Restoring the fenders

Scientists tell us that there are 118 elements in the periodic table.  I'll take their word for it, but for those of us who grew up in the Great Lakes area, we all know that there is an additional element; RUST.  I've mentioned before that this car spent 110 years of its existence in southern California, so that meant that there is not much of that dreaded 119th element included on this car.  The one area that I did find rust that needed repairing was on the fender flanges that attach to the bottom side of the running boards.  So why did they rust in these locations on a car located in sunny California?  The best that I can tell, the design is a natural trap for mud or water, which over time allowed them to rust.

The fenders and splash boards before the ugly green paint was removed

The first step in restoring the fenders was removing the paint completely.  The fenders are REALLY thin on these early Model Ts.  My dial calipers show that they are about 0.032" thick, or looking at it another way, 30 fenders stacked together would only be 1" thick.  What makes matters worse is that these early fenders did not have much 3D contours like later fenders, which mean that they are even easier to dent.  Instead of spending way too much time with an angle grinder equipped with a wire brush to remove the paint, I cheated and took them to Kansas Dry Stripping in Derby, Kansas that specializes in low pressure media blasting to remove the paint.  Traditional "sandblasting" would likely result in warping the fenders during the process.  I used this company to strip the paint on the 1915 Model T runabout that I restored a few years ago, and knew that they did great work.

I decided that the fenders were too thin to attempt to have the flanges repaired with brazing or welding.  Instead, I repaired them by structurally bonding steel doublers of the same thickness as the fenders and then encapsulated them with fiberglass for further reinforcement.  The fender repairs were cosmetically finished with body filler, resulting in stronger then new flanges.  

There were a few localized areas that also needed body filler to bring them back to original contour.  The front fenders also needed work to removed denting in the areas where the attach flanges mount on the front fenders.  I wondered how they could have been dented like this, and then I remembered the pictures of the 2nd owner letting different ladies to sit on the fenders to pose for pictures... The fenders are now done and waiting for priming and painting.

Fenders after being repaired and ready for priming and painting