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Getting ready to work on bed to ready for body and paint and I see the seam on the bedside is loaded with rust when I clean out the seam seal. I looked every method I know to locate a good bed without luck and ready to start.
I assume this is pretty common and wonder what others have done to stop it in it's tracks?
Will POR15 or some other product do that for me? After applying should I weld the whole seam or will a good seam seal do it now?
I have only found one spot where it actually caused a hole and that is on the bottom side of the joint. I believe I can spray or brush something from underneath on that area to seal it.
Any advice is appreciated... Drivers Side 1 Drivers side Drivers Side 3. All 3 combined about 10 inches. Passenger Side about 5 inches long
How crazy do you want to get?
Is the bed on or off the truck?
Who is doing the repair and finish work / paint?
I don't know where that panel / rust is on the bed but that hole and there will be others from what I see is going to be the hard part to fix.
You are only see the rust on the out side there is more rust between the 2 lips that should be dealt with.
If me I think I would drill out the spot welds and make them 2 parts again.
This way you can treat the rust between the 2 parts and fix the holes by welding in patches.
Use a weld thru primer before welding the 2 back together. Use the holes left from the drilled spot welds to plug weld the parts back together.
The other thing if you did not want to weld back together is to glue / bond them. If the glue is pushed out on all edges that should seal it from water that can rust it again.
I would then use seam sealer to make sure it is sealed.
I quick way is to grind or sand blast the rust then repair the holes by welding metal in there and treat the rust with an acid made for that to convert it then body work and finish.
This will not do anything about the rust between the 2 lips.
Dave ----
Oh you can also cut the lips off the panels and butt weld the 2 back together and fix the rust holes at the same time.
Doing it this way you do not have to worry of any rust happening again because of the lips.
Now my 81 flare side bed had kind of the same deal, rust on a lips of the panels.
Thing is 1 of the lips had to stay as it is used to bolt the bed sides to the floor.
My fix was to remove 1 of the lips and weld the panel to the lip that was left fixing anything that need to be.
And yes I had to make a new lip with square holes for the bolts.
Not having the seam seen on the outside of the bed side was not a big deal for me, who would know as all 4 were done the same way.
Dave ----
Thanks FuzzFace...you kinda gave me an idea??
These are just in front of the wheel openings on each side.
I'm thinking that from inside the bed, cut the area where the 2 lips are spot welded together. Basically cut the area out and use what would be a flat piece of sheet metal to finish out the inside of the bed.
Then weld the seam together as deep as possible inside the seam to attach the sides to the new metal. Leave as much seam as possible and seam seal rather than welding the seam totally.
The biggest problem would be reaching from the underside to seal, grind etc if I was to cut the area out and weld in some metal.
I'm just thinking out loud here.
yes i have looked through it and he has done a fantastic job. Not sure I’m up to replacing a whole side like that. Maybe i need to look at it again to see the actual process he went through.
Phosphoric Acid can penetrate a little ways, and works on light rust. It converts light rust to a more inert form. It needs to be washed well afterwards to remove a soapy film that develops. It helps other products adhere better, since the result is a 'toothy' surface. The resulting black stuff, like on new replacement panels, is Iron Phosphate, I think. It does not make the old rust strong.
But, you still have the 'other side' to deal with. If water/air can get to it, the far side will continue oxidizing.
I wonder if brazing or 'lead-ing' this seam would help?
Thank you 34ton. I had given some thought about lead also. I have never used it before but I feel I could but I just wonder if I could actually get into the gaps well enough. Just no experience with it.
I have seen others mention and use Phosphoric acid also and that seems logical to me as it should flow through the crack well and seal it up so it can be primed or POR15.
So far as the 'other side', that's the bottom of the seam from underneath the body side that I would have to deal with. My only thought on that is to sand blast, prime and spray bedliner on it. Pretty much plan to do the whole underside of the bed that way anyway.
I am open to all suggestions and outcomes from what others have actually done. If I can just contain it, I believe it'll last a really long time.
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