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Fwd Filler Panel

With the front bumper mounted, the next job in the queue was fabricating a filler panel between the bumper and the grille. I took some cardboard I had (you can never have too much cardboard laying around) and made a template for the panel to see how it should look.

The shortened and shifted front bumper will require a different mounting scheme than the stock filler panel so I decided to try to pick-up the fasteners on the bottom of the grille that attach the lower radiator support. I would like to sneak the back edge of the filler between the grille and radiator support but I'm not sure that won't create a problem so I'll just leave that area until later. If it does create an issue then I can always tuck it under the radiator support. The only mod that I'd have to do would be to trim the small flange bent down on the radiator support to allow the part to sit properly under the support...but for now I'll leave the part long in that area and figure it out when I get the front sheetmetal dialed in better.

I plan on supporting the front edge of the new panel by mounting 4 small angle brackets into the bumper brackets. I will slot or oversize the holes in the small brackets that mount to the bumper bracket so I can adjust them up/down to level out the panel on final assembly.

After the cardboard mock-up was done, I transferred the edge trim to a piece of lumber I had laying around (you can never have too much lumber either) to make a buck. The board was a little too narrow but I was able to make it work. Once the perimeter was cut out on the board I then took my router and created a rolled edge with a radius bit for the hammer forming. I then took the cardboard template and scribed the perimeter +3/8 of an inch onto the metal I had for the panel.
With the buck and blank panel cut-out I then clamped it all together and slowly walked the edge down slowly by a body hammer. Once I had the large gradual curved edge hammered down then I had to make a small buck for the tight radii at the two ends and the concave curve since my board was too narrow. I ended up needing to make a few relief cuts in the flange in this area to get it to lay down properly and then I just ran a few beads on the mig to close them back up.

Once the part was completed I then dropped the bumper and slid the filler panel in place and just used some small c-clamps to hold it into place for now. I haven't installed the new lower radiator panel that I just got and I don't have a ton of confidence in the old front grille so I'm going to wait on re-trimming the edge & drilling the holes on the aft edge unto I get the front assembly closer but you can see how it turned out.

The next thing on the agenda will be fabbing the small brackets and attaching them to the bumper brackets. Hopefully I can get to this in the next few days to wrap up this small project.