Moving to the fender fitment. We bought a pair of aftermarket fenders since the originals were rusty. They're well made from 18g, or at least as well made as originals but... original fitment left a lot to be desired. The top of these, and the tops of original fender are too flat compared to the shape of the door which makes the gap between the cowl and fender, and hood and fender look off. The door has a deep concave shape under the body line stamping but the fender is only about 2/3 as deep in comparison. After looking at the repop fenders, the originals, and other trucks at shows I decided to cut the fender tops off and make new pieces that are shaped correctly.
Checking the fender top with aluminum c-channel to see how far off the edge of the fender is. Notice that there is a kink in the fender top, its not a smooth curve from front to back, and how the rear edge being too flat makes the fender fall away from the much more concave door edge.
Top cut off, making a rough pattern to cut new tops out of 18g.
I bent a 1/4" strip of 18g into the correct shape that the fender top needed to be to match the door's shape and be tall enough to close up the gap between the hood/cowl and fender top. This was traced on steel plate to make Pullmax dies. I also made a second set of dies out of plastic with less curve top to bottom that matched the fender profile at the front of the fender.
Making a test run on scrap to dial in the dies. After a couple of full depth passes to shape the blank, I use 220 grit on the top and bottom of the scrap piece and black out the dies with sharpie marker to find the tight/loose areas on the dies. Tight areas can pinch and stretch the metal you're shaping which adds the wrong shape and can add a weird twist to the panel you're shaping, and loose areas don't add enough shape.
New vs old fender shape. To make the panel, I bent an edge 90* on brake, then used that edge as a guide in the Pullmax. I made full length, full depth passes with the plastic dies first, then switched to the deeper steel dies and ran those full depth along the back 1/3rd of the panel, then used the lower adjuster to fade the full depth shape into the shallower profile at the front of the panel.
The very tip still wasn't as sharp as I wanted it but I was afraid to make the Pullmax dies any sharper out of fear that a sharper die would stretch or puncture the edge of the panel. So I made a pair of dies to use in the arbor press to sharpen the edge by hand.
Before/after top edge sharpening.
