Stepside fender welt or caulk

[x1buellist]

I am looking into remounting my stepside fenders. I see on the different parts sites that they sell rolls of fender Welt. When I took off my fenders there seemed to be some typr of caulk between the fender and bed side. There was no fender welt. SO, should I just find some of this caulk or is the fender welt the way to go?

[1963c-10]

I dont prefer either personnally.....they both seem to be rust traps. But thats just my opinion. Seems to be a 50/50 split here locally. Some guys like them and some dont. I think the welting would be better than caulking though.

[markeb01]

I took a lesson from an old timer/original owner of a 1948 Chevy coupe I purchased about 30 years ago. When the coupe was brand new, he pulled the rear fenders, removed the welting, and replaced it with long strips of inner tube from a truck tire. Welting that far back was basically cord wrapped in cloth and covered with lacquer. Once the lacquer surface broke down, the cloth and cord absorbed any moisture than came in contact and rotted out the entire flange area.

With a rubber insulator, water either rolls off the surface or runs between the gaps. It doesn't work like a sponge to hold the moisture. In the 1970's VW's came with a plastic/vinyl welt. It was really nice and worked well, but wasn't long enough for many other applications.

I'm not sure welting sold today is any better than the stuff they produced back in 1948, so when it came time to do the rear fenders on my truck I went to a commercial supply house and bought rolls of solid rubber stripping that was about 1.25" wide and maybe 1/16" thick.

[koda360]

Great advise above there. Try these links. You should find something useful there....

http://www.steelerubber.com/
http://www.rubbertherightway.com/