Here's an area with a bit of bondo in it, always worth further investigation. Once removed, it showed the damage. This is a 1965 vintage, so probably lucky there isn't more to deal with than this. Someone's version of a previous repair involves banging in the rust holes and covering up the mess with body filler. We'll try to do one step better than that, install new metal.




Here's the point of no return, hope I can bend up a replacement!





Started off with a piece of steel, laid out the rough size and bend lines, then trimmed up a bit.....









Made a new radius die to match the bottom bend on the original piece....





Made some bends along both sides, not too much at first. Need to get in there with the Lancaster shrinker, which won't tolerate too much of a crease in the corner.









Keep progressing along, bend a bit more, shrink some more, etc...







Once you have the basic shape, then use the shrinker along the wheel opening flange on front to get the same contour as the original. Then I used the large radius die again to add this same contour across the whole patch panel by giving a slight bend (real slight), moving about a quarter inch, repeat, etc.... The radius in the corner was trimmed slightly different from stock to provide a bit more room for the rear tires. The other side will be trimmed to match.







Installing the patch panel













Much better!