We have an '06 Jeep Liberty (KJ) Renegade that we've owned for just about forever - 3.7L V6 - always has and still runs great. Has always been a decent off-road vehicle ta' boot, thanks in part to its short wheel base and four-wheel drive. If Jeep would have ditched the IFS uni-body and put a solid front axle and heavy spring and coil-over suspension on those things, รก la Jeep CJ, that would have been one solid off-road machine. We beefed up the suspension somewhat a few years back while adding a 2.5" lift. Added a set of 29x10.5LT15 Interco Super Swampers. Looked pretty good. Wasn't gonna' go do any rock crawlin' or wadin' of three foot deep creeks, but good enough to get around the local trails we've been forever navigating.
The past several years, however, we've pretty much relegated it to near beater status, thanks to severely corroded lower door panels along the bottom jamb of all four doors. And both side rocker panels matched the door panels. A common issue to just about every '02 thru '07 KJ we've observed still on the road. The good news is that we routinely see two to three still roaming the highways just about every time we're out and about.
Typical corrosion along the lower doors - pretty bad
Was due for state inspection, that in turn requiring some new tires, by the end of this past September. While given it a once-over, decided to crawl around underneath a bit to check out the condition of the "frame" and undercarriage. Other than those door panels and rockers, the framing and underbody was totally fine.
"Ya' know - four replacement doors and two replacement rocker panels, and this thing is once again good to go." All we needed to tell ourself. We immediately checked out the local tire shop and again returned to Interco - this time ordering a set of more pavement friendly but still off-road capable TrXus STS radials - 29x10.5LT15's. As with the Swampers, we had to drop the wheel diameter from factory 16" to custom 15" so the 29x10.5's fit the (2.5" lift) wheel wells. We already had a set of 15" slotted ProComp steel wheels. After we had worn out the Swampers a few years back, in the interim we'd had returned to running regular street tires, albeit a slightly aggressive tread.
After gettin' a new sticker, we searched the local salvage yards for four workable replacement doors. Our luck couldn't have been any better. Called one yard on a Monday morning and was told that they had by chance just received an '06 Liberty that prior Friday. Had yet to inventory it, but the guy on the phone said that other than one broken glass and one door in need of a new window regulator, body-wise all four doors were in good shape. We were settin' in his lot waitin' for 'em to open shop early the next morning. We found a set of replacement, slip-on rocker panels on-line. Ordered from a supplier, Body Shop Price, located in Connecticut. Pretty quick service - had 'em in two days.
We repainted the lighter blue salvage doors. A local auto paint supplier mixed us a batch per the original factory paint code spec. Still, resulted a bit off color. Difficult to accurately match old, slightly sun bleached paint we figured. Like trying to match old brickwork. If we did it again we would have painted the doors after installing and feather-blended the spray into the adjacent body panels so as not so noticeable. Spraying an additional two coats probably wouldn't have hurt, either. No big deal - we're thinkin' about re-painting the entire vehicle come next spring time, anyway.
Each source that we researched stated that all Jeep Liberty models '02 thru '07 were interchangeable component-wise. Conversely, trial and error found that we had to re-wire the two rear salvage doors using the original door wiring harness because of difference in the pigtail connector plugs.
When all possible, we prefer to build things for later ease of disassembly if eventually necessary. We considered welding in the replacement rockers. Bearing in mind that we would be splicing lap joints we decided against that idea as we couldn't figure a weldable sealant product - and the (unsealed) factory lap jointed door skins contributed to the door corrosion to begin with. We went with #8x9/16" self-tapping truss head screws and sealed the joint with a heavy coat of Through The Roof brand sealant. The (flat) truss heads gave us the adequate clearance to avoid raking the bottom door jambs when later opening/closing the doors.
As a side note, we'd never had attempted to weld thin gauge sheet metal. And all the annoying "experts" within ear shot of us when discussing the issue immediately piped up as to the improbability of our success - "You'll burn holes right thru it!". We especially don't like to be told we can't do somethin' by the same people who we know can't do somethin'. We re-visited the salvage yard and picked up some scrap metal (coincidentally, and again by chance, replacement slip on rocker panels for a Jeep XJ) to attempt some test welds of our own. Those panels were identical 22 gauge as our installation. We saw-cut the test rockers length-wise. We then lap-jointed 'em maybe an inch overlap (no pre-drilling), clamped 'em tight, then stitch-welded 'em maybe every three inches of length. We ground those welds then repeated, staggering the process. Our welding procedure was flux-core wire feed set to the lowest amperage and wire speed capable of a small 120V Lincoln welder we own. Each looked great, no burn-through and with pretty decent penetration. To get really anal regarding the issue (as those guys), we'd bet 'em that if you cut a coupon and clamped it in a test jig, resulting failure would be ductile metal.
TrXus STS radials and completed passenger side doors/rockers.
We decided to final gift the vehicle with a new set of custom fog lights - considering the we'd been running around for probably ten years with one busted factory lens. Don't know what's up with the skewed passenger side lamp in the image. Think that we may have accidentally jarred the adjustment washer when fighting the bumper for reinstall. F*k it - as difficult as it was fitting those lights and trimming and replacing the bumper, we ain't goin' back and correcting it.
Still a bit rough overall paint-wise. As mentioned, may give it a new coat of paint come springtime (maybe not). All-in-all, was really just a patch job. To be done correctly, and if we'd have had the preference, the vehicle would have been put in a shop, stripped down, sand blasted/grinded/sanded/welded, then a complete re-painting. Ya' work within' your capabilities, however. As is there's still some corrosion lurking. If we get another two years out of the machine before it "rears its ugly head" (if at all), we'll consider the job well done.
