Stainless Magic - Filling the fender mounted antenna hole

10 - Miscellaneous
 
 
DeLorean right front fenders were made two ways, some with holes for a fender mounted antenna and some without. But now, all the remaining NOS or “new original stock” fenders have the hole already punched for the antenna.
 
If you ever wanted to replace the fender mounted antenna, you may have wondered what to do with the antenna hole. Worse, in the event of an accident with a DeLorean that has a fender without a hole, the question is “what to do with the antenna hole” in the replacement fender.
 
Fortunately, we are quite skilled in filling and repairing these holes, both in new fenders and in customer cars, too.
 
With the fender off the car, first we weld a stainless plug, cut from a scrap DeLorean panel into the hole.
 
In this video we see one of our most experienced stainless repair technicians using a file to smooth the surface, and remove the weld spots from around the plug. Once the surface is fairly flat, it’s inspected for other imperfections.
 
The video also shows “low spot” being raised using a pick from the underside. Once it is raised, the file is used again to smooth it out to a flat surface.
 
An air-powered flap sander is used to “rough in” the stainless grain as it gets closer to completion.  Continual inspections throughout the process often identify further imperfections that must be corrected, possibly again involving the pick and file to get to a perfect surface at which to lay in the final grained finish.
 
The end result is a repair that for all intents and purposes, is invisible once installed.
Article ID: 84, , Modified: 9/13/2016 at 7:56 PM

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