UNDER THE ARCHES

Sort your frilly arches with our general guide for cutting out the corrosion and welding in new metal.

Rusty and rotten wheelarches have been the Achilles’ Heel of car bodywork for decades thanks to the road dirt, salt and water they are exposed to, which is thrown at them by the tyres at all four corners.

Most arches are made up of an inner and outer panel with a gap in between. The two panels are usually joined at the wheelarch lip via a series of spot welds. Once water gets in between the panels, corrosion can start to spread.

Wheelarch repair panels are available for a number of classics, which saves time over having to fabricate your own, but just in case you need to make your own, we’ve shown how.

One of the biggest problems concerning wheelarch repairs is the extent of the corrosion. This can often stretch beyond the area covered by the arch repair panel, so a spare sheet of steel is always useful in case you need to make up some extra patches.

The following step-by-step guides show how to repair the rot in the wheelarches of a Mk1 Toyota MR2, Vauxhall Cavalier, Mk2 Mazda MX-5 and VW Type 2 Transporter, but most of the information can be applied to the majority of classic cars.