Been preparing for the next Baja trip right after Christmas. Original plan was to focus on getting all the rust repaired, but welding ended up being much more difficult than I was expecting, and only got as far as fixing the floor pan. The roof will need to wait...probably until summer.

Pulled off all the rear trim and assessed the damage. This used to be the corner where I put my wet booties—years of saltwater wasn't pretty.


Started by tackling the rust that wasn't too deep. Lots of wire wheeling. Took a nice big chunk of skin off a finger at one point.


Cut out the really bad section. At this point the car was getting annoyingly loud to drive (still my daily driver).


Got to welding, decided it would be easier as two panels. Really slow going, and barely any decent weld pools. I gave up on the rear side, the metal was so thin and rusty.


Second panel went better. I spent more time fabricating the patch to fit snuggly, and I switched from the hand pedal to the foot pedal.



Replaced a tie down with a non-rusty one from the junkyard.


All cleaned up! Still have a square hole to cut for the scuff plate and the 4th tie down to bolt in, but waaay better. I have been going a little wild spraying fluid film on areas that I know are going to start rusting or that I wasn't able to address fully.


I was at the junkyard and saw a '99 with tan rear quarter panel trim that had the rear 12v socket and the larger storage compartment. To make the passenger side fit I had to cut out a section of the body:


Four test fits and some paint and I ended up with this:


It fits! The color matches the other trim exactly, but that piece was darker oak on 97s. Swapped the 12v charger for USB ports that will run off the house battery.


I chipped the corner of the A/C button pulling it out a year ago, and pulled a replacement off a T100


Unfortunately the color is slightly different.


With all the trim off it was a good opportunity to remove the rear heater