Repair Rust and Renewal

Hey All.

I'm looking for some ideas on what i might want to do with my X. I've got a 91' thats lifted but its suffering from the northeast rocker rot. The rot has even worked itself into the doors... I'm going to check some salvage yards later this week but i'm not sure what a price on doors would be. I basically need both rear doors with windows. I already ordered and recieved the rockers and dog legs that are new metal and just have to find someone to cut out the old and weld in the new. I'm not sure that the cost of replacing parts though at this point may outweigh the cost of just buying a used X and parting it down. Anyone have thoughts on this?

I could kick myself since i just put a new (40k) engine in to replace the one that had over 100k on it. Tranny and drivetrain seem solid enough at this point. I even started looking at 4.11 kits for better power.

Labor costs are going to be the real killer here i think.

Ideas?

Thanks all...

 

[have2goski]

getting someone to slap on those repair panels might be a little harder than you think.

I did my rockers and dog legs last year. it was a pain.

you really need to know exactly how much rust you got. basically you have to get the rust you can see removed and then start working the edges back to get to good metal and hopefully an easy (straight) line to weld the new peices against. there is probably actually more rust there than you can see right now

it takes a while to get the new and old to line up nice.

once you have everything fit in you have a bunch of welding and grinding to do and if you aren't that great at welding and didn't take enough time to fit the pieces properly you are gonna have to use a healthy bit of body filler to smooth it all out.

personally i thought it was great to do the work myself and got the help of my uncle on some of the welding. That actually ends up being the quickest part in my opinion.

I don't know what kind of resources you have or if you have the confidence to do it, but maybe consider cutting the old rusted stuff out yourself and "dry" fit the new in place, then go and find somebody to weld it up. you are bound to know somebody that knows somebody that could do the welding.

when i ripped out the old stuff i used tin snips and a small cutting wheel on air. took awhile but got it all cut out.

oh and even though the repair panels are "new" that doesn't mean you can't work them by cutting/bending to get them to fit. and if the metal is solid don't cut it out just cause you have like a 4 foot rocker to put in there. cut down your peice and put it where you don't have good metal.

some may disagree but if you can make stuff over lap it makes the welding a whole lot easier than butting stuff up edge to edge.

good luck

 

[4x4Hunter]

resources

The guy who is going to replace my panels works at a body shop. getting time for him to do it is the major obstacle. I'm going to get doors and fenders tomorrow YEAH!!!