I spent over six hours this weekend just working on the fit for this panel. That's on top of helping my daughter with her car, working with my wife on the pond, and getting a little chill time relaxing with my wife planning our bedroom renovation.
I don't have a lot of experience with this other than what I've gained working on this car for the last (I'm embarrassed to say) eight years. I don't have all the time-saving tools a regular body-shop would have either. The typical challenge fitting panels on the 914 is all the curves and radii. In this case I had the door handle pocket to act as a guide at the upper left of the panel, and the alignment along the bottom of the door for another. There were two more alignment references needed; a dimension from the front quarter-panel seam (under the door) to the lower-rear edge of the fender; the other a dimension from the back side of the lower channel to one of the fixed suspension mounting points.
Because my patch panel overlapped my cutout edges (see pic above), and with these four references, I was able to start at the front curved edge and mark it on the back of the patch - using the edge of the cutout as a guide. All marking occurred after checking each of the four positional references. I then would cut half the material off up to the mark. So if there was 1/4 inch of material, I took off an 1/8 inch. That allowed me to creep up on the mark. I didn't have another panel on hand - so I was careful not to botch this one.
Next I worked on the door handle pocket. The patch was different than mine, so I had to spend some time reshaping and getting the two to line up properly. I continued to do this all the way up until the final fit. As I completed fitting each edge, I would re-verify the four reference positions.
I then moved to the top edge. This was a little trick because I didn't have a good way to secure the bottom channel and every time I wanted to adjust the panel at the top, the bottom would move also. Finally I started using the support bracket that connects under the back channel to the inner body. Mine was pretty beat up, but I was able to reshape it and make it usable.
The next section to fit was the back edge along the hip of the fender. I left this as an overlap because it gave me one less loose corner to have to deal with when fitting the panel. Now with the others fit and the four positions verified, I was able to mark this on the back and cut.
Then I was able to use a couple welding clips to fasten things and verify the fit and all dimensions. This is also when I did additional sanding of the patch edges to provide a small gap for welding. I generally use a black marker to mark the front of the panel where the edge needs to be sanded/filed.
The final cutting needing to be done was behind the FG flare. I've already cleaned it so it will be ready for panel bonding cement - which I'll do after all the welding is finished.
Here's the final fit with the level as a straight edge - carrying the line from the door backward along the panel.
