Still moving forward a month into the project. Need to take a few days off I think, lest I risk getting burned out too early on. Working on this almost everyday 6-8 hrs a day takes a toll. Luckily my actual job is a cake gig. Anyway, back to the FJ.
So if you've been following along you know I've spent all the time thus far addressing the rust in the rear valance. Well I was ready to dry fit the tail gate again to make sure all was well after it was all back together. I was thinking about the state of the tailgate and whether or not I can trust the fit in it's state or not. I thought not, so I decided now was the time to reconstruct the tailgate. As you can see the rust on the tailgate was quite bad:
So I got to cutting off the bad stuff at the bottom, which turned out to be all Bondo, fiberglass and rust. It looks like the tail gate was a replacement, probably replaced by the same sh1t body shop that did all the crap work, and it looks like it was likely rusty when they got it. The Bondo was used to recreate the lower edge of the tailgate, and sections had been cut out already (I'm guessing rust was there). Once they had the line right they then wrapped the lower edge in fiberglass and painted it. Probably charged them a ton for a "new" tailgate too.
Over time the rust came back, and this time with a vengeance. The PO used some truckliner to paint over it, as you see in the pic, which just added gas to the fire. Long story short, the tailgate was in bad shape. Because so much of the lower seam was gone the hinges were only being supported by the inner panel and this was causing some real warpage issues. Here's some pics after I went ahead and cut the whole thing open to sort out all the dents and rust:
This is the tailgate laying on a flat bench, there's an inch of space under the middle from the bow in the inner panel. The fix was pretty easy though, just lay it on the concrete floor in this same position and use my size 11's and 250lbs to push the panel back into shape. There was some other areas that needed a little more persuasion with a hammer and dolly, but all in all, not too bad. Now with it back in shape I started to sew it back up and got it looking like a tailgate again.
I had to fab the little bit on the end with the body line, but that wasn't too bad. I found a metal dolly with the right curve on it. Put it in the vice, cut out a 3"x5" piece of 18ga and started bending it by hand. Once it was real close to a good fit, I added the crease with the brake and I tacked it in. Now I was ready to start trimming up the edge to get the dimensions closer to finish and hang the door again.
A little more work with positioning the door correctly and now it opens and closes with ease. A little more finish welding and grinding and this section will be in the books!
BTW, got a good set of stock wheels from another Mudder here. They look better than the ones that came off and are basically rust free! I'll be going with some 31's and the OME suspension package down the road.
