Left Front Fender, part 1: vent surround

The patch panels came in this week, so I started the process of repairing the left front fender. First step--I needed to make sure that the new vent opening was in the same location as the old one--so I laid out some guide holes.

The green oval is a rough outline of the back of the vent area.

Then it was a matter of cutting out the area to match the patch. Man, that's a big hole!

And offering up the patch, filing down a few areas to it fits, then tacking it in place. . .

Don't worry, I checked to make sure the front of the vent was equidistant from the front edge of the fender.

Then filling in between the welds. . .

And then grinding them down. . .

With such a large area in the middle of a panel, there was a little bit of warping of the panel from the heat of the welding--so I didn't grind the welds down completely as I need to do a bit of hammer and dolly work to get it back in shape, which I'll do once I get the rest of the welding done.

At this point, I took a break and built me a pair of saw horses so I don't have to work off the floor for the rest of this little project. My back and my knees will thank me for that later.