Here is the problem with only replacing part of the arch where the hole is. The rest of the arch still has the Ford factory rust creator, standard equipment and no extra charge, installed from the factory. This is the foam that is thoughtfully included that causes the arch to rust out in the first place. The part of the arch not replaced will eventually rust out and in fact is already well on it's way to failure. Here is the second part to think about. The patch panels I have seen do not extend down to include the entire wheel arch. Only from the body line up. Any rust in there will also continue to destroy that metal as well. Thirdly, the inner wheel house metal is included in the rust decay in this area. If left untreated or properly repaired more rust failure of the panel. A new bodyside panel is about $550 from Henry Ford. Drill or grind out the spot welds, replace the entire panel and with the panel off repair and correct any corrosion inside the bodyside inner.
They words "plow for it" scare me for you. I don't think our front suspensions hold up to that abuse. I just put smallest oem flares on my wheel wells, reason I didn't patch is that I have holes in the bed floor too.
Glad to see you still have the F150 on the road, for some reason I thought you said you were replacing it with the Ranger. Rust's a bitch, I'm dealing with it on my cab corners right now. Oh well, I wouldn't expect anything else for a NY truck. If you don't mind me asking, how many miles you got so far? I'm about to roll over 100k on my 2014.
The f150 sits mostly now, I daily the red ranger to work for fuel savings. Won't let go of the f150, gonna keep it long as possible. Oh yea NY is probably just as brutal if not worse. My f150 has just under 150k miles on it.
