on bottom.

The lower area was fixed in the same manner. I had to use smaller clamps due to space limitations.

With the radiator support straight the edges were cleaned up and dressed as the others were. The new panel I got from Classic Mustang was test fitted. As with repro panels it needed some tweaking towards the top but otherwise fit pretty good.

The repro panel is clamped in place and test fitted. It fit pretty good except for the top rear area where it met the shock tower. Some tweaking will have to be done in this area.

I got plenty of use out of those C clamps. Here they're holding the upper edge of the panel to the workbench so I could bend it more to match up to the shock tower better. I did this slowly until the bend was right. In between it was clamped up to the car several times until it lined up good. Getting it to fit right now will save headaches later and make the repair look better.

After the new panel fit correctly it was prepped to be installed. That included punching and drilling holes for spot welds and grinding off the coating where it would line up to the holes that had been drilled through the radiator support when the original spot welds were removed.

The panel is now prepared. The air flange/punch tool is visible next to the panel. I used the punch part to put holes to be spot welded in the panel. I used the 3" cut off wheel to clean off the primer coating where the panel lined up to the spot weld holes in the radiator support.

The panel was clamped in place for the last time. I used many clamps to do this. You want to make sure it is tight to the other panels with no gaps between the surfaces. I measured the distance between the radiator support and the shock towers and firewall on both sides and adjusted the clamps until it was the same. The support had to be pulled towards the front of the car since it was still bowing in slightly from the accident. It was now time to weld. I welded all the holes closed in the panels. When these welds were ground down they would resemble the factory spot welds. No continuous weld beads were done, Ford never did so at the factory.

This is how the panel looked after the welds were completed and ground down. They look like the factory spot welds.

The same is true for the rest of the panel.

Now remember I saved the pieces of the old panel for a template? Well, now was the time to use them. The repro needed the holes for the starter solenoid, clip for the wiring harness, and drain for the battery tray drilled in it. It did come with the correct threaded holes to mount the battery tray though.

The old panel is clamped over the old so the original holes could be transferred. I could have just mounted the starter solenoid and such without doing this but I wanted to get them in the original spots that they were. With the old panel overlapping there was no guessing.

I did have to hammer the damaged top edge of the old panel flat so it would sit on the new one.

PAGE 5 (inner fender replacement)

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