It was quite a while back, but it seems to me the replacement of that area was due to cracking around the original holes, along with stripping and corrosion. I can't recall if the fumes from the battery boxes contributed to the situation.
It was not a rare situation to have the batteries boil over when the alternator bumped up to 36 volts due to loose battery terminals. It was one of those recoveries where you knew what had happened when you were still 15 feet away from the vehicle.
I know before the re-life came out, we were welding strips of 3/8 flatstock across the body in that location and tapping the holes. So it may have been due to the weld-nuts coming loose and spinning in their holes.
Again, I could be wrong, a lot of years have passed and my selective memory has tried to delete the Iltis file as a bad nightmare.
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