The passenger side panel is a weird mess. That very solid floor was coupled to a four inch steel plate that doubles up the outer skin. You can see the carriage bolts that are marrying it to the skin.
First, I chiseled off the nuts to pop the bolt heads off. All but one were manageable. The one in the lower right had a captured nut and a huge glob of weld material on it. The air chisel had no access.
Where the two seams meet had a glimmer of rust. After whacking it with the pointed end of the body hammer, I started identifying where the good metal was.
It took a while. Then I sanded the holes from the bolt holes and the perimeter of the rusted seam.
To make panel repair manageable, I used the cutoff wheel to straighten the edges.
Here's a peek underneath. It's a mess.
The wire cup attachment made clean work of it. Here you can see the back of the four inch side wall that was bolted in for reinforcement.
Ready for the patch panels.
To match the original body seam, I started with a patch panel cut from the CJ-2A tub.
I overlapped a second patch panel to recreate the body line and seam. It looks good enough for me.
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