The Tar

Both fender wells had this kind of tarry undercoat in them, and it had to come off...

Chipping Away

Using the handy chisel from the valance project (after re-grinding the working end of it!), I was able to chip away at the ancient tar, revealing a very nice surface underneath!

Maintaining Clean

I put a vacuum hose with a big, open-ended nozzle under my work to help keep the tar off the garage floor as much as possible.

Mr. Clean

The majority of the tar is scraped away, and I think I can get the rest with a thinner (turpentine, laquer thinner, or paint thinner). The only problem is, once you remove the coats, you tend to find some surprises. In the lower left of this pic you will note some rust. It's not good! But I should be able to POR-15 the metal behind the fender that is a little rusty, and weld in a patch. It could have been a lot worse.

Bad Spot

This was the hole that started the effort to clean up the wheel well. you can see that rust has worked its way entirely through this panel.

POR Me Another

Someone noted the rust, and used POR-15 to arrest its progress. Too bad they didn't fix it, though... :-(

Rust Removed

I did my best to cut out a rectangle that accounted for all of the rust. I had to leave some thin metal behind, though, because of the angles. I hope that doesn't burn me...

In this picture, you can see the bottom of the scuttle panel, where the flange comes down to spot-weld to the inner wing area. The upper edge of the scuttle flange (corner of the scuttle) is pretty thin metal...

Through the Well

Looking through the wheel well, you can see the rear of the car!

Patches

Using the piece I cut out, I traced the outline onto some more of my MkIII panels. The smaller piece is because I need to replace two layers of material: one is part of the bulkhead (the big piece), and the other is the flange that comes down onto the bulkhead from the scuttle panel.

Cut It Out

I've been using a Dremel with an abrasive wheel attached to do my cutting. Gives a nice clean surface, and is done fairly quickly.

The Patch

The patch is in place...