hey Gary ..thank you..thank you..it is good to hear that someone found concreat too!!allthough I don't have any foam in mine,,not enough metal to hold it in...can you put up some pictures??were in heck is bonny lake?

 

Just my $0.02,
With the driprail rusted out the cab would be the perfect candidate for a "chop" learning curve...if you do it well then the cab is ready...if you dont do well then there is no loss but mig wire and time with some skills aquired along the way...?
There's very little you cant fix as long as you have a cutting wheel, grinder and a welder!
have fun (and cold beverages) with it.
Ed

 

Ha Ha! I have all the necessary equipment! It took me years to spring for the Mig, now I just have to learn how to use it well!

Ken, Bonney Lake is in Washington State, near Tacoma. When I moved here it was a tiny little town, now it's grown up and I live between two schools.
I'll try to add a picture of the concrete. I think I'm simply going to cut off the cab corners just above it rather than try to chisel it out. I have confirmed the the lower part is just mass quantities of bondo holding the rust in place.

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/p/a/67_160...1100999-vi.jpg

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/p/a/67_160...1100997-vi.jpg

 

Have you considered F-100 flower pots out of the corners???? :-)

Stay with this as you can do it. The satisfaction from the job done and the skills you will pick up are going to be great.

jim

 

My 1950 Ford F1 also had a lot of cab corrosion - I think that's just what you get after 60 years. I've replaced the firewall, the entire floor, cab supports & both rear cab corners, .... That's after taking out multiple layers of mobile home siding & some sort of wood paneling behind the seats. You might want to relocate the gas tank fairly early in the process - makes it easier to work on the floor & corners.

Ben in Austin

 

Gary nice to hear of another FTE member in BL. I,ve lived here since "79". Maybe we can get togeather sometime over a cold one{beer not the weather today!} and swap some stories and lies.We live over on a 112th off of 214th. See ya around sometime. Mark

 

LOL here I was just a couple weeks ago fuming about my cab corners because they were full of wood, chicken wire and bondo! I think concrete is worse! I bought patch panels (which are on back order) and rocker panels. Then I found a cab in great shape so I may buy it and use the patch panels on the old cab just for the practice. Good luck on your project.

 

Hey, we'll have to do that! I'm over behind the new high school, just a hop, skip and a jump. My immediate goal is to get the 56 moving under it's own power by the end of summer 2011. That way I can be motivated (if you'll pardon the pun) to continue with the build as money and time allow. Your 59 looks pretty solid, hope to see you on the road soon! I'd love to meet up at some point.
Gary

 

All those patch panels are going to cost you a fair amount more than "just a few bucks" and it's likely you will find a lot of the understructure rusted out as well and unavailable as patch panels so you have a MAJOR project ahead of you. You will find that the best of the patch panels out there are not a perfect fit, and some require quite a lot of rework to use. If the cab is that rusted out, the door bottoms are likely to be in a similar condition, and a much more difficult repair.
It all can be repaired (I personally like doing this type work but know what it takes to do properly), but the question becomes one of should it be done. You are looking at probably a year or more of dedicated work fixing that cab. My honest suggestion would be to add up the prices of all the repair panels, then use that money to buy a solid cab from the SW area of the country, they are readily available and not very expensive even with shipping. You will get plenty of practice repairing the fenders and bed. In fact I'd suggest strarting with the fenders to see if you are really cut out for body work before tackling the cab.

 

Interesting that you should make this point AX...I just did a quick tally on the cost of the repair panels I used on a relatively rust-free cab and it added up to $322.50 not including the cost of shipping from Midfifty. This cab was manufactured in LA and lived it's whole life here in San Diego and still needed repair panels in the corners and front mounts. I don't mind the lower cab work so much but once the drip rails/roof gets eaten then it's time to look for another cab.

 

Yes, so many novices think it would be cheaper to start with a basket case/compressed rust example and "fix it up cheap", but soon discover they have spent 100's to 1000's of $ in repair panels, metal, tools, shielding gas, bondo, grinding disks and sandpaper and so much time and still have a wavy/crooked/warped/illfitting cab that they get discouraged and abandon the project. San Diego still has corrosion problems with the salt air and weather. My Panel came from NM and didn't have a spot of rust on it (just a lot of dents that had been bondoed over). A number of members have picked up rust free or nearly so cabs for a few hundred $. They are still out there.

 

The biggest problem that I have seen out here is lower cab corrosion as the result of water leaking through the windows/seals/vents and puddling in the cab corners. Years of dust and dirt clog the drain holes and futher help to hold the water in place while it does its dirty deed on the metal. Ford did not spend a lot of time or effort in primering these cabs at the factory so all the hidden spots are very vulnerable to corrosion.

 

now that we have the front fenders off my f-1, i do want to report that the asphalt patch with roofing cement on the inner cowl that i placed there in the late 1970's is holding up well. i put it there because my truck was a daily driver and it kept my feet from getting wet on the way to work. i can also report that the latex primer i brushed on is just now starting to flake and peel. i also need to state that the truck was garaged from '84 to '06. not recommending, only reporting. dick r

 

I passed on a 56 that was covered with tar in the inner fenders and seams.....lots of work involved so I passed.
Sometimes you find gremlins that appear after a purchase, but you have to expect alot of creativity with a 55 yr old truck.....repairs in the 60s and 70s were whatever you could do to pass inspection or keep the truck on the road......and very few body panels could be bought for cheap.

 

What??? There's no free lunch ??? Dang !!!

I'm mainly familiar with '53-'56 F series and I have seen a lot of them for sale of different levels of condition all the way from rust free to touch and crumble. I'd say it really depends on what you want, what you want to do, your ability and facility and finally if you are willing to go through with it. I personally can't justify the high dollar stuff because I am into extensive modification. Even though I'm a devout Darksider, I would never do my kind of project on some truck that was rust free and in good condition. Mainly because I think it would be a shame to do it. I also have no use for something I can't drive cross country on today's highways and driving conditions. It would end up being just another thing to care for and shelter. When I buy an old truck or old parts I look for what I need to do what I want. 90% of what I have found has the floor, front and rear corners and mounts gone. Same goes for the bottoms of the doors. The only pieces I have ever bought are corners, used fenders, a hood and new door bottoms. I make the rest of the stuff I need. I do a lot of trading and buying and selling of vehicles as donors. I sell off what I don't need. So far in the two years I have had my project going, my total cash outlay stands at $764.00 after selling off what I don't need. I now have all the major parts and a lot of it is now done. I will probably end up at around $3,000.00. There is also a part of me that just loves making something from what the others would throw away and doing it for a little as possible. For me there is more satisfaction in doing the build than there is just riding around in a collection of high priced parts. Let's face it, there is no way that restoring or Darksiding old trucks makes good economic sense.