Need a little input. In this picture, see the areas I've circled. These are holes rusted through the front of the cowl. The largest hole, in the middle was actually a factory hole, with a rubber plug, but the bottom of the hole is now rusted out. Also, on both ends of the cowling, in the area where the F-XXX badges would be on the later 70's trucks, there are holes rusted-through, along the bottom edge. There's also the small area rusted-through the bottom of the windshield frame. (can just barely make it out, just above the wiper stud.)



I can buy this white cab for $100. Should I buy the donor? Should I then A) Replace my cab with the white one, or B) use the donor for "patch" panels? I've not yet seen the donor in-person, but it's said to be "rust free," which I assume means no major rust, holes, etc. There's damage to the roof, lower corner, etc. Also, does anyone have a rough idea how much a cab weighs? Trying to figure out how much help I need to recruit to load the cab onto my trailer.



I'm leaning toward buying the white cab to scavenge the needed metal bits, rather than replace "my" cab. I have 33 years of personal attachment to "my" truck, I'm not sure it'd be there with another cab. (Maybe I'm completely looney on this one, it's just a hunk of steel, right?)

 

It's a tough call IMO.

I mean, the white cab probably has the start of similar cancer and the only way to find out for sure is to crack open the cowl assembly ("balloon" assembly among us Mustangers). But you'd have to do that anyway with the blue cab... Ford prolly only used a toothpaste tube's worth of seam sealer on these trucks.

On the other hand, swapping the cab would take less than a day... I'm not sure how much it weighs but five friends, a case of beer, and a coupla pizzas will go a long way to save a coupla weeks of fab work.

Final decision: Swap the cab! Don't forget to keep your data tag.

 

If I were you I would look long and hard at the new cab before I bought it with the idea of swapping. Its a good price but it has damage already and I would want to make sure its not going to be just as much work or more than the one I already had. Yours might clean up really well with a soda or media blaster and a few small panels welded in, its hard to tell from the pix.

 

Dont look too bad in my opinion, if you dont want it ill take it.
If ya got a mig welder and sheet metal should be fairly easy to repair just keep your heat down and work very slowly. As long as you cant punch holes through the cowel with your finger it should be easy to repair. Also ive seen were leaves get stuck in the cowel area you could cut the big hole out in the center to make it easy to clean out leaves. Plenty of options in your situation.

 

Hopefully my following question won't be considered hijacking this thread. I also have some rust damage on the cowl of my 74 F100. The damage is limited to the bowls under the rear of the fenders which should be a fairly simple repair. My question is how is the interior of the cowl prepped for paint and finally painted so that the rust problem doesn't recur? I will be doing the repairs soon in preparation for painting and would appreciate you guys input.

 

For the rust, personally I would cut it out, form and weld up patches and fix the cab you have.

For painting on another project, I used a rustproof gun. Its the type with a 3' flexible wand and a nozzle that sprays out in all directions. I cleaned inside the cowl thoroughly with lots of detergent and a pressure washer and let it dry completly. I sanded all I could reach, blew it out and used the rustproof gun to apply a coat of rust stop primer in the whole cowel area including nooks and crannies. When dry I hit it with a coat of aluminum paint.

It worked well if a bit messy. Best done before applying any finish paint.

 

Thanks for the replies so-far, keep 'em coming!

I'll get some better pictures of the specific damage tonight, and see if it affects the opinions.

 

Since the rust is in a accessible area, just cut it out and replace the metal. It is in a hidden area so the quality of work is not that critical.

A complete cab swap would be more time consuming, and since you haven't see the white cab in person you never really know what you are getting.

2 guys can carefully tip it on its back and slide it on a trailer, 4 big guys can pick it up, 6 can do it easier.

 

True, removing a cab and setting another one on the frame isnt difficult but as always, the devil is in the details and there are plenty of details. If you dont have any other major rust issues with your present cab, I would fix it.

 

Fix yours, down the road you will be glad you did.

 

My 76 was rusted like that also, and when I got a good look at the fire wall, just below the cowl, the whole top of the fire wall was gone. I replaced the cab with a donor from out in the desert, rust free. We still stripped it, resealed the seams and painted it. After we took the rusted cab off, we cut into it, to salvage some sheet steel, the rust that was inside was bad and would of rusted though in short order. The truck was from the wet side of Oregon.

 

Here are some better of pics of the actual damaged areas.
Right side of cowl


Left side of cowl:

 

Myself, I would not try to repair that, the rust that you do not see will come back to bite you later. I know you have a attachment to the truck, but a new cab may be what it needs to live on. Just my thoughts

 

Yeah, I would consider sending the donor out to be blasted. Then take a good look at it and decide whether you want to repair it or yours. You might find using yours as the donor is the better way to go.

 

Ive seen people repair a lot worse. They all rust out eventually, just remember its only metal.