Just wanted some tips on taking care of the pinch weld.What do you use to cut the plastic away and do you have oto remove the inner fender trim>

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2003 liberty sport v-6 5spd
light khaki
frankenlift
als arm's
rusty'sdiff cover
rusty's lower rear arms
rusty's skids and custom shackle's
rusty's rock rails
rusty's air tube
magnaflow exhaust
trueflow cone filter
throttle body spacer
oem renegade fog light's
bf goodrich 245/75/16 all terain ko
16X8 cragar black d's

Use aa dremel to cut the plastic. You have a choice to cut the flap off or use it the way I did. We'll get back to that.

Take a heavy hammer and just pound the pinch weld flat. Spray with primer.

Now back to the flap. Use a heat gun to soften the plastic and flatten it out. Cut the plastic flap so it is the size of the cut out (after flattening). Use some plastic strips (cutoff from the flap) and heatgun the strips to the flap and inner liner. Sorta like welding it in place. The strips melt and you slowly slide the strip down the flap and seals it in place.

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New KJ Gear - Desert Armor Flak

2004 Renegade Light Khaki - 4" JBA Lift - Rock Lizard Products: Komodo Dragon Rear Bumper, Prototype Winch-mount Front Bumper, Super Skink Sliders - All J's Super Tranny Skid II - 31" Firestone Destination AT's on Moab wheels - Cobra 75W CB w/ stock Antenna mod

[b]Retired, US Military

My question has always been.. Why did Jeep leave that pinch weld there.. It is like bad engineering or something... It doesn't make sense...

Ben

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06 KJ with stuff..
07 JKU Rubi with even more stuff
95 YJ - Waiting on some surgery..

Its to clean the mud off the tires

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06 KJ with stuff..
07 JKU Rubi with even more stuff
95 YJ - Waiting on some surgery..

I'm sure the 'real' Jeep engineers battled with DC early on in design of the KJ.

The pinch weld was a compromise for cost, or ease of assembly, or something along those lines.

Seems to me that just a tweak or two in the design of the front end would have allowed for easier aftermarket products/modifications/lifts, etc. while still keeping the on-road performance within their spec's.

However, the DC 'suits' probably never envisioned many Libertys actually getting dirty.

Cest la vie. I still like mine. It's still dirty, too.

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95 YJ 2.5" RE lift and 32's, Posi-Lock, 4.10's with a Tru-Trac up front, M8000 winch, CB, gear and what have you...
RIP: 02 KJ LE

What and where exactly is the pinch weld?

[b]It's where they spot-welded the body together in back of the front wheels. I cut the wheel liner away with a utility knife (be careful) then pounded the pinch weld in toward the center until just about flat with a 5 lb ball pein hammer. Then I sprayed it with a couple coats of rubberized undercoating. Some guys are using bed-liner also. I had to take the tires off and put the vehicle on Jack Stands in order to swing the hammer hard enough. That pinch weld is pretty tough. Joe

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Joe
L.O.S.T. #000391
2000 Jeep Wrangler Sport with hooks, skids, trac-lok rear.

Here is what my fab/mod looks like. Protects the pinch weld and your tires from scraping the weld and it looks better than having no plastic.





You can see that my MTR's still scrape that area but those are from off-roading, not from daily driving.

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New KJ Gear - Desert Armor Flak

2004 Renegade Light Khaki - 4" JBA Lift - Rock Lizard Products: Komodo Dragon Rear Bumper, Prototype Winch-mount Front Bumper, Super Skink Sliders - All J's Super Tranny Skid II - 31" Firestone Destination AT's on Moab wheels - Cobra 75W CB w/ stock Antenna mod

[b]Retired, US Military