Hi Everyone
I have a 1952 ford f-1. The bed panels on it are not very good. They are all dinged iup. I was wondering if its very hard to MIG weld in patch panels. My dad can help me there. Or i was wondering if i should get a panel beater in and striaghten them. Any help appreaciated. By the way, right now i am painting the frame with Tremclad rust paint. I am also doing the interior.
I also was wondering if sound deadener makes a big difference in the cab because my truck is loud.

 

Braden,

I'm just getting into the body work on my project so I have some of the same questions. If you can put some pictures in your gallery, the gals and fellas here can probably advise you better as to fixing or replacing the panels, and how to fix them.

On the sound deadening, click on the Search link in the upper part of the page, then click on advanced search. Choose the 1948-1960 forum in the list box in the lower right. Then search for something like "sound deadener" (including the quotes), or maybe +sound +material. You should find a whole series of threads that talk about various kinds of sound deadening materials and how to use them.

 

I had the same problem with the replacement box I bought for my F-2. When I bought it the guy who was using it as a tool trailer with a box cover over it. After I got it home and tore it apart I realized it was not as nice as I thought, it had many holes in the sides he used to mount shelf brackets to, but it was still better than the rusted out box I had. I cut out the side panels, along the raised areas, and welded new panels in the sides. I don't think I would do it again. Because these are one ply boxes, meaning you can see both sides of the box, inside and out you have to do a lot of careful welding. I ended up getting a lot warpage that I had to hide with body filler. On a box that has two layers of metal you can get away with warpage a lot easier. Also, over the years rust has started to bubble through and some of my welds are showing in the inside of the box. Again, if this was a two wall box I could have done a little better welds. The only difference between my box and a box on a late '50 or '51-52 F-1 box is my box has the raised panels, not smooth like the later boxes. I am in the process of obtaining another F-2 box, which is nicer, but I still have to replace a few smaller areas where there is rust outs but this time it shouldn't be nearly as bad as the last one. I would suggest beat out the dents over cutting and replacing. If there is a lot of rust outs that another story.

Just my two cents

 

Something else you might try is to make the outside of the bed panels look as good as possible, which means you'll still have lots of dings on the inside. For that, if you put a vinyl tonneau cover on the bed, you could carpet the bedsides which will cover the dings. Or you could cover the inside of the panels with wood and bedstrips matching the floor as well. The outside looks decent and you've hidden the dings on the inside.

Scott

 

replace areas that are rotted out or heavily damaged. Straighten panels that have dings and dents. Unless you are going to replace the entire part (fenders, hood, bed, etc) welding in a patch panel will cause more body problems and need for straightening than it will fix.