Mark 3 Fender Lips

[Porky]

So I have decided that instead of paying the 10K to paint my adopted roadster, I am going to finish and paint her myself. Been grinding away at the body and using much information I have been finding here on the forum for guidance. Thanks to all that have posted great pictures and commentary especially Chris. Right now I am working on the wheel wells and removing the excess material around the fender lips. I have been looking but really haven't seen much on the forum for guidance on how much material to remove. I know its a matter of taste but I want a clean looking opening and plan to add some rage to the back side of the lips to make for a nice rounded edge. The main sections of the radii in the opening don't seem to be much of an issue. I actually did a small section by eye and it seems to have come out pretty good. Before I go too far however, does anyone have advice on how to handle these? I have seen some say that they taped off the line that they followed with the grinder but that seems to be tricky as there is not a well defined edge to work off of when laying down the tape. Do some just do this by eye? How do you handle the bottom areas? If someone has advice or knows of a build thread that covers this topic I would appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.

Thanks

Joe

[Gumball]

My suggestion would be to add the Rage to the existing lip and then take it all down at once - you may find that you don't need to take too much off of the lip and this will ensure that you have plenty to work with before you begin sanding.

Also, it's really helpful if you can get the body on an upside-down buck or support structure to do this - really makes it easier and more pleasant to do the work that way.

[Porky]

Chris, you have me confused. This is a Mark 3 and there is in some places about a half inch of extra glass that needs to come off the lip of the wheel well. Are you talking about adding rage after I have it sanded down to something that is close to the final desired edge? Please explain.

Thanks

[Gumball]

Mine is a Mk3.1, so maybe a little later - or maybe just a different trimming by FFR when they prep'd my body. Here's what my lips looked like - I didn't sand before backfilling them with Rage... only after.

They started out about 3/8" of fiberglass lip...

http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab15/CCRsAC/RolledWheelWellLips3_zps24e39793.jpg (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/CCRsAC/media/RolledWheelWellLips3_zps24e39793.jpg.html)

When I was done sanding, they are now about 1/4" or so - my goal was something that mimics the original cars, which had a solid metal wire that the aluminum skin was peened over...

http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab15/CCRsAC/RolledWheelWellLips1_zps628c96e1.jpg (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/CCRsAC/media/RolledWheelWellLips1_zps628c96e1.jpg.html)

For the finishing touch, I used a small section of the round sanding block. In this photo, you can see how I rounded the original fiberglass quite a bit... if I tried that before backfilling, it would have been paper thin along the edge.

http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab15/CCRsAC/RolledWheelWellLips4_zps5230008d.jpg (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/CCRsAC/media/RolledWheelWellLips4_zps5230008d.jpg.html)

[Porky]

This explains a lot. When I read your build thread I thought that you had left a portion out regarding how you prepped the factory edges of the lips. Now I see that your came with them in a pretty good state. On the MK 3 they were pretty ratty with a lot of material that needed to be cut off just to get them where you started from. Mystery solved. So right now, mine are in a similar state as yours were from the factory. I'm going to follow your lead and build up the inside with rage and then give them their final finish. Awesome.

I really appreciate your help Chris and I'm glad I now know why you didn't touch on this part of the prep.

Have a great night!!!!

Joe