First of all I am not saying you are and idiot...In this case the idiot I am refering to is me. (or so I have been called)

A few people have asked me how I went about shaving my drip rails and cab seams after i posted pics of the drivers side in progress. Well lucky for you I am a nice guy willing to help and I still had the passengers side to do. I haven't mudded it yet but you can see the metal work anyway.

I first used a wire brush wheel on my drill to remove the paint and marked the spot welds with a paint pen


I then drilled out the spot welds. This detatches the vertical peice from the cab



I cut the detatched part off with a cutting wheel on a grinder


You never know were rust is hiding


Again I used the grinder with a cutting wheel to cut the rest of the rail off and smoothe everything up with a grinding wheel


For the cab seam the first thing I did was to clean the seam out with a wire brush on my drill





Then I welded the seam...Remember you are trying to fill only. if you get too carried away you will blow A hole in the cab... Especially if you have a rust issue.I would weld a little bit and grind weld a little and grind til it is nice and pretty.







This is the other side that I already mudded



I hope this helps .....

 

Nice work, for what your building the loss of the drip rails is a big improvement.

 

That'd be good to remove them and fix rust then tack new ones back on.

 

Great thread! I hate the darn drip rails on my truck!

 

Awesome, I'll be doing this soon on my truck. That and the other rust. Also could you post up on your method of trimming the wheel wells. I love the look of it and not sure how I want to do it and where exactly to cut. That and where to mount the battery.

 

Hmmmm - easier than people have made it sound. I am tempted to cut them off the crew when I get to looking at te rust spots in that area. Nice work.

 

here's a pic of my front wheel wells. I used trailer fenders they are cheap and readily available







I put my battery all the way in the back. I run a K bottle of compressed nitrogen for my bags so thats what sets on top. You can see the regulator in the pic....Along with the rust soming through the primer lol ...Thats why I have her tore back apart for paint.

 

I just started taking mine off. Spot welds can be a little hard to find. Now after I get done I have to re do the door gaps, they are huge, that and the door sits back from flush about 3/8 of an inch at least.

 

Nice beer holder.

 

Any tips on redoing the door gaps. Also and how to remove the rear windshield.

 

Nice work on the driprail. Have you ever done anything with the cawl wher overhangs the fenders. This is the one spot on these trucks I have not figured out how to clean up, and make all three panles line up nice.The cawl door and fender.

 

I haven't decided how I am going to tackle the door gap issue...My thought was to make a timplate of the shape of the top of the door, transfer that template onto a piece of 16 gauge sheetmetal. Cut it out however wide I need it to be and weld it to the inside of the top of the door. That would add the 1/4 inch or whatever I need to the top of the door to close the gap and I could just use body filler on the outside to make it look good. I DON'T KNOW IF THIS WILL WORK OR LOOK GOOD it was just a thought. As far as your door being racked out of flush thats as simple as adjusting your hinges on the door side.

 

Yeah I know exactly what you are talking about but i guess I am lucky because mine seem to line up pretty good. I will look at it a little closer now that you brought it up though.

 

There was a write-up about this maybe 3-4 years and it looked far harder to accomplish than what you made it out to be.

Good to know it doesn't require a rocket science degree to achieve the look!

Josh

 

hey man It's only sheetmetal...brain surgery it is not!

Rocket scientist..NO..but I did stay at a holday inn express last night!