My son-in-law came over and helped me
install the stainless steel welting for the rear fenders.
I had previously purchased the vinyl welting from Steele
Rubber but thought I would give the stainless a try.
If unsuccessful I could always install the vinyl. The
driver's side of the car was the hardest installation in
that the rear quarter panel was hit back in the day and
repaired with poured lead and some skillful metal work.
My main concern was that the fender didn't align quite right
and had a little space between the car body and the fender.
Because of the alignment issues we decided to remove the
fender completely and form the stainless to the car body and
then reinstall the fender.
I used the tubing bender to make the bend at
point 'A' then bent the interior angle by hand forming it to
the body curve. Of course we made the appropriate cuts
in the vinyl to allow the piping to bend without being
restricted by the vinyl gasket. I used a leather punch
to cut out the round holes for the bolts and stapled
cardboard tabs to the black vinyl gasket. The
cardboard was useless and I recommend a stronger material
like the plastic strapping use for packages.
Needles to say we bolted on the fender and
worked the stainless into position. The results were
excellent and came out better then I expected for a first
time try.
The passenger side fender was near
perfect so we didn't remove the fender just cut slits in the
vinyl gasket for the bolts and worked the welting in-between
the car body and the fender. We spent the entire
day Saturday installing these two pieces of stainless but
the results were well worth the effort. In the
picture below, my Son-in Law Chris tightens up the fender
bolts Before we cracked some beers.
