Danson

Hey everyone.

I picked up a tub from an 86 that’s completely rust-free. The quarters on my own 86 are very rusty. The wheel wells aren’t compromised and as far as I can tell the innards are fine. So, all I really need from this rear end is the quarters.

I was hoping to remove them in one piece and install them on mine, but after looking into it I’m getting the impression that it’s not possible to cleanly remove a whole quarter panel. I thought maybe just drilling the spot welds would work but I’ve seen others needing air chisels and whatnot to finish separating the skin, and the old quarters look mangled afterwards.

I’m just looking for confirmation on that and/or some ideas on how to get it done. I’m not opposed to cutting the quarters instead, I could just cut out one big section. Then I could remove the remaining pieces of the quarters and maybe sell the rest of the tub to someone with a rusty bed to stick fiberglass fenders on. The way the fiberglass replacements are installed is how I thought swapping them would go.

The guy I bought the tub from was planning on basically cutting his truck in half and just welding the good rear end to it. It’s everything from the doors back. That sounds… not ideal. I really don’t know though so I look forward to anyone’s opinions.

Danson

Just an idea here, what if I cut the whole quarter panel off at the mounting locations? I could then do the same on the other one and put the new panel in and weld it to what’s left of the old panel’s mounts. That way the only welds I’d have to worry about would be ones that are mostly not visible, and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting the body lines just right.

slacker

iTrader: (1)

yeah , its possable . there are ~ 150 spot weldes on each side , you must make sure you get them all .. practice on your old ones first (obviously)
once you get all the spot welds cut , you start removing by pulling it at the door jamb first . these panels are pretty thin , so you have to be "ginger"

Danson

Hey slacker, was hoping you would chime in! So basically with your fiberglass panels you can hack up the old ones pretty good but if I want to put metal ones back in place, the same procedure but more careful? I’ve tried looking at your install pdf for ideas but obviously it’s assuming you don’t need the quarter panel to be usable afterwards. So the folks using air chisels to get theirs off are maybe just missing a BUNCH of spot welds?

slacker

iTrader: (1)

its just easier to cut it into pieces to get it off .. and if you miss a spot weld no big deal , right , as your not using the metal one , your replacing with a complete fiberglass panel .

In your case , your wanting to remove OE steel one from a used tub , and use them on yours , so YES .. you have to drill every single spot weld and make sure its seperating from the tub before you start to remove . I cant remember how long it took to remove , I do remember it was quite a while .

Danson

After taking a real good look at both, I’m leaning towards cutting it. If I cut it around the edges I think that will be the simplest and it’ll be relatively easy to weld it or glue it. Will still be about 90% of the quarter panel. Thanks for the heads up on that!