As you can see, once we removed the taillight section we discovered more cancer rust that was just covered up. This area is structural and left unchecked would have caused the right barn door to sag, and to repair it would have been even more extensive. The 3rd picture shows how much of the original metal had to be removed in order to get to steel that was thick enough to be structurally sound. It also shows the work area after we sand blasted and prepped it to be repaired.

This next group of pictures show the repairs to the lower pillar as we made them. You can see we also spot welded the deeper rust pits. The 3rd picture in this group shows a proper repair. One that won’t come back to bite us in a few years. All left over rust was properly treated with Rust Mort, then the area was painted with a good zinc primer and finally a good sealer.

Once we let that set up for a while, we moved on to cutting and fitting the rear Suburban Taillight Section, and Suburban Rear Lower Quarters. We here at Classic Heartbeat had these parts developed for you Suburban and Panel owners, because we know that they are problem areas and were not being reproduced. If you need them for your project you will find them in our “New Products” page of our online catalog. We are happy to announce that the parts do fit great! There was only one issue that we found, and that was on the taillight section. The area that covers the jamb where the hinge pocket is, was made to narrow by about 3/16″. It is a fairly easy fix during the install, but we have since notified our manufacturer and the problem will be solved. Here is the progression of welding the panels in. It is just like welding any other panel, we use spot welds and do not allow the metal to get hot.

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