Just how many dead animals will be found under the skin of the ol’ 1971 Chevy Suburban? If you recall a few weeks ago, I posted some photos of a mummified mouse that had kicked the bucket… in my bucket (rust bucket, that is). Well this week, I encountered more death. After cutting out the tail light section of the Burb, here’s what was revealed…
If you look closely, you’ll see a skull, spine, pelvis, and all of the other bones of a tiny mammal. I assume this is a mouse too, but it’s tiny. No objects for scale in that photo, but the skull was probably no more than 8 or 9mm in length. So that’s two dead animals hiding in there so far, and that’s just the right quarter panel. We’ll see what the left side is hiding in a week or two.
Anywho, it’s another busy weekend, but I did manage to get maybe 4 or 5 hours of solid work in on the Burb. After getting the wheel arch all ready to weld in, this weekend I moved on to the right tail light section. I had ordered a right Tail Light Repair Panel from LMC Truck (38-7801), and it looked pretty good. After removing the door and cutting out the old tail light section, I did a little test-fit.
The patch panel fit… but there was a big problem… The outer arch was too wide and I could easily fit my fingers between the existing quarter and the new tail light panel.
The top seemed to fit nicely, but the gap grew as you moved lower on the panel. I guess this is why people like to use genuine GM parts, and not reproductions or cheap Chinese knock offs. I guess I don’t mind it all that much though, as long as I’m in the ballpark. This little problem just called for some creative cutting, bending, and welding.
After cutting a very long pie wedge out of the rear of the tail light panel, I bent the outer edge in to match the body contours properly. Then I cut some relief cuts around the lower portion (some compound curves to deal with down there), and tack-welded it into position. After a little hammer and dolly work to get the contours all right, I welded the seam all up. Below you can see a before and after photo…
Here’s the finished piece, with the wedge I removed, just for reference…
And that’s about it for this weekend. I’m really close to having the right side done, but it’ll probably be a few weeks before I have much more significant progress to report. I’ll try to sneak in a few hours here or there, but work’s really busy right now, and I’ve got a couple of pugilistic endeavors that require some attention in the coming weeks.
But for now… that’s all folks.
Any updated progress?