How To Shave a Gas Tank Filler Door The Easy (or Brilliant) Way

Generally, the shaving of a gas filler door starts with cutting the door out and preparing an appropriate patch panel to fill the resulting hole. Then trimming and adjusting the fit for good weld gap, magnets, trial and error, and…

There’s a better way.

Fitzee’s Fabrications demonstrates a genius approach to a fairly simple task: shaving, or filling, the fuel tank door, in this example on a Fox Body Mustang.

Fitzee starts by cutting an appropriately sized patch panel with just enough spacing around the fuel door.

The panel (with edges already prepped for welding) is then set in place to mark where the paint needs to be ground off.

The paint is ground from the body preparing to tack the patch panel into place.

The panel is bent (in this case, by hand) to match the shape of the body panel it will be welded in to.

• How To Make a Radius Bending Fixture for Sheet Metal

With the body shape achieved, the panel is tack welded in place, right over the top of the fuel door!

With the panel tacked in place all around, Fitzee begins the process of through-cutting the panel section-by-section. See the video below for a complete explanation of this step.

After each section is cut, the panel is pressed on to match the surface level of the original panel and tacking it right back into place.

This process is repeated around the entire panel.

The end result is perfectly spaced (thickness of cutting wheel) patch panel tacked in to place at the exact right surface and ready to be finish welded.

A handy by-product of this approach is the cutting out of the fuel door, it just kind of gets done using this approach.

With a little wiggling to break free the weld slag, the filler door came out cleanly.

Welding the panel in with tack welds, slowly working around the panel to prevent warping.

The fuel door patch panel fully welded and ground, ready for finish.

The easy way to shave a gas tank door as demonstrated by Fitzee’s Fabrications

Watch as Fitzee works through the entire gas tank door panel replacement, a surprisingly simple aproach to an age old customization…