Replacing the rear quarters.

       Back in February of '98, I had just gotten my truck back from the shop for some major electrical repairs. I had purchased
a temporary vehicle during this incident, and a customer at work, who we will call Bill, told me that this would be the ideal time
to get rid of the rust that my truck had. Of course I agreed. Bill is a qualified body man, and has restored lots of classic muscle
cars, so I was confident in his abilities. He told me to get all the panels, and in a month or so he would go to work on it, and the
truck should be all finished in a 2-3 months.

    A word of caution. If you are planning on taking on this type of task, think twice, as it is a big job.You might want to have a
qualified body man do most of the work for you, as I did.

    On March 12, I went out and purchased the inner fenders from Ford., On April 21, I got the right from fender from Pro
Body, an after market body supply company. On May 1, I got the rear outer patch panels from Pro Body, and a couple days
later, my truck was in the shop being cut up.

    It took Bill about 3 full days to complete stage 1, which was replacing the rear quarters, and filling the wholes where the
spare tire carrier used to be. I stopped in a few times on my lunch breaks to see how it is done. Body work is an art! Using a
chop saw, Bill cut out a big chunk of the rear fenders, then cut the patch panel to match what he had cut out, with a bit of an
overlap, then welded in the panels, filled up the low spots, then sanded until smooth. He also used some of the extra metal from
the patch panels to fix the rust holes just to the rear of both doors, and also between the wheel well and the rear bumper. Bill
had also noticed that the right side door was really rough, and the hood line was wavy. We concluded that the Bronco had
probably been rolled before.

    When I picked up the truck, I was amazed at how much better she looked, even though it was half primer. So I paid Bill for
his work, and drove her to my parents house, to use their carport. Stage 2 was now to begin; replacing the front fenders, right
door, and the hood. I was going to try and repair one of the fenders, and replace just the right side, but after grinding off the
paint, there was a bit more rust than first anticipated. So I decided to replace both of the fenders. So on June 17, I went and
bought a left fender from Ford (the Pro Body fender was stamped wrong and would not line up), and went to Cee Gee's ( a
local Ford Auto Wrecker) and got a hood and a door.

    While having the fenders off, I also decided to take the doors off, and re-bush all the hinges, and replace the upper hinge on
the drivers door, as the spring that holds the door open had broken off, and I always found that really annoying. So I put the
front fenders, hood, and right door on, both doors re-bushed, hinged etc. The Bronco was looking pretty funky with all the
colors on her. I now had to wait for Bill to finish his other jobs, as he is very busy.

    I waited about 2 months, and managed to drag Bill over to the truck on a Sunday. I just needed his expertise on lining up the
doors, hood and fenders. I had spent hours trying to do this, and Bill had it done in about and hour.

    A couple of months later, I buggered up my knee roller blading (lack of knee pads) and was off of work for two months,
which also meant no working on the truck. When my knee finally healed, I had a dilemma. My parent's wanted THEIR carport
back for the winter, and I had nowhere else to store the Bronco. When I talked to Bill about my problem, and asked him if
there was a way to speed things up a little, he said that he never told me that he was going to finish the whole truck, just do the
rear quarters. After picking my jaw up off the floor, I started to get a little testy on the phone, but thought that maybe I had
misinterpreted our previous conversations. I talked to all of my co-workers (who all know Bill), and they were all under the
same impression, that Bill was going to help me do the whole truck, include painting her.

    I was now in a real bind. I phoned all of my contacts, but getting cheap body work done is hard to find. I had a couple of
quotes from some body shops, $2000 and $2800 including paint. These prices were way to steep for my wallet. Remember,
this was a 3 month project that should have only cost about $1200.

    So I now longer talk to Bill, and he very rarely comes into my store (once when I was not working, hmmm, how
convenient). My friend and his wife just bought a house in Pitt Meadows, and I sweet talked them into letting me use one side
of their double garage (actually, he offered it to me fist, thanks Don & Taryn, I owe you both big time).

    It is now March 14/99, and just last month I found a guy named Ken, that is an instructor at Vancouver Community College,
in the body shop division. He will be free at the end of the March, and will finish the prep work on the truck. I have a painter
lined up once the prep work is done, so hopefully my Bronco will be back on the road for the summer of '99

   This is how the truck looked as of this point.....
 

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After the rear 1/4's were welded on, and primed                                        After the right side was welded on.
 
 
 
 
 

The final prep work.

    Well, things went pretty smooth for this portion of the project. I arranged to drop of my truck with Ken near the end of April, so I went out and got all the supplies that he would need. I dropped the truck off on a Wednesday, and it took Ken only a week and a couple of days to do all the prep work, and paint the truck. He welded up the rain gutters (which always crack), filled in some of the minor dents, filled in some the trim holes that won't be used, cleaned up the door jams, and painted everything.
    He called me on Friday night to tell me that he had sprayed the paint the night before, and it was already to go home. I had plans already, so I told him that I would pick it up on Sunday.....but I had to go and look at it. Oh man, she was beautiful! I couldn't wait to get me truck back.
    I had arranged to take a couple of days off of work so I could get her back on the road as soon as possible. I started reassembly on Sunday, and had most of the major components back together by Wednesday; had to go for a cruise of course. It took about another week of hard work to get everything back together.
    It is now July, and my truck has been back on the road for almost a month.....better than ever! Was it worth it? All the money? All the frustration? All the time? At first I really doubted it. But when I look at the results, and when I get all the "Wow" comments....you bet it was worth it!
 

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After the first day of re-assembly.                                                             Finally.....all done!