My rear driver side fender area is starting to bubble with rust. I dont want to have to keep sanding it down and using stuff like POR15 so Im going to cut the area out completely and have sheet metal welded in. Its the only 100% way to get rid of the rust and stop it from coming back forever. I myself cant weld but my cousin is a welder by trade and offered to weld in the new sheet metal if I cut the old out. I'll then take the car to a body shop and have them prep and paint it when the new metal is welded in.



My question is what gauge sheet metal will I need? Im going to home depot this weekend to buy a sheet of it to use. Thanks for the help.

 

Probably 20 Gauge but that is gonna be tough to weld. I tried welding an inner support bar that supports the back window on my car after someone put a big dent in my rear fender and I had to cut the support so I could reshape the body and was unable to re-weld the support back together with my welder on its lowest setting cause all it would do is burn a hole in the metal so I just screwed a piece of metal over the gap to hold both those pieces together.



Of course I am only a beginner welder so maybe I was doing it wrong.

 

d'you think? Welding thin sheet metal is advanced kung fu! Haha, that was a good one!