1946 Ford Pickup Stretched Sheetmetal Repair - Visit To The Shrink

You can see the area I first worked on at the far end of the panel. The rest of the F-1 section was not much better, but at least it wasn't stretched, just dented.

Here's the backside of the area I shrank. It took ten applications of the gas torch, not to mention the number of hits with the electric shrinker just below that, though I'll admit I was experimenting with using it instead of the hammer and dolly at times.

While I knew the lower front section of the fender had been patched, the sandblasting revealed this horror story, so there'll be more welding required on this fender yet.

Seeing as the whole purpose of fitting the F-1 fender section was to add the fender swages to match the '46 Ford passenger car front fender, it only made sense to have them as straight as possible! Flipping the fender over on the steel table, I used a cold chisel and hefty hammer to straighten them.

Looking along the swage lines like this will reveal any waves that you may miss just by looking at them from above. It should also reveal any large waves or lumps in the sheetmetal.

A few more hours spent hammering, filing, and picking saw the fender ready to be sanded using 80-grit discs on a DA sander.

It's still not perfect, I need to weld up the fender brace bolthole and would like to spend a little more time on the area below the swage line, but magazine deadlines wait for no man, so here's the fender back on the truck, ready for filler and primer, though that's a whole 'nother story.