I have a 84 gen1 Daytona and it have mint rear wheel arches and quarters. I'd like to know how I should go about cutting them off? Can I do it with a sawzall? I need to replace the arches and quarters on my other Daytona that are rotting or have filler in them
do you want to just fix the area around the wheels or replace the entire q panel?
if you want the entire q panel best to pop it apart at the spot welds
and if that's what you wanna do then google - blair spotweld cutters
I need wheel arches on my car and quarters, just need the easiest way to get the ones on the car off so a shop could possibly fix my car with the ones I've removed
depending on how much of the quarter you need, I used a metal cutting blade in a skil saw, but that was on an Omni through the body line, so it made for a clean straight cut (when a use it, have the blade just far enough out to go 1/4 past material, full depth wants to grab and mangle your the material your trying to save, do a test spot first). I also used the same blade to cut the majority of the rear fenders on my ranger when installing flared fiberglass offroad fenders, but the sawzall did have to come out to get the thick stuff (layers of material and boxed in parts).
I think a combo of cut-off wheel and metal blade in the skill saw would do the trick if your doing a "partial" quarter, really depends on the extent of the quarter repair.
I live in cali so I don't have to deal with your same issues, but why deal with a quarter repair instead of body swap? or is it a registration thing or blah blah? just wondering...
The best way would be to drill out all the spot welds around whole quarter panel. It's less work, less filler and a cleaner installation to replace the whole quarter and if done correctly will last for years to come unlike cutting and replacing just the wheel arches. Your quarter may have rust in areas you can't see too. Better to have the whole quarter and let the body shop have the option of how they want to do it.
body swap - easy to say when you live in a place where you can find em
not so easy in the rust belt where the question is - is the next one more or less rusty than what I have ?
this is the 2nd body for this car already, i wont swap it a 3rd time
dang...this is the 2nd body for this car already, i wont swap it a 3rd time
Get a spotweld drill bit and start drilling out the spotwelds.
Break the seams using a hammer and a thin bladed tool like a stiff putty knife. If you're skilled with an air chisel, that works too.
Any where you are going to cut across the panel, use a cutoff wheel or sheetmetal nibbler.
A sawzall is too brutal and will destroy the panel.
Sounds like this is gonna be a big pain in the ---
neck
better than a sawzall is an actuall air powered body saw - like a sawzall but much smaller - blades are the size of a jig saw blade
I have one and I freekin love it
https://www.google.ca/search?q=air+p...HtKLyASKrYGIBg
this also is perfect for butt welding body panels
lay one over the other cut both at the same time so the cut line matches - saw curf leaves the perfect gap to mig the pannels together
any more than 100 bucks - you're getting ripped off
a good saw kit should include at least more than one blade gard / guide bar thingy
and always make sure the little allen head screws that hold the bar into the saw body are nice n tight - I lost one outta my saw
The body shop I use actually MADE new wheel arches for one of my cars! Check around. I sure can't see any signs of it not being original. My son has put 100,000 miles on it since then.
yea well i figured if i had them it would be less expensive then than a shop making new ones
have you tried using front fenders to use as patches? use driver side for paeenger quarter, and vise versa......
if the body lines match up could be less work than cutting 1 car to fix another
I have taken off an entire passenger side rear quarter off an '89 Daytona. It took me 2 days of drilling and cutting! I don't know how many holes I drilled...a LOT. Also, the panel goes UNDER the roof, so there is going to HAVE to be a splice unless you pull the roof off, too.
On the passenger side there is adhesive that holds the fuel filler port that you have to break loose and there is 2 spot welds just in front of the wheel arch that you really have to look for that go to a support bracket behind the panel. I'm not sure you can see it from inside the car. I don't remember. There is also adhesive/sealant all the way around the wheel arch.
25 years of doing bodywork. I can only guess I've drilled thousands of spotwelds.
Not fun, but it's the only way to do it and save the panel.
i'm cutting up the car and scrapping the chassis regardless, its time has come. i need the fenders so i cant rely on them being used for something other than front fenders. this is gonna be a pain in the a$$
if you have rust on both rear wheelwells I'd stop and take a good hard look at the crossmember under the trunk floor - the one the gas tank straps attach to
in the rustbelt , mid '90's I found that most cars with rust on both wheelwells , that crossmember was also rotted
one side rotted , the crossmember was always good but when both were rusty than the crossmember was done too
Only my arch is bad on one side and the spots where the rear jack points are eh, but its an iroc r/t I'm not gonna find a 3rd iroc r/t roller to rebody this drive train that's all new
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