With the body panel secured in place slightly with a few tack welds, I had to verify the fitment of a couple of brackets that go on the inside where the taillight panels are connected to the panel. This bracket also holds a mounting point for the two rear interior panels that cover the corners of the rear of the body. After a little manipulating of the taillight panel sections of the body, I managed to get the brackets to bolt in place where they needed to be. From here I focused on getting the taillight panels situated where things would be lined up as best as possible. Everything needs to be working together so the taillights, bumper pieces and hatch all fit together as best as possible. With the taillight panels in place where I wanted, I applied some weld to those joints to get to the point where I could actually do a temporary assembly of all the bumper parts to see how things line up. I wanted to do this before I do the final welding so I can at least be sure things line up all around since the last thing I would've wanted to do is cut through fresh welds just to realign the panels. At this point I put the taillights in place then put the inner bumper bar in place. I only used two nuts to hold the bumper bar in order to keep it from shifting around. I applied the foam pad then the bumper skin and from there closed the hatch. Everything looked pretty good so far, even though I should've fully bolted down the taillights to ensure the units fit flush against the body as later I'd find there was a minor mis-fitment once everything was secured. With everything looking good I pulled the bumpers and taillights apart and started welding everything together, having to apply some extra metal in spots where the seams had more gaps than I could work with in the welding. With the panel fully welded in place, I decided that it would only be right to paint the metal since there are a lot of bare metal joints in the form of weld beads and the ground down surfaces that were prepped before the welding. I spray painted the panel and the surrounding areas inside and out so we can at least preserve these metal surfaces from rust that would compromise the rear of the body in the long run. With the body panel all painted, the next move was to assemble everything. When I fully secured the taillights, I did find that they sat in a way where there was a minor gap at the top front of the taillights, due in part to the taillight panel not being perfectly lined up where everything would sit evenly all around. Its not for the lack of trying that this alignment couldn't be achieved, the pulling and hammering wasn't really enough to get the parts of the body to sit how they needed to sit to ensure this alignment. The impact distorted all the metal around the rear to where it is difficult to achieve this perfect arrangement of parts as they would need to be to be 100%. Anyway, I just started masking off the rear to spray some paint over the gray surfaces of the hatch and the bumper skin. I masked off the taillights, window and the other body surfaces in order just paint only the surfaces that need painting, for right now anyway. Once the paint was dried, I opened the hatch and sprayed paint around the inner edges that would be exposed after putting the interior panels in place. This would at least make things look less tacky. It would not look right with black surfaces on the outside and gray surfaces on the inside. I also took the time to install the switch panel from the old hatch as well as the third brake light and license plate lights, which I removed prior to spraying the hatch, as it would've been less to mask off. With the rear done, all that's left is to install the spoiler from the old hatch, along with the backup camera that I installed a long time ago, then put all the interior panels back in place and clean everything up to complete the project. I might look at the taillights again later, removing them to see for shits and giggles if there is any possible way of straightening them out to close in those previously mentioned minor gaps. I won't be trying to hammer anything since I painted all the surfaces and I don't really want to compromise any of the metal any more than it already is by even trying to hammer anything - the same reason I really didn't go too much further in the beginning. These stamped steel components were already compromised and trying to do too much to straighten them out could've pushed me into the opposite direction where things would've been unable to line up because the metal was distorted to the outside instead of the inside from the original impact.
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