Matth

Here's the repair. And the new panel.

thegoat

Yours looks just like mine did. Like George of the Jungle... Watch out for that... tree.

nhammond

I would look into relocating your license plate to your spare tire to keep that from breaking again, I broke mine twice then finally pulled the trigger and relocated it.

olyelr

My gosh how the hell can a tree push hard enough on a tail light that it caves the metal panel in, yet it dosnt even break the lens? Thats freaking nuts.

MotoJeeper

Same thing happened to me, except my taillight broke and it was just a dent and a lot of paint missing. I just beat the sheet metal into submission enough to get the rivnuts in, painted and put Metalcloak's corners on it.

miraclemax

Went to a body shop today. They quoted me $1,200 to replace the panel and paint it. The new panel is $89.00, so the rest is labor..... $1,100 in labor....

GTFO.

I'm gonna prob end up sanding the flaked area myself and coat it with a rust blocking paint and be done with it. I'm also gonna relocate the plate myself as well. I don't mind the dent, and if it was just a dent I wouldent have even srarted the thread, I would have just left it. But since the paint split and flaked, I have to do something.

It will just be a cool trail scar now. I'll prob put one of those hilarious bandiad stickers over it after I seal it.

MotoJeeper

That's ridiculous. For that price they quoted I would say just find a stud gun to rent/borrow and a slide hammer and just pull it out your self. I speak from experience when I say body shops try to rob you even when they don't know what the hell they're doing.

Matth

If jeep made the darn bumpers as strong as the tail lights that wouldn't happen.
I fixed that problem too.

thegoat

The soft plastic stock bumper didn't take an impact of a tree so well.

miraclemax

Well, here is the temp fix for now till i plan my next move.

I masked the area, sanded it even, cleaned & degreased, applied two coats of por-15 (it's a chassis paint that blocks rust and is strong like all hell)

The seem had some very tiny cracks running along it, so I used my color match touch up paint on those. Did like 5-6 coats to really fill them in.

I wanted to get all the bare metal sealed. It is what it is for now. Don't know what direction I will go yet.