Sows Ear to silk purse...

[Andyl]

Well that was fun... My "good" tailgate from PYP wasn't so nice underneath once fully dissasembled...

14 hours, about 2sqft of sheetmetal, 3 zip cuts 2 flap discs - a reverse cut 1/4" HSS bit, about a 1/2lb of mig wire, little bondo, about a pint of that 'rust stop' (commercial version - can't remember the name off hand) 3 cans of self etching primer, and some brown tremclad until I can get the proper matched color...

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i277/cgyreefer/001-3.jpg

I think it'll be a big improvement :)

Still needs some 400 grit work, and a few more hours of sanding...

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i277/cgyreefer/002.jpg

Yeesh, should have just moulded it and made a new fiberglass version :)

[Andyl]

And...
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i277/cgyreefer/025.jpg
Mostly done. Some dumbarse forgot about the holes/slots for the outer weatherstrip :D Not quite sure how I'm going to fix that now...

Took a ton of pictures as I reassembled... Figure I'll do a full/complete 1st/2nd gen tailgate faq/repair guide sometime this week as I have time...

[RedApe]

WOW! Andy, that looks great!

[Tacorossa]

Yeah it does look great. Amazing what a little blood, sweat, tears, and talent can do!

Can't wait to see the repair guide.

[Andyl]

Yeah not 100% thrilled with how it turned out - there's a bit of a line where I added the new top cap - might try to work it out with some glazing putty... And there's a bit of a wave in the drivers side panel (replaced the skin adjacent to the licence plate holder) from grinding/welding - that kinda bugs me... But I was trying to avoid the bondo bomber scenario - so I was trying not to use much/any.

Of course now my computers on the fritz, running ubuntu live today as vista started BSOD'ing on me yesterday, hope I don't have to do a complete re-install...

[Dante's Taco]

Re: Ubuntu

Hey, good to see someone else out there running a real operating system. ;)

I'm running this one: http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=1403

Comes pre-setup with all codecs & Flash & Firefox, so it's pretty much runnin' right out of the box (if it had a box, which it doesn't).

Great work on repairing tailgate too; wish I had that kind of ability.

Geoff