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12/27/24: I continued on the passengers side rear fender. I finished fabricating and installing the running board support plate. This one went on straight, however I opted not to drill the last hole until I fit the running board to the fender.

I continued banging dents. This fender was worked before, maybe several times and not very well. The rumpled areas are not moving very well so I suspect it’s a bit work hardened. I’ve spent more than a day working them out to the point that there won’t be any more than 1/32” of plastic so I’m calling it good and proceeded to apply the first coat.

With the temps in my garage in the high thirty’s, the Bondo takes a bit to dry so I let it dry overnight. I sanded the first coat and found a few high spots. I welded a few tacks with the MIG, ground them flush then cooled them down. It shrinks the high spots nicely. Added another coat on the problem areas, then set it aside to dry.

I started on the drivers side again. Getting it ready for the first coat of Bondo, I spent another hour banging and dollying to further straighten the fender, then applied the first coat of Bondo.

My bodywork kit has three hammers and four dolly’s. So far I’ve used one hammer and all of the dolly’s. None of the hammers have a convex head so I substituted a 16 oz. Ball Peen hammer from my tool box and used that to massage out some of the low spots. The other two hammers have one square and one round head that are flat, with one that has a shrinking head. Also I’ve never been a fan of a shrinking hammer as it leaves [censored] marks on the metal. I don’t understand why I need two hammers with square heads. I could really use a hammer with a blunt chisel end instead. I think I’m going grind one of the round heads to give it a a nice convex head. I really should have looked at the kits a bit harder to see what hammers they actually contained. Water under the bridge!