[gtv6george]

I made a previous post about attempting the inner fender repair on my GTV6 and in that post I had decided taking the fender off was the only way to properly repair the rust on mine. So I set out to do so drilling all the spot welds on top of the fender. And then it snowed. And kept snowing and long story short there the Alfa sat for a winter. Today was a tolerable 45 degrees so I decided to take a crack at removing the fender again. I made my way removing spot welds till I got to the front of the car and realized there’s almost no room to drill off the spot welds I tried using an angle drill attachment still wouldn’t fit. I ended up driving to my work to get my air angle drill which is 100% worth the money buying for this job alone as the head is only 1 inch wide and fits pretty much anywhere. Took out the lower front spot welds no problem. Now I’m moving onto the top spot welds and the brazing in the front top corner of the car. Any advice for separating this part I think I can drill the spot welds easy enough but I don’t know if there’s another braze I need to cut to remove it. Any Advice is appreciated. And here’s the pictures of the angle drill I used if anyone thinks one would be helpful in the future to them.

 

[Baz70]

Have considered doing this myself but held off due to the effort required. The only braze I am aware of and I stand corrected is the one joining the fender to the a-pillar and if you remove the paint you can see the braze line (about 5cm across). The rest is all spot welds. I'm interested in section behind door joining th door post as I think that would be the trickiest part. Will follow this thread and your progress with interest. Good luck with finding a decent-priced metal fender if you decide to replace it.

 

[gtv6george]

There is also brazing in the front lower section of the fender below the grille. I don’t intend on replacing the fender it’s in incredibly good shape considering. Just have to access the rust on the inner fender. I’ll have to let you know how it goes with removing the spot welds behind the door I’m also curious how that is going to go.

 

[sportiva]

If you remove the door, access to the spot welds is straight forward. I used a spot weld cutting bit in a cordless drill and had no trouble getting to any of the spotwelds. How do you intend to seperate the fender from the cowling at the bottom corner of the windshield ?. When I removed the fender from my car I had a new one to replace it so I just cut along the top of the fender parrallel with the seam them used the spotweld cutter the remove the now exposed welds. when I installed the new fender I was able to apply two spot welds in the same section by going in through the vent outlet inside the car.

 

[Nicola2.5]

how many spot welds would you there are overall? and how long did it take you to undo all of them?

 

[sportiva]

10_20 welds and less than an hour to remove welds from behind the door section about the same for the run of welds on top of fender under the hood. And these are the easiest to get too

 

[gtv6george]

I am going to attempt to remove the welds from the inside if possible. If not then I have a glorified putty knife/chisel that’s really sharp the snap on guy sold me and I’ll use that cut cut between the panel. I won’t get to the welds in the door this weekend as I’m going to flordia to visit family and go to the 12 hours of Sebring. But I’ll keep everyone updated on this thread when I take the door off to completely remove the fender. As for reinstallation the plan is to put some new metal where I cut the spot welds out and then seam weld the whole thing as well. I don’t plan on ever selling this car so as long as it’s structurally sound and looks decent I’m happy. If I could find a new fender I’d gladly buy one but I don’t think very many NOS fenders exist. Also i already did the lower fender repair on this one... got my order of operations a little mixed up.

 

[gtv6george]

Took me about 20 minutes to undo the ones on the top and about an hour to carefully do the ones in the front with a putty knife and 90 degree drill. Most people just cut the fender at the seam but I was a bit of a wuss and didn’t want to risk cutting important metal. The ones in the door I haven’t got to yet waiting for nicer weather to remove the door.

 

[gtv6george]

Took the rest of the spot welds out. The ones in the door weren’t bad you’ll need a drill extension. Used a Cremel to careful cut the brazing off. Then I slipped a putty knife between all the spot welds occasionally hitting it with a hammer to cut any last bit of a spot weld that was holding on. Even a thousandth of metal is enough to hold you in place so be very sure you’re completely disconnected and run a putty knife under each seam don’t pull too hard or you’ll bend the fender. Now onto the inner fender rust repair! 😊

 

[gtv6george]

About a year later I’m back at it. Unfortunately I got side tracked buying a 164 I thought was perfect and ended up needing a motor rebuild. So that took some time still not done. But today I started welding in the new inner fender and doubler panel.