Body Body door striker area.

[justinnesius]

What is the best ways to repair this area? How have others went about repairing this area when it has been turned into Swiss cheese. Pics below. Thanks for the help.

 

[TSB8C]

I've never had that issue, but from a usual body repair viewpoint I would weld in a new piece of sheet metal to replace the missing portion and also weld in a reinforcing "backer" behind it as well.

 

[KRUPP]

Dang! Looks like termites got to that striker!

If you don’t have a welder (as TSB8C suggested as the best fix), you can pop rivet said backer strip of sheet metal. Obviously space the rivets wider than the position of the 2 machine screws for the actual striker piece.

 

[FEDUKE]

I would cut it out and weld in some fresh steel. Or weld in a piece of steel behind it.

 

[justinnesius]

I have a welder and am comfortable with patch panels. But this one makes me nervous with being 2 layers of metal, the notch for the striker, and the bend right on the edge of where I need to weld. I thought my best bet would be to find a donor piece off of another jeep and weld that in rather than fab up a patch. Thanks for the help.

 

[jzak]

If you don't have a torch/welder, I would bring it over to a machine-fab shop. They could easily cut everything out and patch it with new metal. Maybe a hundred bucks for the whole job.

 

[justinnesius]

Thought I would give an update I decided to tackle both striker areas today. I think they turned out pretty well. The driver's side I had a piece from another tub with less holes in it so I cut it out and patched it in. The passenger side I used some scrap copper as a backer and built it up and ground it back down.