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spare tire well recreation. . advice?


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Spare tire well. Had no rubber plug and a magazine made its way under the spare so it was rusty. Basically goint to weld together a new well/ inner our dog leg first. Any advice?. First I was going to just do the bottom part but the seam was r7sty to so its all gone. Thought about putting the battery in there but im probably to lazy and cheap to run all that copper. Will try for pics on phone well see

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  • 6 months later...

Ok, Im Looking to see if someone makes a reproduction of the zx spare tire well ? I just sent an email to Charlie from "Zeddfindings" in Canada. any help would be appreciated.  If not, I was thinking of finding someone with a zx will a good well and making a fiberglass mold out of it, and using that.  Rob

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There's nothing major to making a new one. Use 18G mild sheet steel, NOT galvanized. Finish stripping out all the rust and make your cut square. Break it up into sections of flats or curves, avoid making compound curves here. It's minor structural, not load-bearing, and not cosmetic.

 

Fix the inner vertical part first, cut out a square/rectangle bigger than the rust and work very carefully around the outer skin seam...even if the outer is rusty DON'T damage it yet. Weld it in, full seams, but "dot" it in first...It's thin sheet and you're working vertical. Start at the two top corners and make sure it stays aligned the way you want it. Dot in the bottom two corners, then the middles, working it down and letting it cool completely after you have it tacked up. Be ready to get a body dolly behind it and peen out the welds to fix the shrink, get it flat!

 

Once you've fixed the inner skin, you can make a simple cylindrical shape out of the 18G steel, following the old curve, or you can choose to weld in a flat section, or a battery tray, or anything like that. But fix that inner skin first, then repair the outer skin, THEN you can work inside the rear deck. Work sections a little at a time, use a hammer and dolly to stretch your welds out to keep from pulling the body out of whack, and you'll get it done the way you want.

 

I find metal MUCH easier to work than fibreglass or plastic.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I Ended up making a replica out of fiberglass from a buddies zx. He left it at my home for a couple of hours and used mold release wax and put multi layers of thick matt and resin, and within half hour I had me my new exact spare tire well to drop in my zx. installed it after trimming ,with body shop two part seam sealer. Looks like nothing was ever done.  Happy camper here. Would recommend, and will never ever  Rust. :icon10:

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