At this point ive been working a second job for a few months at a pizza shop, working the oven and helping out. The extra cash is really helping out with material costs.I spent a lot of time massaging the metal, laying filler, and feathering out for the primer. i finally made my way over to the lower quarters and as you can see their is no metal to work with so i made it back to the junkyard. i found i needed both the outer and inner for replacement for both sides and again was fortunate to find a cherokee with good inner and outer quarters to swap in. i looked it over and use a drive shaft to keep the gate out of the way and made my cuts.

Taking the time to look at how the pieces are installed together from the factory. This LT side is more work because of the fuel pocket that is glued and seam sealed at every edge of pocket. Chrysler does not give a sectioning procedure for the lower but only the whole quarter panel and i did not want to do the entire. The inner portion from factory is a combination of spot welds and rivets as you go further into the unibody. Cutting of the outer panel at the bottom portion of slanted metal after the body line gave some working room to see the inner and start grinding off the spot welds and grind down the rivets. hit the broken off rivets with a chisel and hammer along with surround spot welds. With the recycled quarter i cleaned off the sealers and glue, found the spot welds and marked them with marker to drill and grind off. Once welds gave way using the chisel and hammer again to take part the pieces to look at closer. Test fit my inner and outer first and scribed into the existing metal for guide to place them. Once sure of the inner placement, the prepping with grinding down metal to be welded along with a misting of etching primer, ensuring no rust stated again. Decided to weld the spots the factory riveted. The outer panel i thought would be best to weld at the top of the last body line where it slopes so to use the existing quarter and a backing plate to keep the area strong. a little bondo never hurt anyone.

 

Round 2

At this point the jeep is my daily driver so i put insurance back on it and made sure all was legal with the lights and plates on it. i just drive it rough. i needed to get some primer on the body before i could start with the rt side lower quarter. i am an amateur for this kind of work and ive had a lot of advice and help along the way. dads energy is in his tools and keeps me motivated. i was given the advice about a material called feather fill that would be more work but help me to keep the body straight. so i picked some up and started masking the body to lock in a protect my bondo bandit. The material works great at evening out the material to metal and then you block it all down with 320 and guide coat before another coat of 2k primer. now i could work on the RT side lower inner and outer quarter.

 

Moving forward to the RT side lower quarter, i went back to the yard and got a hold of the quarter came back and took it apart. its a lot of the same except easier because of no fuel pocket. After getting it into place i blocked that feather fill material with the 320 and prepped for some 2k primer. more blocking after primer and prepping before going into the booth

 

Very nice work saving an XJ!