BroncoII4x4.com

Howdy...

OK, a little history... The car's a 1988 Bronco II 4x4 XLT. On the rear, it has the swingarm for the spare tire.

Last winter, someone with a snowplow that I know, hit the swingarm, which was open, with the plow. Of course, it was a mistake, and he fessed up to it the next day. The blow bent the structural member that holds the hinges out to the right about 1/2" - 3/4", but it's a pretty good twist.

The guy, who's sort of sturggling too, took me to his favorite body shop in the area. The guy looked at the damage. I knew that a complete fix would be about $1-1,500 cause there's some rippled sheetmetal on the rear body panel around the hinges. In addition, it pulled the rear door locking pin away from where it should be, and now it's an ordeal to open and close the rear door, which really doesn't close completely. So, imagine the rear tail light, which should be parallel to the rear door, is now skewed of to the right, and at a pretty decent, noticable angle.

He agreed with my friend, who was trying to save money, that they could mix the paint, bend the hinges back a bit, and touch up the paint scratches and cracked paint by hand.

I asked him... "How are you going to bend things back?" He answered, "It's just sheet metal... it should be no problem."

Now, I KNOW that has to be structural steel in there, and when I heard that, I said "That's not just sheet metal, it's a structural steel member to hold the load." He said , "Oh... yea."

Needless to say, that wasn't the place I was going to leave my truck, so I passed on the work and decided to try to do the repair myself.

I can't find a shecmatic of what that structure looks like under the sheet metal, but I'm trying to come up with ideas on how to bend it back some so that the door closes properly and the gaps beween the taillights and the rear door are the same on the right side as on the left (3/4" vs 1/4").

I thought that if I were to remove the swingarm, put the hinge pins back in, tie a solid towrope to the two hinges, attach the rope to an F150's hitch, and pull sideways towards the center of the car, I could budge them back. Sort of jerry rigged, but I'm struggling to find the right, quickest and best way to bend it back.

The rear isn't sealing correctly, there's a lot of windnoise, and the door is rattling badly as it's not closing completely on the right side.

Any and ALL suggestions on how to possibly do this would really be appreciated. You guys are the best at this. Please help this pissed off and unhappy BII owner!!!

TIA...

have any pic's?

I would try to remove the tail light and throw a long piece of metal in there and try to rotate it back to where it needs to be. use a piece of wood to seperate the bar from the panal and you might be able to get it back with out too much twisting. I will warn you though you can damage the panal where the end of the bar is hitting the panal so you might have to tap it back in and use some bondo to fill the damage you create in the other area. I have a feeling you are going to have to do some paint work so I don't think you are going to hurt it much more.

if you know how to weld you might be better off just to hit the yard and cut another panal out of another truck. heck if you could find a body in better shape that is cheap enough you might be better off to just do a cab swap.

OK, pics:







You can see the ripples. The car's pretty nice and I don't want to hack away at it too much if I can avoid it!

You can also see where the left tip of the plow scratched the back door panel, and the huge gap between the edge of the rear door and the taillight!

That's why I was thinking of using the existing hinges, some attachments to them, and pulling them back with a bigger truck. Think it would work?

I don't want to be getting in there and cuttin too much. FYI, that's ALL original paint and this is the first trauma for the BII!

STOP DON"T DO THAT!!!

There are no real serious problems here yet!! Don't make any!
By the way that is NOT a structural portion of the body per say.

I haven't looked behind the taillight but a good body man should be able to hammer and dolly the pressure portions of the damage and you would be surprised at how little effort it takes to fix this stuff up. Heck with a pull dozer on one side and work out the sheetmetal bumps on the other that could look like new with reasonable effort.

It is your choice if you want to keep it looking like a clean rig or a trail master. Ha-ha

If you choose to go Redneck in the repair go ahead and pull on the hinges, beat on the fender with a sledge. You will never get it back looking like new that way. If you don't know about working dents and shrinking and stretching metal all you will wind up with is something much less as good looking as original.

If ya want it to look pretty,
Go find a reputable body man and have him do all the metal work, and you do the final finish and paint. You mask off a small area and spray some good epoxy sealer over and then wait till you want to do a re paint.

The first body man wasn't far off in his diagnosis. It is a no problem repair.

Good luck and post a pic of your finished repair.

Regards,

I agree, it is not as bad as I thought. you should be able to work that out with a body hammer and hand anvile. a small amount of filler will probably be needed but it is a minor thing.

Thanks guys... I'm less concerned about the body work as I am about the alignment of the door vs the taillight side. The door isn't sealing correctly nor is it locking correctly. The claws that grab the door pins are not grabbing the right side completely, and there's tons of wind noise and the door's rattling.

I've done quite a bit of touch up and panel painting on my restored BMW, but never had any structural problems like this.

When the sheet metal on the out side is straightened, The sheet metal inside will move all by itself back to where it should be. The inside metal has been pulled outward by the outer sheet being pressed inward!

That is why I said if you want a right on job let that sheet metal guy hammer and dolly out the panel and if he is worth his salt there will be little left for you to do before it could be spot painted.

If your not comfortable with a hammer and dolly yourself, don't try to fix it by beating on it as you will only stretch the metal making it harder to fix.

Minor hatch alignment can even up gaps and make the latch work like new..

Honestly I really don't own stock in any body shops.... I just like to see a nice B2 like yours taken care of and not trashed.

Have fun

Thanks Tek...

Actually, that side is twisted. The gap between the door on the right side is at or slightly more than 3/4". On the right side, it's at 1/4" where it should be, and the whole tail light and column, from the upper hinge down, is twisted 15 degrees or so. I'll try to take some other pictures later. I'm going down there now to remove the taillight and see what I can see! More later...

FYI, 88 B2, 124K miles!

OK, I finally got started, a bit... just to see where I stood.

You're all right about it primarily just being sheet metal. I removed the taillight to take a look, then removed the tire and swing arm from it's hinges. The hinges are bolted to supports behind. No biggie. I honestly thought that there was a vertical member in there that twisted but I couldn't have been further off.

Anyway, the top hinge's mounting points are buried in a closed pocket which is probably accessible by removeing the interior panels on that side, whereas the lower mounting bracket inside the sheet metal is completely exposed.

I'm still trying to decide what to do about it, but now that the swingarm is off, I'll take it to a body shop this week and have them take a look see. It looks pretty simple to straighten the bottom hinge and sheet metal (the whole assembly on both sides has roatated a bit so the whole thing needs to twist back. It's as if the entire length between the hinges has just been twisted around a bit.

I'll post more info as things develop. Now that the swingarm is out, it should be easier for someone to look at and someone to fix, if not me!

Well, I went to the original body shop in town that had looked at it. They couldn't do it cause... They OUT OF BUSINESS!

So I went to the expensive shop next door, (there are only 2 shops here now), and the first quote was $1,100.00. Yea, right. So, as I started to walk away laughing, the guy went and got the owner. His quote... "We can do it but we won't guarantee it cause we might trash it. If we were doing the complete job, then we'd guarantee it." So I asked, "How much for your unguaranteed work?" He said "Well, it'll take 4 hours on the frame rig. Total, $330, no body work. We'll just pull it around a bit."

I came home, had my friend come over with his Ford 150, hooked up a nylon line to the hinge, and pulled it around! Did the same with the top hinge, but it'll need another small treatment as it's not COMPLETELY around, but most of the ripples in the body work disappeared (still a few small ones), and the door closes perfectly and tightly now!

So, sorry to disregard all of the great advice, but a) I couldn't wait any longer and b) the 4 hours to set the car up on the frame jig for 2 minutes of pulling was ridiculous!

So, while it isn't perfect, it does close and latch tightly now, the weather stripping is hitting the door correctly, and for the time being, it's good enough and barely noticable! I'll get some pictures up here later if I can.

I bought the Chilton manual and see that it's much more comprehensive than the Haynes, which will come in handy as I do more work on the car this summer. For now, I'm keeping the swingarm off until I'm totally satisfied with this minor bending procedure!

It'll require a bit of paint touch up, but it should be great in the end! THANKS everyone for really GREAT feedback!

Yea, the rattle's GONE!

Oh Man,

you can do this!

low cost and good results!

attach a come along to the hinge were the cairrer rides in it, and a local tree
pull from the same angle that the carrier was hit
it should pull the body back to were it was
a little careful hammering on the body should make the ripples disappier


pull then release tension check then pull again
you will have to pull out a little more than you think and it will spring back

Thanks Hair... I already DID it yesterday! And it's nice and quiet! And yes, with some gentle pushing with my fingers or a tiny bit of tapping with a small rubber mallet, the ripples will be gone. I do agree with you that I still have to eek it along a tiny bit more, but only 1/8 of an inch on the bottom, and about 1/4" at the top. The top hinge is still a tiny bit skewed, but it's pretty darned good and the tail light is pretty much where it should be.

I've even ordered the touchup paint for both colors so I can fix the two little spots where the paint chipped off, the spot where the edge of the plow gouged the rear door (1 inch or so), and all of the other little dings on the car. Should look new in no time!

well its good to see youve nearly fixed it, i was going to say that the interior panels come out really easy, maybe 10-20 screws starting at the door trim. the whole side panel removes and gives you a great look at the insides of the sheet metal.

Thanks!

It's not perfect, and this has been a bizarre summer, so after I bent most of it back, I just didn't have time for anything else. i have all of the paint and touch up paint here, and I think when I'm ready to do that, I'll take the panels off as you suggested, and give the thing a few final taps. It's better now, but certainly not perfect!