FJ40 Bub Rust Repair

[Fast Eddy]

FJ40 Bib Rust Repair

My second attempt at body work, as you can probably tell.

The bib was rusty when I got it two and a half years ago. It may be rustier now.



I cut out the bad parts with a grinder.

 

[Fast Eddy]

I have a donor bib that's tweaked on one corner. The part I need for this job is fairly straight; perfect after some whacks with a 5 lb sledge hammer.

 

[Fast Eddy]

I held the donor part up to the back of the bib, marked it with a sharpie and cut the front part off with the grinder.



I'm keeping the middle flap of the original bib to bond to the new metal.

 

[Fast Eddy]

Then I bonded it together with an advanced metal adhesive. :coughjbweldcough: The bolts are aligning the parts, the clamps are, um, clamping.

This way I can be sure that no surfaces are bare metal in between. The donor part still has an air/moisture gap as original, so it will eventaully rust again. Contrrary to how it looks, most of the bonding surfaces were taken down to bare metal.

 

[Fast Eddy]

Good fit before bonding.

 

[Fast Eddy]

Body filler, sanding and primer...

 

[Fast Eddy]

Back side:



Done for now. I've got six other holes to patch before I start worrying about paint.

 

[ducktapeguy]

Nice job, I have to do the same thing to mine. How did you locate the spot welds to drill them out on the front brace?

Also, how come you didn't just use the donor bib? Looks like it's in pretty good shape.

 

[Fast Eddy]

How did you locate the spot welds to drill them out on the front brace?

They were pretty obvious. I held it up to the light sideways and you can see them. The one under the hinge wasn't as noticeable until I had all the others done. They were obviously done by hand as they were not regularly spaced. I was originally planning to keep the bottom edge intact, but there are spot welds down there too, so I kept the donor more intact.

Also, how come you didn't just use the donor bib? Looks like it's in pretty good shape.

If you look again you can see that the right side is twisted pretty substatially. If you had a big hydraulic press, you might have been able to straighten it out.

I heard you can get bibs new from the dealer too.