I have rusty fenders. I'm strongly considering cutting the pristine fenders off my '86 and patching the new truck with them. Anybody ever weld Toyota sheet metal? Am I crazy to think about trying this with my Lincoln 110v wire-feed fluxcore welder?

I wouldn't do it with any flux core welder. You'll want a good gas mig welder for that. IF you do weld it, make sure that you do small welds per pass. Meaning: tack weld a few places along the seam to hold the fender in place. Then weld small half inch sections at a time. After you make a half inch pass, wait 5 minutes or so and let the metal cool down slowly. The idea here is to burn the metal slowly and not let it heat up too much. This thin sheet metal will heat up fast and hold it for a while allowing it to warp. I have heard of people just using a tack every inch or so then just using body filler to clean it up but I wouldn't recommend that. Eventually the filler will crack and look like garbage.

that metal is thin and heats up quick.. and you can blow a hole in the metal easy.

I know a lot of ppl who just cut and fiberglass it. Then body filler

How do you glass a whole fender, though?

I wonder - could I cut my patch panels to fit, JBWeld the backside to hold them in place, then glass and bondo the seam?

Or would that crack in short order?

This but its doable. Just like bobbing a bed. Read some writeups (wabfab has a good one on a tacoma bed I think) and try it on some bad sheetmetal.

I am not sure how well that will work. First off, JB weld is a redneck fix for anything... just my opinion. Second, when you lay the fiberglass down, you'll have a rise in the surface of the body. You'll have to put glass down well beyond the seam of the metal in order to smoothen it out so it doesn't look like an obvious rise in the body line.

Shy of carefully welding the body panels in, the only other good fix is to order the skins from Slacker.

What he said!!! ^^^^^

Pop on some fiberglass "Red Chili" style.

use panel bond and glue the new steel to the old fender. then use filler

I want the Chili. So bad do I want the Chili, that truck is probably the sickest 1st gen I've seen. Slacker's fiberglass just isn't in the budget for this build, unfortunately. Not short term, anyway, and I really need to take care of this rust soonish.

I shall check out panel bond, that sounds like it might be what I want.

3M part#08115 is the product we use , and recommend .. it's awesome .
the bond is guarenteed for life !


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Thanks slacker, I appreciate the recommendation!

Boy, this would look sweet though... anybody wanna loan me $1200? Maybe buy a junked out stripped down '86?