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My client/friend with the hoarde of British cars brought me this 1962 MGA Mark 2 roadster. It had some very poorly done repairs to the front sheet metal and he asked me to make them correct. It actually looked like the entire nose of the car has been replaced at some point. After studying it for a while I decided to repair one side and replace the other. I finished up by repairing some dents in the very front of the nose and fitting the grill. Next!

Here's the poor car as it showed up at my shop.

The passenger side repair was poorly done and partially filled with some kind of bondo.

I repaired the repair (!) by cutting slits in patch panel and hammering it level by hand, then  tack welding it in place one bit at a time. The edge where the panel meets the fender was not savable so I made a patch and welded it in. The trick to getting it this seamless is to weld very short sections and then cool them immediately with compressed air.

The fender fits as it should now.

The other side looked okay until...

I ground out the filler and found this. The patch was welded below the panel and the rest was filled with bondo. It was too low to save it.

I removed the entire repair back to good metal.

Then I made a patch and fit it really tight into the hole I cut. To fit it this tight I usually cut the patch large and then hand file to fit.

I had to make a second patch that fixed the edge on this side as well, but it turned out nice.

And now this fender fits as it should.

Finally, I used a hammer and dolly (and some heat, and some shrinking) to straighten out the rest of the nose. Looks like a car again!