Good Morning,
Newbie here with question number three !
I am having some work done on my Fiat 500F shell before painting.
There is rust damage on the rear wing wheel arches and I have the option of either welding in a new repair section just around the arch or replacing the whole rear wing / arch panel.
Does anyone have any experience / advice about of doing this?
If its just the repair section around the wheel arch then a cut will have to be made and the welded seam made good. If its the whole panel I'm not sure whats behind and consequently the complexity of re joining the other panels whilst keeping the integrity of the whole shell / alignment seams etc etc.
Many thanks in advance!

It's a lots easier just to use a repair panel rather than replace the whole rear wing. Mine had a similar problem and I got a repair panel and let the body shop do the business. Any decent body shop should know what to do.

A few pictures below of before and after.

Yep, that's what I did. However, if there is rust behind, then it needs to be found and dealt with.

Tim

It's always been my preferred way too, and you needn't even use the entire repair panel as it can be trimmed down to let you keep the maximum amount of the original.
The problem you encounter is that it takes greater skill and possibly the same amount of time to renovate like that. That approach can cause distortion and introduce the potential for corrosion where porous welds and places inaccessible at the rear are unable to be accessed for rust preventative painting. You will usually need to do more pre-paint preparation afterwards too.
I have noticed a trend for whole-panel replacement on restorations on this Forum and elsewhere and I understand why, but I still feel it's good to keep the integrity of the shell wherever possible.

A member '1500500' has a thread on restoring his 500F.

www.fiatforum.com/427875-fiat-500f-rejuvenation.html

The work involved in fitting (most of) a new rear wing is covered on page 11-12.

Al.

Hi, probably me being daft but I cant open the link? just get a page not found?

Thats great Peter many thanks (Again) !

Was being daft found it now ! sorry

I'm a firm believer of fit a new one if its available.
gets rid of all that hidden rust that tends to pop up about a year after carrying out local repairs.


Fully detailed on my thread Franko the 1971 Fiat 500L

Another "it can be done" photo.:tempt:

_JAN8075 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

I have taken your advice and a given the welder a pair of wings so fingers crossed, meanwhile here are some before and after pics of my engine refurb (if Ive uploaded them ok)

F123C said:

A member '1500500' has a thread on restoring his 500F.

www.fiatforum.com/427875-fiat-500f-rejuvenation.html

The work involved in fitting (most of) a new rear wing is covered on page 11-12.

Al.

Click to expand...

I got the confidence to take the whole panel off after seeing this as well as other restorations on this forum.
See below link.

Cheers

Geoff


http://www.oandssportscar.net/fiat-500-car-restoration