Tailgate repair & recolor by a novice.....on a budget

[Spook50]

Next week I start a new job, leaving this week free so I took the opportunity to pull my 62's tailgate off and finally attack the rust that had formed around the 4WD emblem. I had hoped to find a separate tailgate to install while I work on mine and not have to miss work, but getting this bonus week with good weather in the forecast motivated me to jump on it. So last night I cleared room in my shop, and this morning I removed my tailgate and set it up on sawhorses to start in.

The two trouble spots. This is going to be a challenge.

Pressing out the plastic inserts that held the 4WD emblem in place, I realized just how bad the cancer is.

So I went to work with my angle grinder and the paint stripper wheels I picked up a while back. This is going to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated.

Fortunately I have some 14ga sheet steel I can use for patches, so this will also be my first foray into forming sheet metal and welding in patch pieces. I borrowed my brother in law's body hammers and dies, picked up some Bondo (which if I can avoid using at all will be a good thing), and have a new cylinder of C25 for my Mig along with some 0.030 wire.

Another whole new experience for me, but I'm up for the challenge. Time to see if I can do some Jesse James sh*t and end up with some Chip Foose sh*t

 

[CruiserTrash]

Get it @Spook50

 

[Spook50]

Where I'm at before calling it a night tonight. In the shop until almost midnight but decided to call it before I get tired and risk making a mistake that'll make this project harder than it already is.

I used my power nibbler and cut out the damaged area, leaving it all in one piece (sitting on the sawhorse) so that I can make a template from it. The remainder of the paint will of course be stripped away before welding and priming.

You'll notice above the hole I cut that there's Bondo under the paint. I got curious and stripped it away and here's what it was covering. Seriously? No one at a supposedly professional body shop was able to massage a dent out of sheet metal and instead just filled it with Bondo? Good lord....

Since I want to make it easier to get at it from inside the tailgate, and I had many years ago cut a 1/4" aluminum diamond plate to replace the carpeted panel (which is bolted into rivnuts installed in place of the plastic snaps in the sheet metal) that provides plenty of structural support for the tailgate, I decided to go ahead and cut the entire center section away with my power nibbler. The three ribs that are spot welded in place were removed by just drilling out the welds. I'll use my Mig to patch the holes later. It'll give me a good chance to do a little practice on avoiding distortion in the sheet metal before I weld in my patch panel.

The backside of the Bondo area (inside the tailgate). Apparently we fill holes with Bondo now. To be fair, no rust had formed around that exact area, but for cryin out loud just fix it right.

In case anyone's curious, these are the stripper discs I use on my grinder. They work beautifully, but wear down quickly. Another benefit is they take off practically no metal at all. They're about ten bucks a piece, so not super cheap when you're working on a large area. I'll be using Aircraft Remover for stripping the uncut/undamaged areas so that I'm not burning through a bunch of these.

Tomorrow I'll be working on massaging out that dented area (was going to tonight but I have to clean and polish the heads on the body hammers in the kit), cutting & forming my patch and then welding everything together. With any luck it can be all welded and blended by tomorrow night so that I can prep and prime on Thursday. Taking my kids to the fair this weekend so I have a deadline to hit...

 

[CruiserTrash]

Looking forward to seeing how the aircraft stripper goes. I’ve got a door that needs dealing with. The paint is checking and rust is forming down inside the cracks. No way to deal with it except go down to bare metal and repaint.

 

[Spook50]

Woof this job is an absolute bear when you're going in with zero experience and very little knowledge beyond the bare fundamentals. It turns out the sheet metal used for the 6x series bodies is 20ga, so I had to do quite a bit of tweaking with my welder to get it just right. For experimentation I started with drilling out and then welding closed those two holes that were filled with Bondo. Ended up distorting the sheet metal in the surrounding area, but once I get the larger patch panel in for structural support I'm hoping I can massage it back into place. The holes filled and blended very well though when all was said and done.

When filling holes where you have access to the backside of the panel, this little guy is a huge help. The copper provides a backing for the hole to fill as you're welding, and easily separates when finished since the steel and copper don't fuse together.

This is from last night, but now with the entire center section cut away, I have easy access to everything inside the tailgate. Once the patch is tacked into place I'll bolt my diamond plate on for structural support as I finish welding the patch.

This was the majority of today. I screwed up and my first piece I cut had just too large of gaps between it and the hole in the tailgate for me to be comfortable welding, so I opted to cut a new one. I knew 14ga would be ridiculously difficult to form, but holy hell it's nearly unbearable with hand tools. I spent way too much time once I cut a new piece forming it using rudimentary tools and makeshift jigs, but I finally got the contours right and now just have to figure out how I'm going to put that second larger radius bend into the end of it. What I wouldn't give to have an English wheel and a break with different radius dies, but sadly I don't so there's a lot of banging and a lot of careful placement of miscellaneous objects in my press to bend the sheet metal around.

Still hoping I'll have it done by Saturday morning, but boy it's going to be close. It might just have to be primed as-is once it's roughed in and then have finish work done on another weekend to make sure I get it 100% RIGHT.

 

[diesellibrarian]

If I may: why are you using 14 gauge for the patches? Aside from the difficulties you mention in shaping the patch, it'll be trickier to weld. You're going to need more heat to get good penetration, potentially worsening the panel distortion and increasing the changes of blowing through the thinner metal surrounding the patch.

Some kind of panel distortion is inevitable, but with access to the back of the panel, you should be able to hammer/dolly on the welds to stretch the metal back to its original position, more or less.

 

[Spook50]

If I may: why are you using 14 gauge for the patches? Aside from the difficulties you mention in shaping the patch, it'll be trickier to weld. You're going to need more heat to get good penetration, potentially worsening the panel distortion and increasing the changes of blowing through the thinner metal surrounding the patch.

Some kind of panel distortion is inevitable, but with access to the back of the panel, you should be able to hammer/dolly on the welds to stretch the metal back to its original position, more or less.

I agree completely, which is why I wasn't too happy to be using 14ga to begin with, but that was all I had in my scrap pile so I decided to run with it. Luckily, before I got to the point of attempting to weld it into place, last night I found a bunch of (flat) panels I had saved from when I junked my washing machine last year that turned out to be 18ga, so I'm going to use one of those instead. Won't cost me much in the way of time since I can cut them much easier too. Bit of a sense of relief there, but now I'm peeved that I've wasted good 14ga sheet. Regardless, I'm glad I saved those old panels and stumbled across em again.

 

[Spook50]

Discouraging day today. My sheets I saved from that junked washer had a ceramic based powder coat that I could NOT remove. Even my flap discs couldn't get through it, to say nothing of my stash of chemicals. So I got the idea to check in my electronics scrap, and was surprised to find the housing of an old Sony DVD player was not only 18ga, but was easily stripped. So after cutting that and contouring it as best I could, I spent the entire day slowly filing bit by bit to match the hole in the tailgate as best I could.

Almost there, but with some minor gapping I'll be able to fill easily once I weld.

Sadly after more than seven hours of work, I still couldn't get this contour quite right and called it for the night. I'm hoping my luck fares a little better tomorrow and I can get it welded into place. My motivation to keep going on this fix is severely dipping.

 

[PanhandleFJ]

Keep going! It looks like it's going to work. I'm not qualified to have an opinion on this but I'd like to see the final results.

 

[Spook50]

Keep going! It looks like it's going to work. I'm not qualified to have an opinion on this but I'd like to see the final results.

And as I'm learning I'm not qualified to work sheet metal

 

[Spook50]

Much better day today than yesterday was. I managed to get the contours of the patch close enough to be able to tack it into place and work on massaging and tweaking the metal into alignment as I go. So far it's going pretty well.

Big sigh of relief once I was able to place it and have it fit.

Tacking it in, bit by bit. I'm using my 3" die grinder to blend down any tacks that don't look right as I go so I can correct anything right away. Makes for slow progress, but at least it's steady progress.

You can see in the highlighted portion that the angle of the sheet metal where it meets isn't a perfect match. I've been able to drive a wedge into the that area and get it closer to alignment as I go. I've resigned myself to the fact that there's gonna be Bondo used when finish work is done, but I still want to keep it to a bare minimum.

And what I'm chalking up to the fact that I'm having to "unlearn" my skills when I worked Tig welding inconel, HOLES! Just a couple, and this spot is the worst, but luckily I have that copper paddle that I'm able to use to gradually fill them in one tack at a time. Time consuming, but not a deal breaker.

And lastly, for giggles, my welding hood. It's an Optrel Crystal 2.0 that I had a friend at my welding job airbrush for me with my name and "TIL VALHALLA" in Elder Futhark runes. Absolutely love this hood. Worth every penny.

 

[PanhandleFJ]

Much better day today than yesterday was. I managed to get the contours of the patch close enough to be able to tack it into place and work on massaging and tweaking the metal into alignment as I go. So far it's going pretty well.

Big sigh of relief once I was able to place it and have it fit.
View attachment 3098173


Tacking it in, bit by bit. I'm using my 3" die grinder to blend down any tacks that don't look right as I go so I can correct anything right away. Makes for slow progress, but at least it's steady progress.
View attachment 3098176


You can see in the highlighted portion that the angle of the sheet metal where it meets isn't a perfect match. I've been able to drive a wedge into the that area and get it closer to alignment as I go. I've resigned myself to the fact that there's gonna be Bondo used when finish work is done, but I still want to keep it to a bare minimum.
View attachment 3098184


And what I'm chalking up to the fact that I'm having to "unlearn" my skills when I worked Tig welding inconel, HOLES! Just a couple, and this spot is the worst, but luckily I have that copper paddle that I'm able to use to gradually fill them in one tack at a time. Time consuming, but not a deal breaker.
View attachment 3098187


And lastly, for giggles, my welding hood. It's an Optrel Crystal 2.0 that I had a friend at my welding job airbrush for me with my name and "TIL VALHALLA" in Elder Futhark runes. Absolutely love this hood. Worth every penny.
View attachment 3098198

Wow, welding hoods have come a long way. I'm taking interest in what you're doing I hope to repair some rust in my Land cruiser next year this year it's just the vortec engine swap.

 

[Spook50]

Wow, welding hoods have come a long way. I'm taking interest in what you're doing I hope to repair some rust in my Land cruiser next year this year it's just the vortec engine swap.

I think if I had more appropriate sheet metal tooling it still would've been a challenge but would've gone a lot smoother. Like was said earlier in this thread, 14ga just wouldn't have worked with the 20ga that the body sheet metal is so I'm glad I found and used some 18ga instead of trying to burn in the 14ga. I'd rather save that for building brackets for stuff under the hood. I had to force myself to stop for tonight because now that it's going well I don't want to get impatient and start to rush, then end up making a mistake that would cost me a ton of time. So now I'm inside with a mug of beer working on my NES project that my kids have been looking forward to me getting done.

 

[PanhandleFJ]

I have a back hatch from my 88FJ62. I kept it so I'd have spare sheet metal. I bought a new to me used one for about 150 but that was 5 or 6 years ago. It was perfect except for color. I had a busy shop paint it for me and i swapped it out.

 

[Spook50]

I have a back hatch from my 88FJ62. I kept it so I'd have spare sheet metal. I bought a new to me used one for about 150 but that was 5 or 6 years ago. It was perfect except for color. I had a busy shop paint it for me and i swapped it out.

That'll be my next one to tackle is my lift gate. Only spots of surface on that, so as long as the window lip is good it'll be basically a strip, fill (for any pitting) and paint.

 

[kirvesmies]

@Spook50 , that patch looks alot better any body work i've hot glued together. for me, i find it works better to burn a backing strip around the patch area. then set the patch piece on that. carry on
n yup, till valhalla

 

[Spook50]

@Spook50 , that patch looks alot better any body work i've hot glued together. for me, i find it works better to burn a backing strip around the patch area. then set the patch piece on that. carry on
n yup, till valhalla View attachment 3099038

I had wondered if that would work, but since I'm putting 18ga on 20ga didn't think it would end up working too well. But now that I think about it, could've just easily tweaked the backing strip down a hair to line up the patch plate. Really wish I had done it now. Would've saved me a lot of time holding it just right to patch it

 

[aztoyman]

Looking good. Now you KNOW WHY the body shop just slapped bondo on it. Time is money and they lose their a$$ doing it right when they have to quote a price the customer wont walk away from.

For not having experience, you have the skills and thought process that makes it seem like you know exactly what you are doing. I can tell already your next job will be even better.

 

[Spook50]

Looking good. Now you KNOW WHY the body shop just slapped bondo on it. Time is money and they lose their a$$ doing it right when they have to quote a price the customer wont walk away from.

For not having experience, you have the skills and thought process that makes it seem like you know exactly what you are doing. I can tell already your next job will be even better.

Very true. Explains why you pay top dollar for a high end body shop to do the entire job right the first time, and less than half that for a shop that wants to "turn & burn" jobs and maximize throughput.

 

[Spook50]

Sunday and yesterday were break days since I wanted to spend the time with my kids, start my new job and was taken out to a birthday dinner last night, but was back at it today and finished welding the large patch into place. Fortunately I'm borrowing my mother's 4Runner so I have a driveable vehicle (on the condition that I change the oil, ha). The wonky tacks on the left are holes that I filled in after blending down the first welds. Overall I'm happy with how I've been able to avoid any real warping. Now to do the second patch, get a bunch more abrasive discs for my die grinder and see how much punishment my air compressor can take....