Well...I ordered the wrong tool to complete my knuckle stud project in a timely manner, and its also taking a while to get the right kingpin bearings etc...in other words, supply chain for old jeep parts is pretty limited right now as companies like Timken and Dana/Spicer are putting all their production effort into catching back up with new vehicle manufacturing production...anyway, what that means is that the cj is just sitting in the garage for over a week with nothing happening and not driveable, so I decided to embark on the rear corner panel I smashed up in Moab back in the spring.
The little mishap in Moab back in April left the rear looking like this:
My initial attempt immediately after it happened to 'make it better' probably only made it worse...but this is how I left it for a few months:
and I moved the fuel filler from the side to the rear which I really like:
So started the sheetmetal repair...just getting the stuff cut out, and the inner top of fender panel somewhat back to where its supposed to be:
Don't know if this was really needed, but since it probably won't look all that pretty no matter what I do, I at least want it to be solid....the top of the fenderwell was so smashed in that I couldn't get it reshaped and stretched back in place enough that it would sit against the corner panel - its supposed to contour along the inside of the corner panel and is spot welded to it. I added a small strip of metal that I welded to the end of the fenderwell top, and while was still too uneven and damaged in the area to make smooth contact, some flap disk and body hammer and dollie made it much better and it did at least allow for a few spots of contact that I could spot weld to the corner panel...
I also cut out the outer section of the tail light panel that joins to the corner panel along the vertical seam (its already had some of my repair work done, especially down at the body mount from when I first got the jeep - most all that stuff ripped back apart from the this incident). I made the long narrow strip for the tailight panel and the 90 edge for the seam and spot welded to the corner panel 90 edge....I am really trying to keep the visible vertical rear seam so it doesn't look too weird (or lets say it will look more OEM and match the driver side as well) - although it would certainly have been easier to weld that seem from the outside and ground flat....no matter how I do it, its probably going to be a bit rough...
Then it was cut the corner panel to fit etc....starting to look a little better...still quite a bit of welding to go and a lot of grinding....I did the spot welds to the fenderwell top from the outside as its really hard to get up behind there, and the OEM spare tire support piece is there....I figure a bit of grinding and smoothing on the outside of the panel won't be the biggest issue...
Nothing about this panel was perfect to begin with, even before I smashed it. It had been damaged from the OEM side mount spare tire and had some sort of patch that I think was a lead job, then lots of bondo before the PO repaint...it looked ok on the outside, but then I crunched it....so even if my repair is not perfect, seems like I am headed in the right direction. And if all this doesn't turn out looking that good...some corner protection armor can cover it all up.