How to Replace Bed Wheel Arch Panel 2002-08 Dodge Ram Truck 1500

Hey, friends. In this video, we're gonna work on trying to remove some of this body rot that we have on this pickup truck. What we need to do is get rid of the infected area, and then, of course, we're going to replace it with a nice, new panel. In this process, what I'm going to be showing you is how to match up the panel to the actual fender back here. We're going to make sure we carve out the areas to get rid of all the infected area. So you want to make sure you get at least above that. And then, of course, what we're going to do is we're going to cut it and we're going to tack weld it in. After that, what you're going to want to do is make your own decisions on whether you want to continue with the welding or if, of course, you want to try to fill it, sand it, and then paint it on your own.

Like I said, we're going to be welding in this video, so make sure you disconnect your negative battery terminal. So, first, you want to analyze your situation. Yours might be a little bit different than ours, but we can see where our infected area is, that the paint's bubbling up and it's ready to flake off. Luckily for us, our brand new panel here, if I lined it up so it's going to be nice and straight and pressed up against where the wheel well should be, it's going to cover over the area where the infected area is. So what I'm going to do, is I'm just going to kind of leave it like this. But something that I would like to mention, is if you happen to have a sticker of some sort on there, and you don't want to damage the sticker, of course, you're gonna have to cut your panel.

That's going to make extra cuts and extra areas that you're gonna have to worry about as you cut the fender itself as well. So if you like the sticker, cut the panel, if you don't care about the sticker, well then just take the sticker off. So I really like this sticker, so I figured I'd just go ahead and keep that on there. I'm going to line this up now at this point so it's nice and straight coming along this ridge, you can see right here, and then right there. And, of course, up along here, we'll just try to get it so it's about as straight as possible overall. I'm pushing this up as far as I can, so it's hopefully going to be seating along where the actual wheel well is supposed to be. And now, what we'll do is we'll just draw the lines that we carved. And, of course, we're going to be sanding this area anyway, so you don't necessarily have to worry about it.

So now we've got this marked out to where our new fender panel is going to look. And as you can tell, it's definitely covering the infected area, that's going to be the most important aspect because we want to cut this right out of here. When we drew the line, we were drawing along the outside of the panel we made. So when we actually do the cutting, we're gonna want to be on the inside area here. You don't necessarily have to come that low, but I'm gonna maybe come here because I do have the width of my blade in there that I need to think about.

Now, let's grab this for a test fit. I kind of put this up and you essentially just kind of want to try to match it up with your lines and make sure that you're not necessarily overlapping. And also, make sure that there aren't any large gaps. This looks really great, so I can't wait to tack it up. But before we go ahead and do that, we want to go ahead and take a peek at this while it's still up in here. Because what I want to show you is the area along where we're going to be putting the weld, you want to make sure that you have a nice, clean metallic surface there, you don't want any paint on it. So go ahead and clean up an area maybe in between the size of my fingers going across both sides of the panels. That way, there we can make a nice, clean weld.

This looks great. Now let's do the same to the edge along the panel. Once you have a nice grind going the whole way across, take one of these nice wire brushes and just go like this. That's going to essentially make sure that you get off the large particles that are going to be involved here. Because as we're welding, we want to make sure there's nothing in the way. Of course, at this point, it's always a great idea to make sure you pick up your mess. If you have any rags or debris on the ground that could potentially catch fire, you want to make sure you get that out of the way. As we're welding, there could potentially be slag that comes down, and we don't want it, you know, starting a fire. You want to make sure you clean down an area where you'll get a nice ground for your welder. So now it's going to be time to start welding. Obviously, you want to be as safe as possible, we've cleaned the floor already, we've got gloves, and of course, we've got our auto-dimming helmet, that's gonna be super important.

What I want to do now is pretty much fit the panel into the body where I have it, so it's going to be mounted. As you can see, this side right here is lined up almost perfectly, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to just tack it real quick. I'm going to come right up here, and essentially what I mean by tack it, is I'm just going to come across and make it so it wants to hold there, so that way then I don't have to necessarily worry about it. I'll probably do a couple of those and then I'm going to try to move the panel around so it lines up the rest of the way. And I'll just tack it as I go but I'm not going to do a continuous weld until, of course, it would be the end.

Okay, so this is looking great, as we can tell. I came right along, I did a whole bunch of spot welds coming around. They could have looked a lot better, but in all honesty, I'm not necessarily a pro at this. But essentially, as you can see right along here, I have a very long gap where I didn't put any spot welds, and along here I did. This area right here, if I was to push on it, I could, of course, try to break this free and that's something that you definitely don't want. We want to try to make sure we put spot welds, at least, within a couple of inches of each other knowing there it'll have the most integrity overall.

Okay, so we've got this tack welded all the way around at this point and it's looking pretty good. Now it's time for the finishing touches. Of course, what I'm gonna want to do, is I'm gonna want to try to clean up all these welds so they don't look like a whole bunch of boogers. So I'm gonna go ahead and sand those down, then, of course, you would want to use your body filler, clean that up so everything's nice and smooth, prime it, and paint it. Make sure you reconnect your negative battery terminal.