AMD Wheel house halves for 70RR...... what's the trick?

[Hemirunner]

What's the best method to assemble/install these? The halves don't even seem to fit too well together. When I line up the two using the alignment holes, they aren't very close. Do these need a bunch of trimming? Should I weld the two halves together before the install or install them loose and weld together after fitting? Any advise or suggestions?

 

[flypaper]

did you ask AMD about them? lmao...
i was just talking about them in this thread..
http://www.forbbodiesonly.com/mopar...-interchangeability&p=909904554#post909904554

there are a couple of ways to make the AMD garbage fit right..
we mated and welded the 2 halves together first
then hung the quarter.
i'm sure now you have about a 3/4 of a inch gap
between the quarter and the wheelhouse along the radius of
the wheel opening.

what we did was
we cut the lip off another AMD wheelhouse along the wheel opening
and spliced/added that to lip on the car adding 3/4 of a inch of material to the lip
along the opening
so the panels would mate up properly.

another way would to put a cut in the panel a few inches behind the lip
pull the lip out to the quarter and fill in the gap you cut
that is now opened with material..

we chose the first solution
to add material on to the lip instead of
spicing material into the middle of the panel.
both will work..

sad to say,
AMD has retooled that part a few times already and it still isn't right..
good luck..

 

[Hemirunner]

Interesting thread. I'm welding the two halves together and then running a zip cut wheel all the way around the inside wheel well to do a factory looking 3" mini-tub job anyway. The two halves of the wheel well don't even mate together well so I guess I'll just do my best and see what we end up with!

 

[5wndwcpe]

Hahaha, I knew Frank would be along any minute.

I pre-fit my quarter, trunk extension and outer wheelhouse (all AMD) together and couldn't get over how poorly they fit in relation to each other. As Fly said, I had to fab a piece to make up for the missing metal. Now if I was mating aftermarket to factory, I'd expect something like this, but Jesus, they MADE ALL THREE PIECES !

Don't get me wrong, some AMD stuff fits very well - and some of it is a crapshoot.

 

[Donny]

Wheelhouses, especially inner wheelhouses are the most difficult part of these cars, rather, any car to get correct. Look at my Satellite thread to see why, and the most recent posts there. However, I didn't find any fault with AMD stuff, rather it's pretty good stuff indeed! They are not supposed to be welded as one unit, then installed...please, don't do this, you're asking for trouble if you do it that way. The qtr has to be on, screwed onto the B Pillar, and tail panel, and perhaps screwed in the roof line too. If you have two wheelhouses out and need to be put back in, set the outer one in first, cropped up tightly to the qtr panel wheelhouse lip, screw that on, then, insert the inner wheelhouse (but this is where it gets very tricky) the inner wheelhouse has to be attached to the floors, and assuming they are aligned, then you should be able to proceed. Lots of work, LOTS!

 

[Propwash]

Hahaha, I knew Frank would be along any minute.

I pre-fit my quarter, trunk extension and outer wheelhouse (all AMD) together and couldn't get over how poorly they fit in relation to each other. As Fly said, I had to fab a piece to make up for the missing metal. Now if I was mating aftermarket to factory, I'd expect something like this, but Jesus, they MADE ALL THREE PIECES !

Don't get me wrong, some AMD stuff fits very well - and some of it is a crapshoot.

I agree Pete....I had to relief cut the outer AMD wheelhouse lips in several spots to make them conform to the AMD Quarters, extensions didn't fit right in the rear to fit to the rear crossmember/tail panel (has to cut off, shorten and reweld), and I had to add/customize the bottom of the outer wheel house to conform with the inner wheelhouse. Oh joy! Best one I enjoyed was where the quarter tucks in where the side of the rear bumper sits. Factory is almost a 90* bend in that area. Amd......about a slow 45* arch that the inside of the bumper would hit on. That was a real treat to fix. Called AMD on all of these issues, and many others (maybe they could fix them in the future). All I got was "never heard of those issues before". Guess we all must be some sort of pioneer's or something.

 

[Hemirunner]

I can see that this is going to be way more fun than I originally thought. Especially since the car had the right quarter off and the right wheel well installed when I got it. The left side still has the factory stuff in it. The trunk floor is out as well. I might screw on the right quarter and see how it fits with what's already there. I should just get busy and build the frame jig and go from there.

 

[flypaper]

That was a real treat to fix. Called AMD on all of these issues, and many others (maybe they could fix them in the future). All I got was "never heard of those issues before". Guess we all must be some sort of pioneer's or something.

AMD stuck with that exact story with me for 7 months
untill i reamed a supervisor a new rear end!
then he came clean...
i must of talked to 6 different people there.
i wanted to return their crap myself and get original
and they wouldn't take it back playing stupid all along.

the supervisor even pissed me off.. after he came clean,
he said we have a open door return policy with all our parts...
he is lucky,
if it was in person,i would of choked him and went to jail!

 

[Donny]

I've never heard these ******* before, really, sure there's some tweaking that needs to be done to get them to fit, but, some basic -- and perhaps intermediate to advanced metalworking skills should be required, but not all the time imo.

 

[Propwash]

if it was in person,i would of choked him and went to jail!

LOL...



Heck all of us know there's gonna be some tweeking here and there (and this is beyond that), but the big thing that shafts me sideways is they don't fess up to it. Then when a guy like flypaper goes off on them and they finally do, it's all of a sudden an open door return policy. Open door policy?........yeah let me ship a set of full quarters and a trunk pan back to you from across the united states. Easy as pie right. Maybe I'll take a covered wagon on down. Harbor Freight also has a open door return policy on all their cheap Chinese junk as well don't they? How about just listen to your customers and just get the stuff right?

Sorry for the rant. Ticks me off how pricey the stuff is, and for the price you should get some better fitting panels and better customer service.

 

[flypaper]

i would say advanced metal skills are needed for sure...

the thing that really got me very mad is
AMD fully is aware of all of the fitting issues with all of their products.
they lie to the customer when they are confronted. which is wrong...
i wanted to know for sure
was it me? or the parts?
it took me 7 months of emails,phone calls back and forth to get a real answer
out of them.
tell me the damm truth and i can deal with it.
they lie and keep you wondering..
it does't help much when you go online and their fanclub
claims its better then nos/original parts..lol

- - - Updated - - -

Ticks me off how pricey the stuff is, and for the price you should get some better fitting panels and better customer service.

i agree 110%..
in my book
its a insult what they sell/ do to the customer!

i just dropped BIG bucks on a pair of cut off quarter/wheelhouses and extensions
for my next project.
i figure the time and aggravation saved dealing with them
will justify the extra cost..

my siggy on moparts is

"If I'd have known what a cluster this AMD part was going to be I
would've probably just patched up what is on the car instead of taking
the whole thing apart. Lesson learned."

they are fully aware of it ..lol

 

[Donny]

A common mistake I see folks make (and I've made myself) is the assumption that the metal must conform to the shapes and sizes we anticipate they should fit into. These metal pieces have an enormous amount of flex and 'give' to them making them almost elastic in form when exerting pressure to get them installed and set in place. I've had to trim pieces off my qtrs, wheelhouses, tail panel, floors, etc that should not be there, or even add metal to areas that should have been there. Yeah, AMD stuff is pricey compared to GM and Ford replacement stuff for their vehicles' needs. But, I'm glad AMD is stamping out stuff that 15 yrs ago we were junking cars over due to lack of parts and good replacement pieces. It actually is far easier (and less welding) to put on a complete qtr vs. a skin or patch job on your qtr. But, all things are not equal. Post some pics of your offending Wheelhouses.

 

[moparjohnny]

i agree with everything said,maybe its time for a boycott of amd,some of their stuff fit and some do not,just like goodmark,shermans,and others,we have some big amd fans here and that is cool,but i think we all are caught up in this sheet metal vaccum and we are just test dummies,so i buy mostly goodmark stuff for a lot less and still have to cut and trim about as much as amd or less in some cases i rather spend less and cut, then spend more and cut= amd

 

[flypaper]

Post some pics of your offending Wheelhouses.

here is the first version of the AMD outer mated up against a original inner

- - - Updated - - -

here is how to tell which wheel house you got from AMD
version 1

- - - Updated - - -

here is the new and improved version.
notice all they did was shrink the tab that now
looks no where close to original.
so you can have more movement to make it fit better.
it still fits like crap..
imo
they should of started all over from scratch.

the only reason i got AMD to admit they lied to me
was i have a friend who is a AMD vendor and he tipped me off the part was retooled..

i went off on them like a starving spider monkey with a bunch of banannas
thrown in front of him.
they even told me they did not know how to reply to my email..lol
AMD refunded me, without me even sending the parts back...

 

[5wndwcpe]

I agree Pete....I had to relief cut the outer AMD wheelhouse lips in several spots to make them conform to the AMD Quarters, extensions didn't fit right in the rear to fit to the rear crossmember/tail panel (has to cut off, shorten and reweld), and I had to add/customize the bottom of the outer wheel house to conform with the inner wheelhouse. Oh joy! Best one I enjoyed was where the quarter tucks in where the side of the rear bumper sits. Factory is almost a 90* bend in that area. Amd......about a slow 45* arch that the inside of the bumper would hit on. That was a real treat to fix. Called AMD on all of these issues, and many others (maybe they could fix them in the future). All I got was "never heard of those issues before". Guess we all must be some sort of pioneer's or something.

Ugh, that was a another spot that was frustrating as well. Lucky for me I recall Will going on a tear about it when he ran into it so I can't say I was surprised to see it on mine too.

Oh well, a pie cut here a pie cut there ....fa la la la.

 

[Propwash]

Oh well, a pie cut here a pie cut there ....fa la la la.

No doubt.....Guess one of should open up a bakery one of these days.

i rather spend less and cut, then spend more and cut= amd

Good point Johnny. Hell of a lot easier to remove metal than add it.

 

[flypaper]

i can even throw in another plug for goodmark..lol

their 68-70 dutchman panel looks alot closer to original
then the AMD parts does...

 

[Hemirunner]

I have version one as shown in the pics above but the tab is even larger than shown as the holes won't line up due to the tab being so much larger than the outer lip on the mating surface. These parts came with the car so I have no options but to make them fit.

 

[flypaper]

I have version one as shown in the pics above but the tab is even larger than shown as the holes won't line up due to the tab being so much larger than the outer lip on the mating surface. These parts came with the car so I have no options but to make them fit.

to make the tab fit together like that in that first pic,
took forcing it together
almost to the point of distorting the whole panel.
shaving that tab down to like it is
in the 2nd pic might give you some movement to get it closer
at least that was AMD's crappy solution to the problem.

another option for you...
also,if you haven't touched or damaged that wheelhouse in any way
or even if you did like me,

call AMD and DEMAND a exchange for the retooled version!
tell them it fits like GARBAGE!
they have a "open door" policy on returning parts
for ANY reason.
it doesn't matter how you aquired the part
tell them you got it at a swap
call them on it!
i supplied you with enough ammo to do it and if they won't
pm me and i should have a phone number somewhere for a supervisor...

 

[Donny]

Some metal scissors, little grinder action, fits good to go! That gap will close up nicely, there's a lot of give in these things. If AMD just sent you some new ones, then good for them as a business!