Rear Inner Fender Repairs

Each of the inner fenders revealed a host of problems, primarily as a result of the Europa's flimsiness, and secondarily as a result of wear and tear or abuse.

Each of the fender lips was cracked, and there were big voids or failures where the upper and lower body halves were joined.  I spent a lot of time fixing these problems, grinding out and relaminating the voids, stiffening all of the places where the body halves join and repairing and reinforcing each fender lip.  (all four were cracked.)  I also added a half bulkhead at the forward end of each of the rear fender wells, to prevent a future failure in that area, and in the rear fender lip as well.  The rear fenders are significantly stiffer now.  The rear end of the rear inner fenders was cracked as well, both sides.  Here is a pic of all of the rear fenderwell's issues.  I expect that most Europas would have similar problems.

First, you need to remove the undercoating.  I found the grinder as shown did the job best, followed by a slosh down with lacquer thinner.

Each of the fender lips had at least one crack like this, which makes the rears in particular quite floppy.  This one has been stripped and ground to a knife edge in preparation for glassing.

The joint was cracked where the top, front, and outside walls of the fender join.  This area had become quite bouncy, a problem exacerbated by the cracked fender lip and loose riveted rockers.  Below you see the area cleaned and prepped though it doesn't look very clean.  You can see that I have ground out the failed area.  You may not be able to see where I have really beefed-up the outer wall of the fender  where the bulkhead will be attached - this should prevent a 'hard spot' that might also crack.

Make a cardboard and duct tape form, tape it in place, and glass away!

Here's a look going the other way.  Lots of  repairs are underway...

Remove the form, sand and wash behind, and reinforce there too.  Strong like bull!