Stitching body panels

KidVermicious

KidVermicious

New member
I have rusty fenders. I'm strongly considering cutting the pristine fenders off my '86 and patching the new truck with them. Anybody ever weld Toyota sheet metal? Am I crazy to think about trying this with my Lincoln 110v wire-feed fluxcore welder?
 
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I wouldn't do it with any flux core welder. You'll want a good gas mig welder for that. IF you do weld it, make sure that you do small welds per pass. Meaning: tack weld a few places along the seam to hold the fender in place. Then weld small half inch sections at a time. After you make a half inch pass, wait 5 minutes or so and let the metal cool down slowly. The idea here is to burn the metal slowly and not let it heat up too much. This thin sheet metal will heat up fast and hold it for a while allowing it to warp. I have heard of people just using a tack every inch or so then just using body filler to clean it up but I wouldn't recommend that. Eventually the filler will crack and look like garbage.
 
I wonder - could I cut my patch panels to fit, JBWeld the backside to hold them in place, then glass and bondo the seam?

Or would that crack in short order?
 
foonanas said:
that metal is thin and heats up quick.. and you can blow a hole in the metal easy.
Click to expand...

This but its doable. Just like bobbing a bed. Read some writeups (wabfab has a good one on a tacoma bed I think) and try it on some bad sheetmetal.
 
KidVermicious said:
I wonder - could I cut my patch panels to fit, JBWeld the backside to hold them in place, then glass and bondo the seam?

Or would that crack in short order?
Click to expand...

I am not sure how well that will work. First off, JB weld is a redneck fix for anything... just my opinion. Second, when you lay the fiberglass down, you'll have a rise in the surface of the body. You'll have to put glass down well beyond the seam of the metal in order to smoothen it out so it doesn't look like an obvious rise in the body line.

Shy of carefully welding the body panels in, the only other good fix is to order the skins from Slacker.
 
Pop on some fiberglass "Red Chili" style.
RedChili.jpg~original
 
I want the Chili. So bad do I want the Chili, that truck is probably the sickest 1st gen I've seen. Slacker's fiberglass just isn't in the budget for this build, unfortunately. Not short term, anyway, and I really need to take care of this rust soonish.

I shall check out panel bond, that sounds like it might be what I want.
 
the other install on the 4Runner isnt the same install for your year ..

this would be where you want to look qtr panel install

oh and we have the L trims as well :) http://www.toyotafiberglass.com/IM001424.jpg

I tell everyone whom is "contemplating" the purchace the same thing . you need to figure out if your going to keep it or not . if you are , then why use a bandaid .. take the leap and do it right . if this is what the outside looks like , picture what the inside skeleton looks like . with the panel off , you would then have the oppertunity to fix all that "hidden" rust as well , you will only know when you have the panel off


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