I posted this in the OBS 7.3 forum as well, but I know you guys have a lot of good experience with this type of thing as well.

So I am hopefully nearing the point where I start piecing together the new body fro my truck. I have all the major panels I need, (except a good pair of rear crew cab doors) but I need to order a couple bed side patches for the bed I am going to use. I know I can get them from LMC, but I am curious to hear from someone on here what kind of luck they have had with replacement panels from LMC and whether there may be a better place to source these parts. Price is a concern, as I am on a shoestring budget for this "Working restoration" but I am more concerned that the parts I spend my hard earned dollars on are good quality parts.

Enlighten me folks! What do you know? What has your experience been?

 

DO NOT GET PATCH PANELS!!!!.

Get a WHOLE bed skin. It is a far superior repair, it will last longer, take lest time and you can practically guarantee it will never rust out again if bonded on.

Unlike a patch panel

 

Any recommendations on a good place to get a whole panel? The freight is pretty steep for the whole panel, but I see that LMC has those as well. I'm more or less concerned about whether LMC is a good place to get these kinds of parts or whether I would be better off to deal with another vendor.

Edit: Never mind. By the time I bought the panels and paid the freight, I could buy a whole replacement bed. In fact I know where I could get one right now in good shape for $500 but it is a short bed and I need a long bed.

 

Talk to your local body shop. They get delivers a couple times a week. See if they will sell you sides

 

That's not a bad idea. And I suppose that the parts they get would be as f=good or better than the ones I can order from LMC or the like. Thanks for the input Brad. Reps sent.

 

I dont care about no stinking reps. I wish I was in the RED

 

Were we talking about "Rep points" or tact points? LOL Now that's a whole different ball game (by your own admission). I don't talk to you because I want a rosy, candy coated answer. I talk to you because you know your stuff and you've done this before. Think of the rep points as lending a certain level of credibility to your somewhat "candid" method of giving advice, at least to a newbie who hasn't seen your work before.

Still it is a good idea. I didn't think about it much either, but I may have an "in" with a local body shop too. Might have to look into that one a little. Do you recommend bonding them in rather than welding them or do you recommend a combination of both? I assume with a complete side you would have to use both, but for panels if that's the way I end up going, what method to you have the best luck with?

Turning wrenches doesn't intimidate me at all, but for some reason body work always has. It's probably just because I don't have much experience in it, or the specialty tools to do a lot of it. I think it's time the gloves come off and I get some paint on my hands.

 

I'm not sure which panel you're looking to replace, but if you're looking for the budget approach, you could try cruising through your local U-Pull-It junkyard with your cordless sawzall. While you'll probably find most are more rusted than yours, you may find one or two clean bodies that were transplants from the south.

I recently cut out an entire rocker panel from a largely rust-free cab, end-to-end and inwards past the floor seam. Not easy to cut out, but $20 later I had what I need. The retail patch panels were stopping short too soon for what I need to replace.

 

deisel brad is right as far as replacing the bed side...to remove it find the spot welds and drill them out...they will look like a small indent along bed rail and tailight area etc...once you drill them out use a hammer ,chisel or air chisel and slowly pry your old bedside off...to install new bed side you have to weld and use a bonding agent....but before you install the bed side i highly recommend removing the p.e.t. coating that comes on the part ...it is not a primer or rust preventative at all! it will rust and if you paint over it it will cause paint failure...if you can, sandblast it and have it powder coated.
it `s not a very hard job but it will take time.
Also check any truck building company...ones that put utility beds on trucks...they may have beds lying around...had to replace my bed on my truck and picked one up from one of those companies for 350.00..

 

They say you shouldn't bond the whole side. That you should at least spot weld the front and around the taillight. Then bond the wheel well and top lip of the side.

I personally have not bonded a whole side(yet) but the next one I do, that is how it is going to be done

 

What do you know about treating or painting the inside of the panels to prevent rust? I was thinking about using a good epoxy paint or something to put a solid coat inside the panels before installing them. I was also thinking of removing the steel splash guard inside the wheel well and just replacing it with a couple of lateral braces to hold everything in place. That way I figure it won't hold the dirt and road grime up in the lip of the wheel well that causes all this rust to start in the first place. I know it will spray it up in there anyway, but with the splash guard out of there at least you can wash it out.

 

I like this stuff... Mastercoat Rust Sealer

Although it's not specifically supported, apparently it can be used as a weld-through primer if not applied too heavily.

 

That looks similar to the POR15 I have been using. Anybody else have experience with this versus POR15?

 

por15 has to be topcoated in order for it to work....use an expoxy primer for bare metal then topcoat it with a single stage paint for longevity.

 

Yes, I have and that's why I recommended Mastercoat over POR. Mastercoat acts much more like a primer/sealer should, giving you a "toothy" surface for your topcoat to adhere to.

From what I've been told, POR15 actually started out as a gymnasium floor paint that was somewhat accidentally discovered to work as a rust sealer. That doesn't have to make it bad, and I realize it's now available in different formulations than when I used it, but I'll stick with what has worked for me.