The above welding was done with a Lincoln TIG 200 Square Wave that I bought new that summer. I knew that I'd need a good machine with the upcoming body repairs, and like I mentioned earlier, I strongly prefer TIG. MIG would have been better suited to body repairs, but the TIG would lend itself much better to future fabrication projects. The seat belt retractor nut was the first real task that I put it to. Was still getting familiar with the features on that machine, and was about a year and half out of practice, but I'd say it went well.
Body repair: Hood
I considered using the hood off the white Bronco, which looked pretty good at first glance. I ran a magnet over to check for bondo'd dents... most of the white hood was a dent. Beyond that, the edges underneath where the bumpers sit was rotting/ripping. The corners were pretty solid though, so I cut those off in case I needed them to fix the orange hood.
To get access with the hammer and dolly on the orange hood, I cut away the inside of the front corners. Working sheet metal back into shape was new to me. I got the right shape, but overworked the metal in doing so, resulting in thin patches and some pinholes. Most of my welding experience at this point had been on fairly substantial parts and I didn't want to risk turning the whole corner into a puddle with my new welder. So I tapped the corners back in very slightly, cleaned the metal with solvent, and built the corners back up with metal reinforced body filler. I then sanded them roughly to shape and rattle can'd some primer on to protect it until bodywork time. Driver side was the main focus, but I worked out a small dent on the passenger side corner as well.
Body repair: Quarter panel
Didn't get picture proof, but my dad helped me correct the tweaked cab. This had to happen before tackling the quarter panel, as It would affect the tension down the pillar into the wheel arch. We had an old farm jack from the passenger side floor behind the seat towards the upper driver side, and a come-a-long across the other way. We had to deflect the cab quite a bit to defeat spring-back and get it to stay in the right place. A few seams between interior body panels opened up during this, but I cleaned and re-sealed them later as best as I could.
To pull the dents out of the quarter panel, I welded some steel tabs onto the body lines on either side of the "dentside" recess. Ratchet straps were hooked onto the tabs and around a big post in the carport. The ratchet straps were wound up enough to provide substantial,
but not body altering, tension. With tension on the body lines, I searched for high spots on the quarter panel, particularly along the top edge, and worked them down with my bodywork hammers. I was very careful this time not the overwork the metal, and focused on pushing material down and restoring the slight outward bulge of the quarter, using my passenger side for reference. The ratchet straps had to be snugged up now and again to keep tension on the body lines. I was very happy with what I achieved, having never done something like this before. Its not perfect, but close enough to keep body filler quantity down. I took the whole panel down to bare metal and gave it a light coat of primer.
Body repair: Paint and filler stripping
At this point I committed to getting the bodywork and paint done professionally, and wanted to do everything I could to keep costs down. So I started by continuing the paint stripping mission around the Bronco, covering my tracks with the rattle can primer, which could be easily scuffed off later for proper metal prep. The "new" driver side door had a bit of rust near the front bottom, but was actually much cleaner overall than the door that got smashed up.
It seems that my Bronco had a spare tire carrier at some point. They did a nasty job of patching the top corner, and the bolts for the lower bracket were broken off in the body, and covered with body filler. The tailgate had the bracket mounted inside for the tire carrier latch, and the holes in the skin were covered with body filler also. Under the brown and on the inside its dark green, so it must have been swapped from another Bronco. My guess is that the original was destroyed during the same incident that damaged the corner. Someone must have backed into something pretty hard, or something like that.
I ordered some patch panels to address the issues I had found, including some rot in the passenger side door jamb.