78 Wagoneer, Building a driver! New Thread.

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Okay, all four doors have the last coat of primer on them and just need to be blocked with 600 right before paint. Over the weekend I hung two pieces of pipe to hang the doors for painting.

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They come right out, but the Wagoneer fits without taking them down.

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I pulled out the tailgate I will probably use on the Wagoneer. I bought one out of California, but it got crushed during shipping. Was not a complete loss, did get some good parts out of it, but really needed the gate. Anyway, I found a good newer gate in new Orleans, but it is from a late model and the latch is in the wrong place. Here is a pic of a newer tailgate with the early latch catch installed. It worked but really looks bad.

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So what I plan on doing is drilling out the holes and welding in a new piece of metal, then re-drilling the holes in the right place. I built a jig years ago to relocate the holes.

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This is it bolted in place.

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I marked the gate with a marker just to show the slight difference in the two. Close ain't good enough.

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Anyway, this gate is in good shape with Just a little rust and a few dents.

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I finished laying out and drilling the holes for the latch on the tailgate. I know it doesn't look like much, But I would rather take an @ss whipping than do that again! New location Marked.

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Drilled

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Holes countersunk.

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Made a metal plug for one of the old holes.

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The first side.

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I'ts not perfect but I think it came out pretty good. If you have a good tailgate, thank your lucky stars, because they are hard to find.