With the wheelhouses welded in I was able to move on to improving the fitment of the quarter panels. The first stop was moving the top rear flange of the passenger side forward so that the quarter panel extension would sit flush.
I cut along the scribed line with a cut-off wheel, then used the quarter panel extension to verify the appropriate location before welding the split back together.
To improve the fit around the lower rear of the wheel arches I cut a series of “accordion” slits and forced the metal flat against the backing wheelhouse flanges with a hammer and dolly.
Didn’t get great “before” pictures but I had to re-fold the trunk lip of the quarter panel, then run a weld across the top to increase the height of the top 10 inches or so. After some grinding to get it all back into shape and relatively flat it was able to mate reasonably well with the filler panel as pictured.
On both quarter panels the bottom rear fold had to be split to allow for adjustment of the quarter panel extension area to align with the trunk floor and tail panel.
When most of the adjustments had been sufficiently tack welded I pulled the quarters off the car to finish the welding and the grinding that inevitably follows.
The passenger quarter was getting pretty close at this point, but I still wasn’t happy with the top curve of the panel where it fit against the trunk.
In order to drop the top of the quarter panel a little I cut a horizontal slit along the trunk drip rail, just below the bend at the top of the panel.
Using the trunk lid as a guide, I pulled the gap together and welded it closed, forcing the top of the quarter panel down a bit. Unfortunately this resulted in a slight “flattening” of the quarter panel’s top curve that I hadn’t intended, but it’s no more than 1/16″ and should be more easily addressed during bodywork than the discrepancy between the trunk lid and quarter prior to modification.
There is still work that needs to be done to finalize the fitment of the tail panel and associated pieces, until that’s done it won’t make sense to weld the quarter panels on.