Lovejoy Pickup Progress; Right Rear Bed Corner Patch. Part 2!

So, I went ahead and welded it all the way around, beating, hammering, twisting, pressing and torqueing that front area into place. 

Didn’t work. Ground back the welds and I had an 1/8” offset drop from the bed side to the corner panel at that front seam!  Meaning the sheer tonage of filler it would take to blend that seam, and feather back into the corner was epic… and too much. 

So, I trimmed all the weld on that front seam down to a tight step in the sheet metal(that was solid, ironically!) The trimmed off hald the flange on the back side, upper end of the seam.. and seperated the two pieces at the bottom of the seam… And re-trimmed the flange, on the back, etc…

I ended with it still welded at the rear corner, and top seam, but cut apart for the bottom 3/4 of the front seam, allowing me to pull the panel outward, till it was flush with the bed panel…

 A flush joint to weld, with a slight gap, I ran the welder hot, and “stitched” across the gap pushing a burn out/hole up the seam. Worked good, filled the gap great!

And tacked. And re-welded.

And ground, 90%. It was 11PM by this time, 2 hours it took me to weld, re-cut, and re-weld it… Too late to grind anymore without a neighbor bitching, so I’ll finish grinding it tomorrow.

Turned out good and flush though, both the high and low body lines on that area line up 99% too!  Will just need to fill/blend the welds flush, not fill/blend 3/4 of the panel like it was after the first welding…

Went ahead and painted the corner to see how the body lines and weld lines look in one smooth color… Pretty damned good, even if I do say so myself!  

Heck of a lot better than it was;

Before;

After;

I Still need to grind that one section of weld down, and fill the holes that were for the spare tire carrier bracket on the corner from when it was on the bronco, and finish weld a couple pin holes in one seam, but that corner is about 99% done at this point.