Front Fender Corrosion

[Tcraftdriver]

Hi All,

The left front fender of the 59 TR3a I just bought has corrosion all the way thorugh in the lower rear corner, about the size of a baseball, maybe larger when the fender is stripped. Can anyone please advise me how to remove the front fenders? I want to also replace the fender beads and it does not look doable unless the front fenders are removed. This is turning out to be a good (I hope) learning experience and some advice here will be appreciated.

 

[martx-5]

The front wings are held on by a bazillion screws. There are screws that attach to the front apron, some that attach to the inner wheel fender, some that attach onto the A pillar where the door hinges are, several screws underneath just in front of the door, and one (maybe two?) screws under the dash that are accessible through a hole(s) in the upper part of the kick panel.

It's probably best to remove the door. There are some screws along the inner edge of the wing under the hood holding on the beading. The rest of it's just has tabs that get clamped between the apron and in the rear by the scuttle.

Be prepared to fight the screws that are rusted to the caged nuts. It would best best to locate all of the screws and start spraying them with some PB Blaster or Kroil and letting them soak. Spray and soak for several days. You'll still probably have some spin in their cages. In that case, how you deal with them depends on which ones they are.

BTW, you can replace the beading without removing the fenders, but you will have to loosen most of the screws, so it's a moot point unless the fender has recently been off.

There are repair sections for the lower part of the wing available, but how you handle that depends on how far up the rot is. The sections that are supplied are made for worst case scenario, and generally just go too high up the wing. The repair panel (the ones I got from Moss) is flat over it's total height, and the fender is only flat for maybe the first 4-5 inches. So I cut down the repair panel to only as much as I needed so i wouldn't have to deal with getting some arc in the upper part of the repair panel.

Good luck...it will be a learning experience.

 

[TexasKnucklehead]

Art hit the nail on the head. Prepare for the worst while trying to remove the 27 bolts that hold the fender on. -not counting the ones that hold on the inner fender seal. I don't think it's possible to remove the bolts inside the door jam without first removing the door. And here is a picture of the one bolt hiding with an access hole thru the kick panel. -Actually it shows the method I used to rotate that bolt, because seeing it is very dificult until it comes out.

I had good luck with one of the Moss repair panels, and bad luck with the other. I had large areas that I cut away and had to modify the repair panel as well.

 

[Geo Hahn]

I have replaced the fender beading (more than once) by just loosening the 5 or so bolts that hole the wing to the apron. Of course the beading along the bonnet is simply screwed in place using that plate attached to it.

Maybe I was just lucky but that small section were the rear-most of the beading is secured had enough of a gap that I could coax out the old tabs and slip in the new. Couldn't get at the end of the tabs to fold them over so I used some adhesive. There isn't really a lot of force trying to lift the beading back there so it doesn't take much to secure it.

Loosening those bolts up front is almost trivial compared to complete removal of a wing.

 

[TR3driver]

One of these will help with door removal, if the screws are stuck.

 

[CJD]

If you don't have to grind and torch off at least 10 rusted solid bolts...you can say you lived a lucky life! Definitely not a weekend job.

Best of luck,

John