Week 2 of 15 = body work

Started the repair work on my body today at school. I've got to get some supplies for next week so I can do some more grinding and sanding, but I managed to get a good start this week. One of the guys there had some jeep panels he brought in for me. Turned out to be for a cj7 but its close enough in most of the damaged area's that I can cut and weld in most of the panels.

I started on the right rear corner and quarter panel. Started out with the black panel in the pics and decided the corner was too banged up and it would be easier to cut it out and make up a new piece to weld in. Actually came out better than I thought it would. The sheet metal I got is thick. Its a pretty good match to the jeep body so thats a bonus, it just doesn't want to bend easily.

The first 5 pics in this post pretty much show the condition of the body before I did anything to it today.

 

Hoping to work on the wheel well next week on the right side and tying it into the rear floor panel. right now there's not much left of the wheel well at the bottom to attach it to the floor. I had to add a 1/2" angle iron on top of the floor 5 years ago so I could get something high enough to keep the 2 together.

 

One last pic here. I've got primer on it before I left and it looks pretty good. Just wish I could have ground the welds down more before I had to prime it.

 

dunno yet. Kinda why I want to mess with the back first that and I want to get the back a little stiffer before i do anything with the front. Ideally, if I had the money to spend...
I'd get a whole new floor pan and put it in. However...
I'm probably going to be making up the rear part of the front floorboards with flat stock and using the front section from the cj7 panels. I have the original transmission hump section still and I think I can either use it or make something that will work. The hump still seems to be solid.

The nice thing is I have wimpy sitting here so I can compare the 2 for measurments. even though its an A1 body, I think the only thing that would be different is the gas tank well.

 

There's some guys here with the custom cars program that are very good at this sorta thing. I did my best to watch and learn some very helpful tips. Key is to take your time and let things stay cool. and keep things lined up at each weld helps in the end

 

well i only tool a couple pics yesterday, but got the right rear wheel well reattached to the rear floor pan. made the 7 in piece for the rear next to the tailgate surround but didnt get it in yet. just trying to decidd if i should put the brace back in for the spare tire.
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One of these day's I'll get the pics up. Not too impressive though so I'll probably just wait untill sunday night when i can put more new stuff up.

I did finally figure out why my welder at home sucked. Talking to one of the techs at work about the jeep and being fustrated with my welder he mentioned to check the tip to see if it was larger than the wire.


Checked it on lunch and, well, I guess it would help if I had a tip in there to begin with Must have taken it out at some point because it got boogered up and got sidetracked. Then came back and forgot about it being out. Works much better now8)

Once it starts warming up I'm hoping that I can work a little on the jeep on lunch. Supposed to get up into the 40's for the next week here8)8)

 

Like night and day.

Thought I had problems with the gas supply the way it kept splattering.

 

Here's the work I did this past sunday. Think it is the 4th week of class, 3rd week of working on the body.

I made the tailgate surround on the left side of the body this time. Complete with the angle iron in the tailgate opening. I was going to cut the old one out and reuse it, but the rust holding it onto the sheet metal changed my mind I also replaced about the rear 13" of the left wheel well. I was going to cut and patch in some of the holes, but because of the hat channel it was pretty thin and better off just doing the whole rear piece I worked on. I think its a little too wide, so I have to slice it front to back and take out about 1/8". Think I'm going to do the tailgate surround piece on the right side next week. Shouldn't take too much time to do it since I allready have the piece made and the right side is just held together by a couple tack welds.

I got to play with the schools bead roller too8) The widest bead they had for it was 1/2" but by not crimping down all the way it "almost" looks the same as the original bead on the top of the wheel wells8)

 

on lunch now. got the left wheel well almost done. got the pieces made and tacked in. just have to weld everything up. pics to come.
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Got done with the left wheel well and attaching it to the floor. Didn't come out as good as the right side did. I got a little tin canning on the old sheet metal, but I really had to tweak and pull stuff to line up with the floor. But, its alot better than it was. I had to add almost 2 inches to the bottom of the wheel well since it was rusted out so much. I ended up replacing the front lower piece behind the drivers seat since it was mangled from holding all the weight of the body to the floor from the sagging. That and the seat belt bolt was rusted up pretty good. That patch came out good. i had to slice my rear patch and take out 1/8" from last week because it was too wide on the top. looks better now.

I still had time but didn't want to start messing with the front floorboards or sides so I did some hole plugging on the dash and along the left side where numberous soft top and hard top holes were drilled. I'll probably be putting a hard top back on in the winter, but this way I will only have about 5 holes on each side that will be used compared to about 15.




need to go pick up another 4x4 sheet of steel and start work on the front floors and/or sides this sunday.