84 Jimmy Build

[1981lt1]

I was on vacation most of last week so I only had a few hours of wrench time today.  Got the passenger rocker and inner kick panel cut out, and found some surprises at the quarter panel.  I may have to make some inner panel patches, but the biggest surprise was how poorly the outer rocker fits.  This company needs some serious QC upgrades.







And here is how bad this fits...

[Shifty]

Wow!  I'm glad it's not me doing that.....I need to keep myself free to do honey-do's....

[1981lt1]

Got quite a bit done over the past couple of days.  The floor pan has been fixed, along with the rusted sub structure, and the inner kick panel has been fitted.  Now that i've gotten the front floor pan fixed, I wanted to start fitting the rocker, but I need the door mounted to make sure my reveals are good.  I've learned the hard way to not weld up the rockers until the door is positioned correctly.

[1981lt1]

[JohnnyPopper]

Nice work! I would have never volunteered for that much work.

Yeah, extremely poor fitment.

[1981lt1]

You are correct!  I've had some fitment issues with their stuff on a previous project but this is pretty bad.  Unfortunately, I've already bought the parts I need so I'm stuck with everything.

[JohnnyPopper]

Well, it looks like you have to skill set to overcome their lack of quality.

Look forward to your continued progress 

[1981lt1]

Well, it looks like you have to skill set to overcome their lack of quality.

Look forward to your continued progress 

Actually, i'm not afraid to cut things apart and i'm just a very good grinder!  My welding/fabrications skills are novice at best. 

[1981lt1]

Since I'm still waiting for my new door hinges, and they likely won't be here this week, I started on the rust in the rear of the cab floor.  Of course, it wasn't just the floor pan, it had to be rotten in the support as well.

[Shifty]

That's a ton of ugly to cut off....

[1981lt1]

There was so much welding on this section.  I had to make another backing plate and then completely rebuild the bottom of the side panel where it meets the floor.  The combination of my poor welding skills and extremely horrible fitment of the replacement panels equals a crap ton of grinding about the same amount of seam sealer.

[Shifty]

Talk about an opportunity to sharpen your skills...

[JohnnyPopper]

Ton of work! What kind of welder are you using?

[1981lt1]

Ton of work! What kind of welder are you using?

I'm using my 110v MIG welder i've had for many years and hasn't died on me yet.

[1981lt1]

spent yesterday and today getting my rocker panel alignment set so I could welded everything up.  Thank God I didn't just eyeball it based on the contours.  Because these panels are such poor quality, you'll notice the fender mount hole at the front of the rocker doesn't match with the inner kick panel hole.  I'll get this fixed when I'm ready to mount the fender so that'll get done later.  I'm a bit irritated at the gap along the bottom of the door but there isn't anything I can do about it without more cutting and bending and I'm simply ready to move on to the quarter panel at this point.