The last couple of weeks, I have really been getting at the truck. My son's buddy gave me a crash course with welding and it's coming along nicely. Here's what has been done on the driver's side.

Replaced the kick panel


Added the flange for the floorboard


Floorboard


I figured while I was at it, I may as well replace the end of the support




Used some crude but effective methods to fab up the support.


Cab mount had POR 15 inside and out and then cleaned off the flanges. What do you think? Be honest, too many welds to hold it on? It will be getting POR 15 as soon as the passenger side is done. My fab skills need a lot of work, but as of right now, I only have to fab up about a 4" jamb piece on the passenger side. My hats off to you guys who can bend, shape and fit metal.

 

Kudos for picking up the welding gun.

And if ya aren't a good welder, be an awesome grinder!

For those lap joints and seams, I highly suggest: 3M 08656 Brushable Seam Sealer Gray

 

I think that cab mount looks fine! Remember, nobody ever had a part come off because of too many welds!

Welding is a skill that is learned by practice. I think you're doing just fine.

 

looks good to me . keep up the good work

 

So I took a little more time cutting out the passenger side floorboard to give myself a more flat area to mount the new piece. I didn't want to short myself in places like I did on the driver side.

Rebuilt the rusted spot of the jamb seal area. This took longer than expected because I wasn't sure how to make the new piece. Ended up cutting 4 small pieces and welding them in 1 at a time. It came out better than I expected.



Also had to replace a piece of fire wall. Getting a little better at butt welds, but not confident enough in my fitting skills to butt weld the floorboard.


I will get some more pics tomorrow. I have the floorboard in, the cab mount on, and the underside wire wheeled and ready for rust proofing.

 

NICE WORK!

 

Nice work. you can also use like duraglass over your seams its some hard filler when dried so put on thin or get a nice cheese grader to ruff it in while semi hard.

 

Here is the underside and firewall all rust proofed. It only took 1 qt of POR 15 to do this, the inside of the floorboards and underside of the dash with 2 coats.

Now to scuff, prime, seal the seams and paint. The frame is next and shouldn't take anywhere near the amount of work the floor and mounts did.

 

Looks great, good luck with the project.

 

Seams sealed inside and out

I was going to scuff and paint the bottom, but after an hour of sanding, I wiped the area down and it didn't even look like I did anything. On to plan B. I used rubberized paintable undercoating.


By the time it was fully dry, it had smoothed out and looks better than this picture.
Sanded down the interior and sprayed 2 coats of Duplicolor primer and 3 coats of Duplicolor Wimbledon white.




I cleaned up the headliner, and visors. The stitching on the driver's side visor was busted from end to end. The closest thing I had to re-stitch was some 50 lb test braided dacron fishing line.


Today, I went to clean up the frame for painting. I don't know what was used to protect the frame, but it was like a thick dark brown solid grease. I used a putty knife for most of it, but what was left was a real pain in the @$$. A wire brush on the drill heated it up too much and it just smeared. I then used good old elbow grease with hot water, dawn, and scotch brite pads. After 4 hours, I only got about 4 feet of the frame and a couple cross braces done.

 

'Sounds like Cosmoline...Cosmoline Rust Preventives - Always In Stock + Same Day Shipping

If so, use mineral spirits to remove it.

 

Thanks for the tip. That sure did it. Still a lot of elbow grease, but at least I got somewhere with it. I will have to do it in three sections. The rear portion with all of the cross members has a lot of nooks and crannies and took all day to clean. The middle section was easier with the larger flat surfaces. Now all that is left is from the motor forward.

 

Removed the exhaust for better access to the underside of a cross member and can see a few holes in the tack weld seam on the header coupling. Tomorrow, I will clean up the area with the grinder and completely close the seam.

I keep thinking to myself "How far do you go with it?"

and

"You already have it this far...may as well fix that too."

 

Yaaayy...my frame rail body mounts showed up yesterday. Like a little kid at Christmas, I had to open them up and rust proof them. Cleaned up the bolts and rp'd them as well. Mounted them this morning. I want to mount the cab so badly.

Also cleaned up some bare metal spots in the cab where the gas tank sits and rp'd it.

I thought I would try my hand at banging out a couple of small dents with the crude tools that have and found it to be tricky. Yes the metal is hard, but it doesn't take much to move the dent. Gonna wait until I have the correct tools (and my neighbor to leave) before taking on the rest.

Waiting for a buddy who is out of town and has both an engine and tranny lift. I have to replace the throwout bearing so that the clutch fork will stay put. I figure it's easier to do it now with the cab removed, but I have never done it before.

In the meantime, I started getting rid of the surface rust spots/specks with both scotchbrite pad and 320 grit paper. The rust bleed makes the spot look about 3 times larger than it really is. While doing this, I figured out my overall look that I am going to go with. I am going to scotchbrite and 320 everything just enough to get rid of the specks. Then distress some of the high body lines and then clear coat.

 

I am no body man but I can tell you what I've been told in the past. I think Harbor Freight prolly has a body tool kit you can buy. Use a hammer and a dolly. Put the dolly behind the dent. The perimeter of the dent is where the metal stretched. So work the dent from the perimeter towards the center. This way the body hammer will actually Lift the dent.