SGT-XJ Driver’s Quarter
Probably the most time consuming and difficult part of this build is the rotted out driver’s quarter. I’m not a body guy and I’ve always relied on someone else to do jobs like these. I’m on my own on this one.
As I mentioned in my last post, I chopped off the lower quarter extension at the body line–
I got one of those spot weld drilling kits, and they’re pretty cool. I drilled all the welds out and you can see the body panel pop loose on each one.
I ordered the rust repair panels from Carolina Classic Trucks They were just Key Parts repair panels, but these guys came up first in the search. I laid the replacement panel over the original and traced out my cut lines. I actually cut about 5/8″ below the line and used the flange tool to make an offset in the stock bodywork. The very top line is where the Armor extends.
I started cutting with a 3″ cutoff wheel but that was a lot for the little die grinder, so I got my trusty 7″ cutoff wheels out on a “Bauer” angle grinder and it was like a hot knife through butter.
There are no aftermarket inner fenders, so I just had to chop out the old one and make sort of a Mini-Tub.
It was a lot of fiddly-work to get the new inner fender to align with the new quarter, but I finally made it happen. I’m only doing tacks and sealing it all up with black 3M 5200 (My preferred seam sealer)
Tacks, then welds:
Grind, Fill and Prime:
Not perfect, but I’m painting everything with Rustoleum semi-gloss black, the whole rig is getting wrapped. Also, I have removed all of the fender that isn’t covered by the armor. We have pretty large wheel openings now.
Now….not done with the rear quarter. There’s this problem with the door opening/wheel arch. I was planning to just pull cardboard templates from the other side, but after I’d cut like four pieces of cardboard and wasn’t even close, I realized it wasn’t a 3D puzzle I wanted to tackle.
So my daughter Cassie and I headed off to the Junkyard with mankind’s Greatest Invention and came back with this:
Still rusty but that forward extension is easy to fabricate.
After checking the door gaps, I welded it all up and primed with etching primer:
I managed to recover the forward edge of the inner fender from that chunk I cut out at the junkyard, and fit that into the leading edge of the inner fender that wasn’t reconstructed by the mini-tub.
Also tacked and sealed up all the edges of the inner fender and that fender extension pan.
Because I’m not a sensible person, I did not use the stainless bolts with nuts on the inside to attach the armor, instead, I used stainless “Rivnuts” which I tend to use at every opportunity anyway. I etch-primed everything that was exposed.
I attached with cheap 5/16″ bolts and LOTS of black silicone, especially in the edges.
I’m going to replace the cheap bolts with countersunk allen bolts, I found a nifty Piloted Countersink Bit, I will probably update this post after I use it, just to confirm it actually works. I’ll probably level off the bolts with silicone, since I plan for the vinyl wrap to cover the armor.
It was pretty messy under this area when I finished, I had to do a pretty thorough shop cleanup before starting on the other side.
On the passenger side, I only need to repair the dogleg, a small part in the door opening, and cutaway the wheel opening and attach the inner fender to the outer after ironing it out to fit. That will be a little bit of work. You can see I’ve already chopped off the rear extension and the rotten dogleg.
I’ll make a new post for the passenger side work, also, I will do a full separate post on how I’m handling those rock-sliders. It’s a bit of a twist on the “2X6 Rock Sliders” you normally see on an XJ.
