Truck quarter panel/inner panel replacement

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:07 am
There was a dearth of information on how to remove and replace a truck bed quarter panel/inner panel, so after watching one short YouTube video that glossed over the procedure, I had to figure it out myself.

These pictures are a couple of years old, but I wanted to post this procedure here in hopes that it will help out another DIY-er. I'm grateful to this forum for being a great resource to me during my truck restoration. I've got two more cars to paint, so you'll be holding my hand some more I'm sure. :goodjob:

I had a fender bender with a school bus that basically destroyed my right quarter panel. I was passing the bus when the driver veered to the left straight into me. She was going around a postal truck stopped in the road delivering mail. The bus' front fender hit my right quarter panel in front of the wheel well. No one was ticketed in the accident, though.

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I got the half truck bed from LKQ for $500. I couldn't simply replace the outer panel because the wheel well was pretty damaged too, and doing it this way would hide most of the spot welds.

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Well, I rolled up my sleeves and tackled the first part of this repair project: getting the new quarter panel assembly separated from the truck bed. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It basically took me an afternoon and the next morning to complete the separation.

To start, I used a high quality spot weld cutter ($35), a cordless drill, center punch, hammer, air chisel, and grinder to do the work. I was able to access most of the spot welds with the cutter, but there were several places where I just used the grinder to remove the spot weld. On a few of the spot welds, I had to cut away excess sheet metal and come back to them after I had everything removed.

The first thing I did was drill out all the spot welds from inside the wheel well. I used cutting fluid to help preserve the bit.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:09 am
Next, I separated the front. That was really easy. Just a few bolts and one spot weld.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:10 am
I flipped the half-truck bed upside down and drilled out the spot welds along the sidewall-bed seam. I had to cut away some of the beams to get to a few of the spot welds. I used the grinder on a couple of them. One of the spot welds nearest the wheel well was inaccessible until I cut away all the excess sheet metal. I cut around it and will do that later.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:12 am
Because I had previously drilled out the spot welds around the wheel well, I moved to the rear sidewall-bed seam and used the same techniques. Again, the spot weld closest to the wheel well was inaccessible, so I just cut around it to tackle later.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:15 am
Time to remove a good chunk of metal. Makes it easier to get around and move around.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:18 am
Now it got a little tricky. It took me an hour of inspecting it, plus sleeping on it overnight, before the light bulb turned on. The rear corner post will stay in place on my truck, so I must remove the quarter panel and bed sidewall from the post on the replacement. Here are the straightforward spot welds you've got to drill out. In that last picture, the arrow points to a couple of inaccessible spot welds that you'll have to use a seam-buster on.

Update: On the visible spot welds along the outside of the corner post and the two directly behind the tail light, I should have drilled them out with a 1/4" drill bit since there was no need to preserve the metal behind them. The spot weld cutter left a large, 3/8" diameter hole that later proved to be difficult to plug weld. It would have saved me a lot of grinding later on.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:21 am
Here they are drilled out. In the last picture, you can see the two spot welds I couldn't get to from inside the tail light area.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:23 am
To get to the last two spot welds, I cut away a portion of the post, then used a seam buster to take care of them.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:25 am
A little clean up with a 2" air grinder and some hammer and dolly work and it's ready to be installed.

I'll be tackling the truck soon. I don't really want to drive around town without the right side of my truck bed, but you know I'll get right in the middle of it and realize I forgot to buy something. I do need to pick up some weld through primer, another spool of wire, and a bottle of gas. I think I have everything else I need to weld this to the truck. I'll post pictures of that, too.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:27 am
No sense sitting around wasting a beautiful Saturday, so I took an electric sheet metal shears and air chisel to my truck.

All I can say is YIKES!!! I'M DOING IT!!!

Now I've got plenty of sheet metal to practice my plug welds on.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
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