Badly rusted spare tire well... cut & paste solution?

[mirage83]

Got the not-uncommon problem of a spare tire well which is pretty badly rusted and was wondering if anyone had simply found a decent donor car and cut the well out of both vehicles and welded the good one back into their car? My thought is that it would be far easier and cleaner looking to do that than to cut out all the rusted area's in the existing well and weld in small (or big) patches all around the bottom of it.

Sound like a plan to anyone else, providing of course a spare tire well in good condition can be found?

 

[Dan_Gyoba]

The spare tire well in my chassis is actually in pretty good condition, having not had a lot of water in it for extended periods of time.

I'm of the opinion that the fewer welds that you need to make in order to patch in good steel, the better. For that, I think that finding a good spare tire well and welding it in would be the best possible choice, certainly much better than small patches.

 

[te72]

If you're into classic iron, this sort of thing is pretty much a pre-requisite to ownership. My brother has welded, patched, and sanded more of his Impalas than I can even remember. End result has come out nicely though. On the subject of patch panels though, if one were looking to make a nice "cut your bad panel out and replace it with our pre-formed patch" panel for our cars, this would probably be the first thing I'd recommend.

SAFETY EDIT: This might not need to be said, but is should be obvious that you're going to be welding RIGHT above your gas tank, so take the proper precautions unless you're a fan of self immolation.

 

[supra13's]

I've got a perfect donor car, it's gonna get cut uP and scrapped in a week or two.