Inner Fender Repair #1
Due to a bad case of rust and previously pop riveted repairs, I need to replace approximately the bottom 8 inches of the inner fender.
Reviewing the damage:
In the followinf picture, you can see how rusty the lower inner fender is. Plus, someone has already repaired this section by pop riveting a patch panel and replacing the inner rocker. Another PO also did some rough welding....you can see some crumpling where the welding is pretty rough. The lower door pillar was also crusty, along with a big hole.

I drew a black line where I wanted to cut as seen in the picture. Once I decided how much I wanted to cut, I could fabricate some patch panels.
Creating patch panels:
Someone has already repaired the inner fenders and sills on this car once. They went through the trouble of creating good fitting patch panels (which has since rusted), but didn't weld them on or rust proof them in any way.
Once I knew how much I wanted to cut away, I could start fabricating the patches. This is rather easy and I would recomend to anyone that they make their own panels for these simple repairs.
Here's the new inner fender. The slot and round hole correspond to what exists currently on the car for access to the door hinge tapping plate. I used a panel jogger on the top edge for welding instead of butt welding. This is a lot easier when fitting the panel.
Since I'm replacing so much of the inner fender I need to replace the inner body supports that go along the goalposts. This will be welded in once the inner fender is attached. Resting on the sill behind are a couple of homemade body support brackets. I'll use the one on the left.
This is the inner fender that is right behind the wheen opening. I didn't originally plan on replacing this much, but this piece was very rusty on the body. Again I put a jog on the right side of the panel for easier attachment.
Cutting out the old:
Once the patch panels were finished, I could start cutting the sections out using the previously drawn cut lines. To aid in following the lines, I put some tape along the lines.
The inner fender cut away. I've cut around sections of the door pillar I wanted to keep. I still have some cutting to do around the wheen arch opening.

Seen in this picture are some of the repairs to the frame I did last summer. Not the prettiest, but servicable. U-shaped patches replaced a rusted out bottom from this area on back to almost the rear suspension mounting point. Mutiple patches were used to account for the curve in the frame.
Attaching the new:
Once all the rotten sections were cut away, I could start MIG welding in the new panels. Before welding, holes were drilled and everything was test fitted with sheet metal screws. After some tweaking and adjustments, the welding begain. Again sheet metal screws were used to hold everything together for the welding. Welding is made easy when the panels fit closely together and the screws do a good job of holding everything together. Plus, once all is welded, the screws are easily removed and the holes filled. Pop rivets need to be drilled out so I decided against using those.
Here are the outer panels welded on (about 50% of welding done). The stiffening piece behind the wheel arch was added before the panel was welded to the car. My version is slightly wider than the original above it since that is the smallest channel I can bend, but it matches pretty well. I'm replicating the spot welds on the overlaping section where the two panel meet at the corner.
Part 2 will be added soon. This will include the interior body support and the lower door pillar.