[Rob_64-365]

Cleaned up my welds, and hit the frame with a wire wheel, gave it some rust treatment, then slapped some paint on it... John Deere Blitz Black of course!

 

[Rob_64-365]

Cut out the back of the rear quarter so I can fix all the missing metal outboard of the crossmember & the bottom of the tailgate hinge pillar, as most of the bottom of it was missing, reclaimed by the earth, dust to dust....

Then I made a few templates out of tape, then cut out pieces, one at a time, test fit them, bent them into shapes to fit the quarter.

then tacked them together, looks like it's gonna work out, just cutting the rot out, & putting good metal in. I'll get that finalized tomorrow & hopefully get the rear crossmember test fit, maybe even bolted in.

 

[Rob_64-365]

The crossmember arrived today & I absolutely did have to cut away more of the inner structure to load the crosssmember into position. Had to move it far enough outboard on the drivers side, to clear the passenger side to load it, so chop-chop! It will all be welded back together nice and strong, so not a big deal. Spaced the crosssmember up with 2x4's (same thickness) so I can mark & drill the repair plates i welded on the frame. Then get to replacing & patching all the rusted stuff.

 

[Rob_64-365]

Stitched in the missing parts of the floor, not gonna bother cleaning these welds up, carpet covers them anyway.

 

[Rob_64-365]

Passenger side inner structure was a bit worse than the drivers side, but its strong as heck now once I stitched in the uprights. The thicker metal is much easier to weld. All that's left is to fab up a bit more for the bottom to weld it to the crossmember & tie in to the quarter lower, then spot weld the floor to the crossmember. Then I can repeat the whole process on the inner structure of the driver side, which should go much faster cuz i have a little experience with that now. Also welded a few M8 nuts to my spare tire carrier brackets that were missing.

 

[Rob_64-365]

Finished welding the pass side structural inner towers, then added the spot weld flange back to the quarter panel, & everything lines up nicely. I should be able to weld the crossmember into the floor and rear structure tomorrow. Then I can finish the driver side which isn't as bad as the pass side.

 

[Snow Bruiser]

Doing some awesome work there. Nice bends.
Do you use anything special to bend sheet? Anvil, sheet metal brake, hammer and dolly set?
I am planning on building a miniature version of Fitzee's pipe anvil for mine once I'm finished with mechanical stuff.
I'm following this thread with email notifications, no pressure!

 

[Rob_64-365]

Well thank you, just figuring it out as I go. It's just a bit of patience, and following tips from the various youtube videos, including Fitzees videos. My only tools are a small bench vice & the cheap economy hammer/dolly set from Eastwood, an angle grinder, & I don't feel i need anything else, as you can do a lot with a vice and a hammer.

I must be getting a little better at it, because when I made the lower part of the hinge pillar on the drivers side, It took me forever. Measuring, going back and forth on the vice, hammering it into shape in the vice, trying the make it fit & flow perfectly before welding.... it took me 5-6 hours over 2 evenings after work to make that 4" by 7" piece.

Then when I did the passenger side, it was maybe 1/2 hour total to make, weld on the vehicle, & grind smooth. I cut it out & bent it roughly into shape in my vice, then tacked it in place, bending & tapping it into its final shape with a hammer/dolly on the car, which is much faster then trying to make it perfect before starting... So its definitely got a learning curve, but its strangly satisfying to make things with your hands like this.

Its one of those dive in & figure it out as you go things, which is kind of fun! Structuraly it feels so solid back there, compared to what it was before, which was really bad, you could hear the metal scraping and flexing over every bump, it ws loud, like metal garbage cans rattling around back there annoying you!

 

[Rob_64-365]

Got the crossmember partially welded in. I got a few spot welds done on each side, & a couple in the center, then I ran out of gas on the welder, but its in there, & the welding supply store is close by, so it's all downhill from here!!

I used a C- clamp under the crossmember, to crank the floor down tight to the crossmember, then filled the spot weld holes with weld when its clamped down tight.

One of the questions that came up, was how to load the crossmeber in, & I had to cut out openings in the quarter panel to allow it to pass in past the hinge pillar uprights, as you can see in post #43 on this thread, showing how it can slide cross car to load it in with this access hole cut out of the quarter panel. With the cut out, I could then insert the crossmember (at an angle) driver side first, past where it would normally go, so it clears the hinge pillar on the passenger side, then you can rotate it square & slide it cross car into position... I had this thing in & out probably 15 times before I was ready to weld it in.

It wants to load from the bottom up, but the frame is in the way, unless you can lift the body high enough you're kind of stuck in a bind. In my case, with a rotted crossmember, chances are everything else back there is rotted out too, cuz mine was, so having access thru the cut out rear quarter panels, allowed me much better access to cut out the bad metal structure & replace it with good metal, plus i was able to clean off all the rust scale & apply rust converter on everything, then prime & paint, before installing the crossmember for its final weld. So. Hopefully its a long lasting fix!!

 

[Rob_64-365]

Ok got my gas bottle filled & got the rear crossmember all welded in tonight... the floor feels so solid now! I am hoping to get the wheel wells fixed next, they are pretty holy!

 

[Rob_64-365]

Decided i better check the fit of the tailgate & lesson learned... Pre fit the tailgate before welding anything!!

I had the hinges mounted on the vehicle, then I set the tailgate on 2 chairs, one on each end with me balancing the tailgate to keep it in the up position. Then I carefully maneuvered it on to the hinges, one side at a time, in the tailgate closed position. Its not that heavy, its mostly just awkward to handle. The drivers side lined up pretty evenly right off the bat, a nice 3/16 gap & pretty consistent from top to bottom. Then there was the passenger side. The gap on the passenger side was all jacked up.... it had a 3/16ish gap at the top, probably because the hardtop was on & that kept it spaced properly, but the bottom lower corner had a 3/4" gap!

I ended up having to drill out the spot welds in the vertical face of the rear crossmember on that pass side to pull that lower corner inboard to bring it back to square, which wasnt too bad. (It sucked) Then after lots of measuring, adjusting, & a pull with tie strap monunted on the frame, to bring the mounted hinge over about 9/16" & into alignment.

I clamped it with vice grips & gave it a tack weld to set it in position, then re-installed the tailgate bolts & it all lines up nicely, then I finalized the welds.

That was definitely two steps forward, one step back, but it ended up with a good outcome. I can beat it into position just fine from here. When I install the new tailgate, I'll be sure to have an empty shell so it will be much lighter. Just figuring it out as I go...

 

[Snow Bruiser]

Sometimes when I work on mine I feel like I may be a masochist. Then I read this thread and I feel normal again.
The wheel arches, you will restore or restomod them? Factory spec was a bit prone to rust wasn't it? Or can't avoid it?
Yesterday driving through upstate NY farmlands I saw a well used chevy truck. It was barely new, 2012 or so, but the wheel arches were rotted up at least by 3 inches.

 

[Rob_64-365]

It's definitely going back to factory stock wheel wells, its almost a rarity to find a Bronco without those bolt on wheel flares hiding the rust & I like that stock sheet metal look.

As for the rust on everything up here in the appropriately named "rust belt", heavily salted roads are just part of the winter here & it rusts out every car/truck here eventually. That's why I don't drive any of my classic cars until after there have been several heavy rain events to wash all that crap away!! The new leased truck is for winter and salt, just gimme a new one every 2 years, let it ruin that.

I keep my old stuff in my garge year round, including the Bronco. I redid the whole house about 10 years ago, and bought an oversized furnace, just so I could keep the garage climate controlled just like the house, just no returns out there, but its good out there now, heat & air year round in there, so hopefullt it helps preserve the cars so it stays nice for a long time, cuz it sure seems to have lived a hard life before i got it!!

I'm gonna try me best to make sure it won't even see rain if I can help it, it just a cruiser for me, a Sunday driver, no dirt roads, no winter, no off roading, a text book pavement princess!! Lol I liked my 96 Bronco I bought new for how nice it was, but I liked the old school tough looking styling of my 85, so the goal is to make my 86 as nice as new, or as close to new as I can with my limited skills, but endless enthusiasm.

More welding tonight, driver side structural pillar almost done!

 

[Rob_64-365]

Made my way over to the drivers side tonight, cut out my rear quarter panel, then the reinforcement piece up in the wheel well, which was the only part that looked really bad. The wheel wells have some holes, but only where the spot welds were at. Easy fix. The metal looks pretty solid where there aren't holes & i put 1 patch in tonight, which welded in pretty good, so I'm thinking 3 more patches, & the wheel wells will be good to go. Each patch only takes about 30 minutes to replace, so not too bad.

I'm surprised how nice everything is besides where that inner wheel reinforcement was spot welded on... Anyway here are some pics of the massacare!! Haha!!

 

[Rob_64-365]

More welding... I can tackle the passenger side next. Its progress, had decent metal not too far outside of the holes. It's good practice for when I get to welding the quarter panels on.

 

[Rob_64-365]

Made my way to forward to the rockers & floor, which didn't look too bad, that thick sticky insulator stuff is a pain to remove!! There were a few small rust holes in the floor, & thin spots in the rockers, so I cut that all out & around the floor cab support to check out how that looked inside, & ended up cutting out a big area, just cuz sheet metal is cheap, & easy to weld in. Thankfully everything under that cab support looked nice & strong. I wire wheeled everything inside there real good, then put rust converter on it, then self etching weldable primer then, chasis paint, then I rebuilt the floor with new metal, & holy moly, 16 gage metal is some thick stuff, hard to bend it where you want it to, just needed a good beating with a bigger 🔨 but it takes a while to get it to conform to the shapes i want. Its gonna be fun trying to spray thru the little holes underneath to coat the back side of that area. Hopefully the eastwood internal frame coating nozzle is up to the task!

 

[Rob_64-365]

Just about wrapped up the driver side rocker, floor & rear seat tub, that was a p.i.t.a. but only because I had to figure out how to put it all back together again. Like "Fitzee" says, start all the way inside, and work your way out.

The seat belt anchor is never coming out, it doesn't even look bad at all, but it broke 3 T-50 bits on me, heat, acetone & atf, nope it laughed at me so I had to weld carefully around the nylon belt material, shielding it with a piece of sheel metal while blasting air on it from the compressor, all while trying to weld & not blow my shielding gas away at the same time. I needed more hands!! Turned out just fine...

 

[Rob_64-365]

Ok, last piece of the puzzle is fab'd up, & good enough for me. I just gotta pretty it up a bit with a grinder, seam seal the crap out of everything before I weld that in & the driver side quarter can go back on. How ever much people pay to have this done, it is not enough!!! As a hobby, it is somewhat enjoyable, but to do this every day would be maddening!!

 

[Snow Bruiser]

before I weld that in & the driver side quarter can go back on

Looking awesome, but, are you being careful of the door gap or is that not an issue for your truck? My driver rocker is gone as well as the floor connected to it over a 4 inch band, as well as half of the rocker/A-pillar mount, and that created a wider door gap by half an inch. When I do mine I will be pulling A-pillar and B-pillar together by half an inch, from strong points at the A and B pillar, then weld on the new rocker.

 

[Rob_64-365]

Looking awesome, but, are you being careful of the door gap or is that not an issue for your truck? My driver rocker is gone as well as the floor connected to it over a 4 inch band, as well as half of the rocker/A-pillar mount, and that created a wider door gap by half an inch. When I do mine I will be pulling A-pillar and B-pillar together by half an inch, from strong points at the A and B pillar, then weld on the new rocker.

My door is still on & its closing good besides some sag from the worn hinge bushings, but honestly i didnt even think about that!! I will check it out better tomorrow. Thanks for the tip, I've never done this kind of work before so ill take any advice I can get!

Im not too concerned because the rocker wasnt bad at all, thick solid metal with just in a few bubbled spots where the floor was spot welded on, & the only reason I cut out that section of it out was because when I cut the floor out, it was lazy & it was just too easy to take out that area as well & put in new metal there. I am purposely doing small areas at a time & welding them fully back together, just so I don't lose a critical dimension like I did with the rear crossmember & not having the tailgate on. I had the width screwed up, but luckily it was just a few spot welds & it was not too bad moving it to where it should go.

I know what you're saying tho from looking at a 96 in the junkyard, the rocker was so gone none of that lower A & B pillar were not connected & that thing was just falling apart. Thats a typical Michigan rusted Bronco.