I spent part of last Saturday “deleting” the rear door posts on each side, to keep the line consistent. I’ve also tackled part of the missing sheet metal at the tailgate. I’ve used pre-formed sheet metal straight from my donor car’s rear quarter panel, for a pretty effortless perfect match.

I started tackling improvising a functional tailgate, with salvaged hinges, on Sunday. Unfortunately, my trusted grinder died “of old age” in the process, threatening toput quite a damper on things.

Nevertheless, I found other things to work on to finish my weekend work on the project:

• adapted the internal door trims
• removed the seat from my old daily-driver XJ (aka my donor car), then test-installed it
• test fit the trimmed doors (about 3″ cut from bottom to accommodate the rock sliders)
• repurposed the original tailgate rubber seal
• applied a generous amount of Rust Killer on some exposed parts. Most of it will eventually be sanded off when I get closer to the finish work, but it’ll keep things clean in the meantime. Had already done the same to the undercarriage and wheel wells.

Thanks to Amazon, I was able to get a good replacement grinder, for a good price ($160 $59), by yesterday, so next weekend should be fun. Will be installing some Frog Fab unibody rail stiffeners soon, so I can move on to the boatsides, as well as some new extended break front lines.