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LJ extended corner guards over damaged sheet metal

2K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  toximus 
#1 ·
Hi there, first post because i'm just getting into the jeep world. Bought a wrecked LJ, hit in the driver side quarter. PLanning to build a crawler that can drive to the trail. It won't be the daily, have a taco for that.

I bought extended corner guards from MetalCloak to cover the damage. I want to bounce my plan off you guys. So I've sort of hammered out the panel as good as i can get. Do you think i should just bolt the top of the guards on then use fasteners through the corner guard and panel to pull the OEM sheet metal tight?

Would you be worried about rust in voids? The paint survived the accident quite well actually. I was planning to sand a bit and hit with rustoleum as needed to make sure nothing is bare then a bead of RTV black on the top seam to keep water from running inbetween and then leave the bottom unseals so hopefully moisture will run out if it manages to find its way in. Do you think i should seal the hole circumference with RTV?

Paint plan for armor is like a dark coyote brown over the OEM green/bronze. How do you think the two tone will look?
 

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#3 ·
It's probably overkill, and you guys are welcome to critique this method, but when I go to add some armor I'm planning on painting 2 layers of POR-15 on the body and on the contacting side of the armor, paint the non-contacting side of the armor with whatever you want, sand contacting side of the armor flat, add an adhesive backed neoprene or rubber (sticky side to the armor). With proper prep, should work for steel and aluminum. The idea here is that when water and salt gets between the layers (and it will because these body panels aren't typically perfectly straight after moderate wheeling and flexing) there's a healthy coating of paint to protect from rusting out, and the neoprene/rubber sheet is to prevent metal on metal rubbing which could cause your paint to wear down. You could probably get by without the adhesive backing but it'd make the job much easier.
 
#6 ·
If you look up threads on comp cutting you'll find a lot of info from people that have done that on TJs. Not common with LJs however, I've only seen a picture of one once. You can cut more of the rear wheel well out than you'd expect, and I wouldn't worry about building supporting brackets too much. My only thought is if you roll it onto that back corner, that whole section is going to crunch down a bit more. However, if you roll it, you have bigger things to worry about.

I would use the corner armor as a template to see what part of the tub is flat and what isn't, and whatever isn't, hit with a rubber mallet till it is. You want the body going in more than it sticking out, as that will cause your corner armor to not be flush. From that picture that you posted that side doesn't look too flat.
 
#10 ·
It looks straight and I'm hoping it is! I have it pulled out to take it to a fab shop tomorrow. They are going to replace the uca and track bar brackets and hope they can say if it's bent before they do the work. If it's bent my plan is to find Fr/Rr jk axles for a swap, but that would be driving my cost up significantly.
 
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