Cool McCool's Garage

Yesterday I made a “no going back now” decision and cut the bottom of the right rear quarter off behind the wheel opening. I’d been trying to decide whether or not to pull the “spear” character line all the back to the bumper, and that move sealed the deal. It had to be done now.

Today a trip to ALRO steel got me half a sheet of 20 ga., and I had them shear two 8″ pieces off. On the way home, I stopped at my buddy John’s place, and used his 8′ brake to bend a roll in each of the two pieces to match the profile of the spear. True, the brake leaves lines no matter how shallow the bend, but they will pretty much grind off, and I’ll skin the panel with a little filler anyway.

Back home, I got busy and trimmed fender a little more, and cut the inner fender off, as the whole thing needs to come in to match the new fender profile. The curved panel got trimmed and massaged into shape, then tacked to the fender. I’d originally planned using original lower piece I’d trimmed off, but it had been patched before (by me) and I wasn’t happy with how it looked, so I made a new panel and tacked it into place below the new “spear”.

Standing back to admire my work, I though that the scrap left from the curve I’d made would make a perfect fender skirt. The stock wheel opening comes about 2/3 the way up into the spear over the wheel, the skirt will just complete the roll. I’m not sure if it needs a panel at the rear to tighten up the opening behind the wheel, I’ll look at it tomorrow, maybe make a trial filler piece and decide then.

For now, I think the look is great, quite a dramatic change, and looks like it should have been done that way from Ford. And, it didn’t take as long as I thought either, no longer than the headlight change.

Take a look, and see if you don’t think so to!

No going back now

The new “spear”. Thanks John Warnuk!

Skirted

Tacked in.

Stand back and admire the new look.

Before. No spear. No skirt. Much sadness…