Here's the first part of the patch. If I would have had the Harbor Freight stretcher when I did this, I would have done it in one piece.

Here's the next piece.

Here it is all ground back down smooth.

After what seemed like a never ending battle with rust, it was finally time to get her ready for the quarters and dutchman panel. I thoroughly cleaned everything I would never see again and hosed her down with Dupont DTM black epoxy primer to seal it all up. Getting to this point was very satisfying and really wasn't that hard. I just had to look at her every day that I had time to work on her and reallize I wouldn't be done any time soon. It's a hobby ya know.

OK, so it gets a little hairy here for a while. The Goodmark quarters and dutchman panel left me with quite a bit of work. I reallize they aren't OEM but I somehow expected a little bit better fit. I think that knowing what I know now I would have gently removed the stock panels, repaired them and reinstalled them. I don't know if AMD panels would have fit better but I know these required TONS of work.
So I got them all clamped in place and plug welded the jams, massaging as I went, and that part went pretty smooth. I also welded the wheel house and roof pillar also making some adjustments along the way and I'll have to section the quarters where they meet the vertical portion of the rear window channel as they weren't quite wide enough to make the distance.
I knew I was in for some work in the trunk gap area as even when the quarters were on the floor it was pretty obvious that the line on the inside gutter area was wavy and again not wide enough to make for a decent trunk lid to quarter gap.
So, using an AMD deck lid, I found things to be further out than I had originally suspected. The deck lid was beautiful and was very straight and square. When I installed it to get an idea of where I was, the lid sat pretty high above the quarters. I figured maybe this was normal so I got out the old Harbor Freight Port-A-Power and got to pushing things into shape. I had to be careful not to go too far because I still had to widen the tops of the quarters to get my gaps to look right.
Ok, here's some pics and I'll try to be as clear as possible as we go through this. If you need more detail, let me know and I'll try to explain better and might have more pics to make it more clear.
Again, thank you for your interest and patience and I hope this helps someone somehow.

After getting the quarters pretty clos to level with the decklid, I started checking the gaps and found nothing would line up. I then squared the decklid with the car with lots of careful measuring and tightened it down as a gide for the rest of the work.
I started with the passenger side and just cut a slit from front to back and used a straight edge and screwdriver to work it into a decent gap. I'll have to work it some more once the gutters are in, but I'm now at a good starting point here.

Coming along.

Just butt welding the seem back together slowly and cooling it with compressed air to minimize warping. It came out pretty good but I still have work to do.

Now here's the drivers side. Wow was it off!

This gap was way out there so just butt welding wasn't going to cut it. I had to take 3/16" filler rod and bridge the gap and in some places, 2 of them side by side.

It was a little intimidating cutting into these new panels but it had to be done or all the work so far would have netted me a very crummy driver at best. I really want this car to be a thing of beauty when finished and this is the only way to keep from feeling like a total hack. I'm going to flip her over on the rotisserie when this all lines up grind the inside so it will never look like it was done. I don't care if true afficionados can tell it's not stock, I just want the average car guy to respect her for who she was/is.

This one gives some perspective.

Starting to look like it should. Note the portion towards the front I left open to show how much it had to be pushed over as it got further forward.

Better view of the gap still needing filled in front.

I have to get some stuff done now but next time I will get the dutchman panel up here. It too was in need of serious work to get good gaps/fitting at all.

Had you considered narrowing the back 6 inches of the quarters rather than sectioning where you did? Also curious if you measured stock quarters to arrive at your plan of attack? This is getting to be the best thread on Moparts BTW.

Sheldon

I figured you had but just was curious. I've done a lot of sheetmetal work on these cars too and quite often it takes longer to come up with the best plan of attack than it does to do the actual work. I think thats why quite a few amateur restos are better than store bought restos, and a lot of people just don't understand that.
I think your posts will go a long way to show people doing their first or second resto just what is involved and what can be done.

Sheldon

Ok....that's it! The 2 new Goodmark quarters I have are leaving, and I'll buy some AMD's. Thanks for posting all the pics, and giving the play by play. I like to learn new stuff, and I'm certainly doing that thanks to this thread.