OP
Whenever you get to the point of damaging the rear tub corners or you know you are going to, get corners right away. I didn't do that.
All the spot welds on the rear body mount torque boxes broke and the rear gate would not close without a lot of pulling and shoving. Both sides were like this. This meant that the only thing holding the rear body corners in place was the factory cage and some seam sealer.
Welding isn't a good option. The body sheet metal is galvanized and getting the layers to close up again is not at all easy. Following Blaine's suggestion, I used 1/4" stainless pop rivets with a 3/16" grip. Once the broken spot welds are lined up and the body clamped to the torque box, the rivets will pull the layers together. Stainless rivets will pull more tightly than steel or aluminum. Start in a corner and drill and rivet one broken spot weld at a time until you get to the opposite side.
It's ugly, but this is the end result. Be dazzled!
Corners will happen soon and will cover this mess. The rivet heads shouldn't interfere and I'll remove the ones that do.
The reason corners matter here is because they use nutserts through the torque boxes to attach everything together. In my case, the plan is to add an additional tramp stamp plate under the gate that extends out to the corners. I'll add several more nutserts across the face to structurally tie the entire rear body together.
All the spot welds on the rear body mount torque boxes broke and the rear gate would not close without a lot of pulling and shoving. Both sides were like this. This meant that the only thing holding the rear body corners in place was the factory cage and some seam sealer.
Welding isn't a good option. The body sheet metal is galvanized and getting the layers to close up again is not at all easy. Following Blaine's suggestion, I used 1/4" stainless pop rivets with a 3/16" grip. Once the broken spot welds are lined up and the body clamped to the torque box, the rivets will pull the layers together. Stainless rivets will pull more tightly than steel or aluminum. Start in a corner and drill and rivet one broken spot weld at a time until you get to the opposite side.
It's ugly, but this is the end result. Be dazzled!
Corners will happen soon and will cover this mess. The rivet heads shouldn't interfere and I'll remove the ones that do.
The reason corners matter here is because they use nutserts through the torque boxes to attach everything together. In my case, the plan is to add an additional tramp stamp plate under the gate that extends out to the corners. I'll add several more nutserts across the face to structurally tie the entire rear body together.
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