for humour purposes ( i was taking off the plastic on the back for a rougher look/i hate plastic on the outside of cars)





Afterward i used a grinder wheel and cut out all the rust so now it looks like this:

 

Here's the right way to do a cut and fold. Less of a chance to fill the interior with mud/dirt.
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/c...t-way-1007865/

 

hmm thats why i get some mud in the cargo area now

im a country boy man i didnt really look into this just grabbed the grinding wheel and a spraypaint can, problem (mostly) solved haha

 

Your problem is solved until your unibody startes to come undone at the pinch welds. Unless you want **** to start coming undone, you need to reinforce that area. Theres already been some damage done due to it already being week from the rust.

 

What are you talkin about? All he did was cut the body a little

 

Theres pinch welds within that rear quarter that give the back unibody support. When the rust/him cutting took away those welds, it took away the structural integrity of the rear which will let the rear of the body flex and eventually start breaking other pinch welds. Thats why when you do a rear cut and fold, you need to rivit or weld the peices together to give back some of that structure.

 

Oh

 

I had an old XJ that had that entire portion rusted out, pulled carpet up and I could see the ground/gas tank through my rear cargo area too. Point being is that it was separated at many points. It was fine, hatch shut fine, never "fell apart". Now, I'm not saying it won't fall apart in an accident or something, but under normal driving conditions it's gonna be fine.

 

Under normal driving conditions, yeah it would probably be fine. But most of us on here put alot of stress on the unibody so thats what i was basing it off of. I wasent saying that it was literally going to fall apart. Just that having that area cut out deffently weakens it.

 

Fair enough, I just didn't want the guy to worry too much.

 

point of this post was a little joke, ya kno, 'see some rust, cut it off'. if you look at the rust especially what i've got to work with in the center, there is no 'cut and fold' opportunity - it was all rusted out. while it may make a hard impact to the rear less structurally strong, i dont intend to use it like that (hitting things) and hence cutting out the rust did exactly what i needed it to do:

it removed the falling rust and all the spreading rust (look at the middle pic). Now it is cut away and repainted so rust will no longer be spreading from this portion. as an extra, i had a can of truck bed liner that i used to really seal off the rust spreading by using that all around.

its been a successful project for what im aiming for. your other ways are good advice for others though, i wasnt really recommending anyone do this to their car