Lots of work done today and sadly and early halt to it due to a burp in the aircraft remover can. It got on my arm above the glove and I had to do a dance to get it off. Another reason to hate autozone.
Anyway on to progress. I started really early this morning doing something I never thought I would do manually......bend tube. Naturally you can't exactly bend this stuff on my bench. So here's how to bend .120 wall tube.
The strap is attached to one of my d rings (very strong btw). At one point I was moving the 4runner. Then I set it in gear. I was able to make 3 successful bend pieces. I tried first with no sand. Bad idea. Definitely fill with sand and tap it before you bend it. The potato bar goes down the end of the tube to give me a bigger handle. The pylon gives me the perfect radius bends of the 4runner.
Those two are identical. The other is sharper but all three didn't kink which is great.
I went back and sheathed all the tube behind the welds and took my time welding them up. It looks great and it's straight.
So on to fitting the tire carrier latch. Since everything connects to this I started here. I had to remove the license plate surround which is a total pita but patience will win out.
I had to slice out one of the holes because it interfered with the rear latch handle.
Pics of fitting directly to the rear door.
The reinforcement that will go behind the panel. Sadly it's not very big but the good news is that the metal in the door is curvy all around the attachment points so that should increase the strength of the panel in itself. I will be using the top and bottom holes with a firm rubber bumper and a fender washer on the backside. That will help distribute the load more but it's so tight in there I can't do anything more.
Going to have to cut this as well. I'm hoping for a really tight fit so it looks like it was meant to be there....but I doubt it will lol.
When I was removing the powder coat from the panel reinforcement is when my accident happened. It really sucker but I will finish the rear door tomorrow so I can have a functioning door back for monday.
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