So, it's been a while since I've had any updates!
It's been a long year for the Bronco.
Back in March, I took it into a body shop because it was already rusting out from the previous body shop's work.
Pretty awful for only 2 years.
Not to mention, this is on the driver's side. The passenger side is the one that had the full panel replacement. The driver's side rear wheel well was one of the few places that originally didn't have any rust. So they did some horrible prep work or something.
To make matters worse, the whole area around the panel on the passenger side was starting to crack.
So, I took it in on March 1st 2021 to get it all patched up and repaired. The guy there told me it would take about 4 weeks.
Well.... long story short, it didn't take 4 weeks. After he got into it, the previous shop had pretty much destroyed the body. Instead of just cutting out what they needed of the patch panel, they cut out the whole thing. Then, since it was seam to seam, they had nothing to attach the panel with, so there were only a few spot welds and the rest was just filled with bondo. He said that everything wrong they could do, they
did do. He recommended that I sand blast the entire thing to strip it down to bare metal, and start completely over. Which I did.
Since it was taking way longer than it was supposed to and a lot more work needed to be done, he had to fit it in between schedules. The Bronco was at his shop for about 8 months...
I only got it back at the end of October.
Here's the crack after the bondo was sandblasted out of it. It was barely attached.