Restoration of my B5 Blue 4Spd Charger 500... a long saga begins...

[BigBlockSam]

  When I buy on eBay... I SNIPE! 

  metoo. like that you don't bring the price up

[69_500]

Every time I try to puchase a part for the 500 I too have tried the sniping method. Only problem is that I usually wind up being the one who lost the auction by a matter of $.50 or something to that effect.

Oh and I don't care if you do get it down to just 3 or 4 total panels on the car, I still want it Allen. There is no getting around that one. I want it, and oh while i"m at it I'll take the Daytona too.

[xs29j8Bullitt]

My main reason for stopping by was to check out the Ma Mopar approved reproductions of outer wheel housings purchased from Goodmark Industries.  The repros looked good, and seemed to have all the correct contours...

Well, that'll leave a (Good)mark...    

I spoke too soon... A lesson learned... Chrysler approved "authentic restoration" part + a vendor with a fairly good reputation = NOTHING 

The outer wheel housings received from Goodmark Industries were not as good as they appeared at first look.  After doing a fairly decent job on the contours (at least visually... quarter panels have not been installed), they botched up the forward flange big time... putting a generic constant width narrow flange instead of the wider one with a tooling locating hole like the original part.

The driver's side outer wheel housing was installed by the body shop before I knew about the problem by cutting off pieces of the original housing flange and scabbing them onto the repro housing...     They are used to making sub-standard repro parts work because that was all that was available for many years.

Work on the C500 has been stopped until I figure out what to do.  The LH outer wheel housing is installed, but the RH one has not...

Some pictures below and on the following posts...

Allen

[xs29j8Bullitt]

Pictures from the LH (Driver's) side installed outer wheel housing...

[xs29j8Bullitt]

Pictures from the RH (Passenger) Side for flange width comparison...

[69_500]

I guess I spoke too soon, about how great it is to have the many available replacement parts these days huh? Still better than it used to be, but not quite perfect huh?

So any chance of using the flange area off of the origionals, and using them to fix/alter the replacements?

[xs29j8Bullitt]

I guess I spoke too soon, about how great it is to have the many available replacement parts these days huh? Still better than it used to be, but not quite perfect huh?

So any chance of using the flange area off of the origionals, and using them to fix/alter the replacements?

Basically that is what was done on the driver's side... it is better than nothing, BUT...

I was assured today that the new AMD repros WILL have the proper flange & tooling hole... so the options are:

Driver's Side -

1) Leave the patched up Goodmark  "authentic repro" on and hope the got the contours for the quarter panel right... 
2) Tear the Goodmark  "authentic repro" off and wait 30-45 days (or possibly longer) for the AMD repros

Passenger Side -

1) Cobble together the Goodmark  "authentic POS repro" like on the driver's side & pray for good contours for the quarter
2) Wait for the AMD repro to be available
3) Spot repair the original outer wheel housing which is not as bad as the driver's side was (leaning to this option)

The fact Goodmark  sells a bottom feeder "authentic repro" part is not nearly as bad as how they act after the fact is brought to their attention... 

Allen

[69_500]

I hear you there, but who likes to be shown that they did something wrong? I know I don't like to be corrected, but then again IT HAPPENS A LOT. I get corrected all of the time, whether I like it or not. 

[Magnumcharger]

Sorry to hear about your wheelhouse woes.
I see time has done nothing to improve the quality of the Goodmark product.
Several years ago, I faced a similar circumstance. I restored a friend's 1970 Roadrunner convertible. There were hardtop wheelhouses on the market, but none for convertibles. So I modified a pair of hardtop parts for the 'vert. Not too bad. The quarters fit the contours of the wheelhouse perfectly. I was satisfied.

Two years later, I bought quarters and wheelhouses for my Charger.Thus began the exercise into frustration and futility!
The wheelhouse had a flange at the top, with a fairly accurate locating hole for reference. OK.
After I installed the left wheelhouse, I found that it was 1/2-1 inch wider at the rocker panel than stock. In fact, the quarter panel at the rocker seam actually projected out and away from the rocker flange. I was forced to "pie-cut" the wheelhouse to pull it in. Then, after all that....the contour of the wheelhouse opening wouldn't fit the wheel opening on the quarter panel! The factory chrome trim fit the wheel opening perfectly, so obviously the problem was with the wheelhouse.
Many hours of labour, cutting, bending, welding...and I made it fit.
Not long afterwards, I read a similar story in a Mopar magazine.
Even now, years later, I'm still torqued about it. So much so, I may cut those quarters off just to remove those wheelhouses, and replace them with a better set!
I'd hoped for your sake that issues in build quality with those wheelhouses would be resolved by now.
Obviously, they're not.

[xs29j8Bullitt]

After I installed the left wheelhouse, I found that it was 2-3 inches wider at the rocker panel than stock. In fact, the quarter panel at the rocker seam actually projected out and away from the rocker flange. I was forced to "pie-cut" the wheelhouse to pull it in. Then, after all that....the contour of the wheelhouse opening wouldn't fit the wheel opening on the quarter panel! The factory chrome trim fit the wheel opening perfectly, so obviously the problem was with the wheelhouse.

OMG... the problem might be a lot worse than I realized!  Is this the problem that you encountered?  Unless the camera angles are playing tricks on my eyes...

[1HotDaytona]

I hate to say it but youre body guy is very likely to run into some ugly trouble with welding that wheelhouse on before the 1/4 panel

 they need to be loosely place on the car together to find the best fit.

 After you get the fit good, clamp, screw or tack weld the wheelhouse, remove the 1/4 , weld the w/h panel the rest of the way.

 next finish out the welds on the wheel house panel then refit the 1/4 and finish weld it on. 

[FJMG]

I'm sorry to hear of your wheelhouse woes xx28j8bullitt, Besides magnumchargers story, The website 69hemi.com also shows the difficulty of the mopar repro sheetmetal.  It is very frustrating when my buddy buys his cheap chevy parts and they fit like a glove whereas our expensive mopar "authentic" stuff requires 30 hrs of body shop modifications to make them fit! Like magnum I thought that these oversights were ironed out by now, obviously not!
    However if its any consolation (probably not) this thread is invaluable to people like me who are 6-10 mos. behind you. So as much as I feel your frustration I can't thank you enough for sharing all these details!

[xs29j8Bullitt]

I hate to say it but youre body guy is very likely to run into some ugly trouble with welding that wheelhouse on before the 1/4 panel

 they need to be loosely place on the car together to find the best fit.

 After you get the fit good, clamp, screw or tack weld the wheelhouse, remove the 1/4 , weld the w/h panel the rest of the way.

 next finish out the welds on the wheel house panel then refit the 1/4 and finish weld it on. 

To some degree I agree that approach would "fine tune" the fit if the problems were .060 to .120 or even .180 or so mis-matches, but the problems appear to be .50 to .75 or even 1.00 inches!  But, with limiting features like the rocker, roof support beam, and the mounting flange of the inner wheel housing itself, the adjustment range is VERY limited without darting & splicing the sheetmetal itself.  Basically "clocking the outer wheel housing a degree or two is about the best adjustment available.  Shimming the outer wheel housing out or down would make the mis-matches worse.

If  the entire wheel housing was being replaced, your approach would definitely be needed.

Just my take on the situation...

Allen

[Magnumcharger]

Yes...That is EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
Next thing you'll want to check is to see if:
a) the contour of the wheelwell fits the quarterpanel wheel opening, ...then
b) How the outer wheelhouse fits against the inner wheelhouse. Are they flush? Or is there a severe gap, caused by a different radius of the metal at the interface? Mine are going to require body seam sealer to take up the slack BEFORE the undercoating is sprayed in the wheelhouse.

I hate Goodmark SO MUCH!!!!!!!

[xs29j8Bullitt]

I'm sorry to hear of your wheelhouse woes xx28j8bullitt, Besides magnumchargers story, The website 69hemi.com also shows the difficulty of the mopar repro sheetmetal.  It is very frustrating when my buddy buys his cheap chevy parts and they fit like a glove whereas our expensive mopar "authentic" stuff requires 30 hrs of body shop modifications to make them fit! Like magnum I thought that these oversights were ironed out by now, obviously not!
    However if its any consolation (probably not) this thread is invaluable to people like me who are 6-10 mos. behind you. So as much as I feel your frustration I can't thank you enough for sharing all these details!

Thanks... I hope this thread does help you & others!  It is beginning to look like this lesson will cost me $600-$700 in wasted hard earned money for junk parts & body shop labor to put the POS on & take it back off! 

Right now Auto Metal Direct & Classic Body Designs are the ONLY sheetmetal reproducers that I have any faith in... time will tell if it is well placed or not!

Allen

[Magnumcharger]

Allen,
I hope things turn out better for you!

[xs29j8Bullitt]

Yes...That is EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
Next thing you'll want to check is to see if:
a) the contour of the wheelwell fits the quarterpanel wheel opening, ...then
b) How the outer wheelhouse fits against the inner wheelhouse. Are they flush? Or is there a severe gap, caused by a different radius of the metal at the interface? Mine are going to require body seam sealer to take up the slack BEFORE the undercoating is sprayed in the wheelhouse.

I hate Goodmark SO MUCH!!!!!!!

Thanks for the confirmation... I will have another look at it Monday or Tuesday...

There is a "gap" on the inside caused by the larger bend radius on the repro... but this will likely be a problem on all repro parts due to using single strike tooling to save tooling costs.  There are also several other problem areas with the wheel housing, but I am only ranting about the big issues...

Allen

[hotrod98]

Sorry to hear about all of the problems. You're diligence will pay off in the end. It's obvious that your car will be top notch.
The problems with the poor repro parts is part of the reason that I refuse to take on concours type restorations. The headaches are endless.
And, for the record, I always leave the outer wheelhouses and trunk dropoffs tacked into place until after the quarters have been test fitted. Learned that lesson the hard way on my chal convert. I spend more time test fitting than anyone you've ever seen. Really slows down the assembly but at least I only assemble it once.

[Hemidog]

I had the same excact problem, the contours dont match for s**t, I did what Brian said, and test fitted the quarter before welding it in, but that was mostly because my roof support was rusted and gone.
I had the Shermans wheelhouse, and i think i've read somewhere that they are Coronet wheelhouses? and that's why they fit so poorly?

[xs29j8Bullitt]

Besides magnumchargers story, The website 69hemi.com also shows the difficulty of the mopar repro sheetmetal.  It is very frustrating when my buddy buys his cheap chevy parts and they fit like a glove whereas our expensive mopar "authentic" stuff requires 30 hrs of body shop modifications to make them fit! Like magnum I thought that these oversights were ironed out by now, obviously not!

Thanks for the tip about the outer wheel house problem documented on 69Hemi.Com... it the exact same #$%@#! crap!  It is starting to look like the currently available outer wheel housings are all from the same tooling, and probably based on Coronet parts which are apparently different.

I am going to find out the truth about these "authentic reproductions"... this isn't close to being over!

Pictures below are from http://www.69hemi.com (in the "sheetmetal" section):

Allen

[XS29J8]

Hey Allen, sorry for all your misfortune......thought I read another resto thread and it was alright to use a 383 4spd car as a donor for the more important cars of our hobby...........guess I see why the original sheet metal is so important still. Hope you find wheel houses that really fit maybe the AMD parts are correct? I'm enjoying your resto story, hope it helps others avoid these pitfalls.

XS

[69_500]

Depends on who your asking as to if its okay to use a 383 car to restore another car or not. That was a big discussion in the other thread if I recall. It wasn't 100% cut and dried either way.

[XS29J8]

Depends on who your asking as to if its okay to use a 383 car to restore another car or not. That was a big discussion in the other thread if I recall. It wasn't 100% cut and dried either way.

Hi Danny, I was being a bit sarcastic but after seeing these disastorous pics I can understand using original sheet metal, there just has to be rear clips still available somewhere without destroying a rare 4spd Charger...............

Steve

[MM1R/T]

Allen:

I would also like to thank you for the time and energy that you have put into this thread. IMO people like you make this board great.

By taking the time to edit and post high quality detailed pics, you will save the rest of us much time, money and frustration.

I am holding off on the purchase of the CBD 1/4's until I see how yours go on.

Best of luck with your project, it's gonna be sweet when it's done.

[xs29j8Bullitt]

Hey Allen, sorry for all your misfortune......thought I read another resto thread and it was alright to use a 383 4spd car as a donor for the more important cars of our hobby...........guess I see why the original sheet metal is so important still. Hope you find wheel houses that really fit maybe the AMD parts are correct? I'm enjoying your resto story, hope it helps others avoid these pitfalls.

XS

Thanks Steve, at the moment I have a lot of faith in Mark over at Auto Metal Direct...  I expect to receive the first AMD parts in the next two weeks, but their wheel houses are 30-45 days or more away at the moment.  Next week I am going to talk to the body shop owner about the options at this point.  I looked at one of my parts cars today, and from the outside the wheel housing looked useable as a last resort.  I may make some calls next week about other parts cars...

Allen:

I would also like to thank you for the time and energy that you have put into this thread. IMO people like you make this board great.

By taking the time to edit and post high quality detailed pics, you will save the rest of us much time, money and frustration.

I am holding off on the purchase of the CBD 1/4's until I see how yours go on.

Best of luck with your project, it's gonna be sweet when it's done.

Thanks, glad to have you following the thread... for a while it got so quite around here I wondered if I had bored everyone numb... 

Right now after the wheel housing fiasco is resolved, the next problem child will be the trunk floor extensions (aka "drop-offs").  For some reason, AMD is having longer than typical delays with this seemingly simple part... we will see what happens, but they seem to be 60-90 days out.

I wonder if Dodge Don has had his CBD quarter panels installed yet... 

Allen