MF! VX Kaput

[Marlin]

Went ahead and cut the plate in my truck. Cut it too small, had to take another piece out. I welded those back together. I ahve about an 1/8" of herculiner back there, so it was hot enough to be melted under the outer shell, just pushed it back into the weld groove with a chisel Never know it wasn't one piece from above. Billy is picking up some steel so we can make the brackets to hold the final plate in. I will seal it with RT and then touch up herculiner over it. I may pull all the what were once phillips head screws. They are rusted pretty much flat. Rather do it now than on the trail
Not a terribly hard project and will save LOTS of time if I need to swap the fuel pump one day.

[Marlin]

Came out great! Never even know it was there except the 8 extra bolts heads, but I sunk them into the bedliner so they are pretty flush. This little project will turn a 10 hr beast of a day to get the cladding and tank do down and back up into a 1-2 hour pump swap. I am going to address the rusted out screws later. None of them even have a pattern left on top to put a screwdriver in. I am going to cut them off, rotate the entire assembly a 1/4 turn or so, drill new holes (4 or 5 instead of 8, I think 8 is way overkill) JBweld bolts from the inside of the tank. This will allow me to use nuts vice screws and not worry about corrosion as much. Save a ton of time in the future.