Technical Fabrication advice wanted

Hey, I’m new to this thread and the world of fabrication and feel I might be in a little over my head. I own a two door 1964 mercury comet and need advice on certain rust repairs. The quarter panels, (notably a around the wheel wells) have cancer and need to be fixed. To my knowledge there are no reproduction quarter panels made for my car. I have made several attempts to make my own patch panels but none to my satisfaction. Has anybody recreated these before and what will I need to recreate these panels myself?

 

Welcome fellow ‘64 Comet owner! You are correct, there are no reproduction panels made for quarter panel repair. My first suggestion would be to try and locate a donor car and cut out the parts that you need. The S.W. part of the country might have salvage yards that could possibly have what you need. Another route would be to have someone fabricate the panels, I know that the Comet has some unique body lines on the lower quarters that could be a challenge to duplicate but it is not impossible. Have you joined Comet Central? https://www.cometcentral.com it is one of the few forums dedicated to Comets, it has a very active bunch of members who are willing to help.
Enjoy your Comet!
Jim

 

How bout.....find another quarter that is 'close' to the Comet and graft it in?! (Falcon? Mustang? Shivel-lay?)
6sally6

 

The "not an actual 64 Comet donor' thing might fly if it is intended to look like a drag car that ran in a class that allowed body mods like opening up the wheel openings.
Metal shaping them? Yes we have several guys on here who could cut the sample piece out of your fender, snag a piece of metal out of the rack and in a few hours have a perfectly shaped replacement piece. The cost might be as much as a road drip to dry area wrecking yards to hunt for a donor.
Donor part, unless you can actually look, touch and feel when you inspect it I'd say ask a seller for a batch of detailed high rez photos and this is where faded original paint with no rust speaks loudly as to actual condition.

 

Maybe you need some more tools to try and reproduce what you want.

 

I don't mind offering advice when I think it might help, and this just might. Break it down into smaller pieces. Don't think of it as one big panel, think of it as a bunch of pieces making a big panel. While a bit more work, as you get better and more tooled up you'll find less pieces and less work from the experience gained doing.

 

One of my sons and I are doing the same repairs to an Australian 65 Falcon hardtop. We have used back door skins and 1/4 panels from a 4 door to make complete lower 1/2 patch panels. The 1/4s we used came from a sedan that had spent many years on its roof so the lower parts were good.
Phill.

 

If you have time and patience with basic tools you might be able to get thru this with some input form this fella that makes a habit of fixing rotted out sheet metal. he has a lot of teaching videos that many of us follow.
Cant buy it? Build it! - YouTube

 

Fitzee!

 

Depends on the amount of damage, but most wheel well openings can be fabricated with a hammerform, or a metal brake (or a homemade bending set up) and a shrinker stretcher. Higher up, farther out, you can also 'fudge' it with bending metal over a log, or gas cylinder. Hand "tipping" with a pair of vice grips is also a good thing to learn about.

 

Always wanted to try the concrete casting trick...

Cut the old piece of panel off, lay it flat, fill it with concrete. Then stretch new sheet metal over the top of the concrete form with edge clamps and a couple come-alongs. Gently work the sheet with heat and tension, then work in detail with wood/leather/plastic soft face tools. It looks cool in the pictures at least...

 

Thank you all for your suggestions, for the time being I think I’m going to try my hand once again at making them myself. This time I’ll try in several pieces and see how that turns out. I’ll follow up with my progress as I go

 

Maybe a post on Comet Central might turn up something that will help you. ‘64 Comet rear wheel openings are unique to that year-model, no other models shared that design.
Jim

 

Can’t tell a lot by the pics.
Need to choose one of these.

 

Great advice just what I was thinking then saw your reply so here goes -
Don't cut anything out yet !
Go to a craft store and get some heavy craftpaper comes in a roll it's almosrvas thick as business cards and make templates of each section of the panel ( bottom , mid top ) , get some sheet metal to practice with . I use templates makes for a happy and well structured build