Body repair ?'s

[YoungPUP]

The Po of my '99 std had a mutual friend of ours (ultimately the person who arranged the sale to me.) Shave the rear taillight. Now I have a crack forming in the body filler at the top of where the taillight wouldve set. It was shaved using a welded in filler panel, then ground and body filled.  Any suggestions on how/where to start with a repair like this? The crack is 6" across and about the thickness of a hair.  Would love to just take it back to the person who did the work, but  we have parted ways for unrelated issues.

[salty1]

Sounds like one of those uneasy fixes. 

[pancho]

No easy way out here,,, I you want to keep the same fender and look, you will need to grind everything off to the metal and see if the crack was caused by an insecure weld.. the plate that was added has to be welded completely around the perimeter (not just a couple of tacks) and should be of a guage at least as heavy as the fender.  If you wanted to go back to the original look, there is one on eBay right now for about $110 with shipping. There are tons of the upper rear fenders , but the lowers seem to be scarce.