1968 Ford F100 - The Bumpside Build - Off

The whole idea behind tubbing stock-style wheelwells is to make all the sheetmetal modifications look like they came from the factory instead of using generic aftermarket sheetmetal pieces. My plan was to cut the new wheelwells along the back edge where my finger is and weld in the new sheetmetal strip.

With a new cutoff wheel, I carefully cut right on my scribe line.

There are a few different thicknesses of cutoff wheels out there. I always try to buy the thinnest ones I can find. Thin cutoff wheels remove less material and help you to stay more accurate when you're doing things like this. As you can see, my cut looks pretty straight and true, which will help even more later.

All along I was thinking how I could make this job easier. I figured out a way, but it requires some more special tools and the know-how to use them. To eliminate half of the welding needed to widen the wheelwells, I'm going to combine the sheetmetal strip with the wheelwell's outside 90-degree edge that I cut off. Starting with two 2-inch strips of sheetmetal, I used a sheetmetal brake and put a 90-degree bend in them off to one side, leaving the right amount of material on the other side for the tubbing.

I cut the edge off both wheelwells and carefully ground off the primer along all the areas where I'll be welding. A flexible 36-grit sanding disc works well for this.

It gets a bit more specialized here. Using a sheetmetal shrinker and stretcher, I shrank the small edge where I wanted a bend, using the wheelwell as a template. You can buy vise/pedestal mount shrinker and stretcher sets from TP Tools and Eastwood for about what you'd pay a shop to do this for you, and you can use them time and again.

Not bad, huh? The two pieces I made are on top, while the edge I cut off the new wheelwell is on the bottom.

To illustrate the two ways to widen the wheelwells, here they are side by side. The operation on the left would work just fine for those who don't have the equipment to fabricate the piece on the right; it just requires twice the welding since there would be two seams on each wheelwell. Don't get me wrong; both ways are tedious and labor-intensive!

When it comes to welding sheetmetal, I like to do it with a TIG welder. A TIG weld is much softer and smaller than a MIG weld and can easily be worked with a hammer and dolly to smooth out welded seams. Plus, there is less weld to grind down afterward.