Boys and girls let me tell you; this is not a fun or easy job. I wonder why Fiat chose to weld the fender on as opposed to bolt on like every other car that I have worked on. Removing the damaged fender was not a hard chore because it was not installed correctly, taking the fender off the parts car was about a three hour job with a plasma cutter a sharp spot weld cutter and a lot of hand tools. For whatever reason Fiat decided to sandwich the fender mounting flange in between two other pieces of structural metal! Once I had the fender removed, stripped and the backside cleaned, coated with POR15 and bed liner I thought the hard part was over.. WRONG!! Having a fender welded in place means that once I mount it, it’s there for good so the fender has to line up with the hood and the cowl and the door before I make a single tack. I spent two weeks fitting and adjusting the front end to achieve acceptable body gaps. Apparently the accident and having body parts from multiple cars made the Fiat gods angry because I ended up cutting, grinding and welding the hood hinges and moving the new fender a good 1/4 inch towards the hood to get gaps that were between 1/8 and 1/4 inch all around. I finally figured that a 25 year old car would never be perfect so I settled on gaps I could live with, blew the car apart and began re-welding on the new fender. So far I have only burned through the lousy metal in three places.
So.....my “rolling restoration” has been on a rotisserie for almost 2 years, has a “new” body that ended up being as bad or worse than the original car, new floors from halfway up the firewall to mid way under the rear seat including a new trans tunnel, a new fender, (soon) two new rear fender arches, multiple replacement panels on or around the rockers, oh and I just discovered some hidden rust lurking on the driver shock tower.
In summary I have lost my garage, the neighbors are pissed because I still have a parts car in the driveway, my wife is plotting a small garage fire so she can get her husband back, I have easily spent more on this project than it would have cost to buy a REAL nice southern rust free, car. I guess the moral of my story is I STILL OVE THIS CAR! The friends I have made in the Chi-FLU chapter, the conversations that have been started with complete strangers that see me wrenching and the respect that I get from friends and neighbors that slowly see a car being assembled in my garage make it all worth it………….so far!!!
We understand.