As my first post contained only removal of the bed, and frame repair, I've started this thread to show the actual bed repair.

The original thread was here:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=372827

The rust on my bed was only in the wheel wells, and I decided to do the worst side first, "just because". I ordered patch panels from Bronco Graveyard, and Jeff sent them immediately. They arrived safe and sound, packed well enough to survive my local UPS "kickboxers".

First picture: Rusted area cut off, patch panel trimmed, tack welded on and the beads ground as smooth as I could get without tearing off the original material of the patch panel or the bedside.


Here is what it looks like from the inside - you can see where most of the rust occured, this inner factory welded on panel essentially forms a chamber with the bedside, and of course you have stake pockets at the top of the bed, which water, salt, pine needles, dead bugs, etc can fall into and collect between the bedside and this well well liner. I'm leaving this large hole for now because it's an access point for me to spray in POR15.



Here is the patch panel welded in, with the beads ground really smooth. There are some depressions between the welds, because the material is very thin and I had to "stitch" rather than run long beads. I didn't want to warp either the patch panel or the bedside, so this was the only way with the welder that I have. Flux-core wire welder, Lincoln 135, runs on 120V, no shielding gas required. I turned it all the way down, and ran the wire speed at about 1.5 out of 10... and I didn't burn through and had decent penetration 95% of the time.



Because my welding was imperfect, and I unfortunately did warp the panel in the upper left of the repair, I had no choice but to slather some body filler. Nowhere did I need more than just a slight skim, but once it dries I'll be sanding this for a long time.



And here is the almost complete bedside. I primed the entire thing just to avoid rust overnight, since it's supposed to be crummy weather overnight, and I only get 4 hours a day of work per an agreement with my wife (we have a newborn, and split baby-duty). So I have to resand the entire side, to remove some of the imperfections, and make it nice and smooth for a repriming, then a full repaint of the side and top.



Not too bad, huh?

Not sure if you guys remember, my crewcab is an off-white (paint code "YY") which I slapped on tons of red pinstripes that match the interior, trying to jazz it up a bit. Anyway, instead of stick-on pinstriping this time, I'm going to paint the bed two-tone. It will be the same "YY" paint code as before, but with a 6" wide stripe down the side of the bed, Just below the ridge that's about 4" down from the top of the bed. This will allow me to hide any imperfections just a little more, as the stripe will draw attention away from the very slightly wavy bedside.

This was a lot of fun... It took 4 hours from my pulling the cutting tools out of the garage, hooking up the air, all the way to coating with primer the first time. Not too bad at all.... about 1.5 hours was spent cutting and trimming the patch panel in very slow increments, to make sure I didn't undersize it. You can always cut it down if its too big, but adding 1/2" is tough

 

so fredric, with this new paint style, will it match the cab? I seem to remember the truck only being white w/ pinstripe. Are you gonna repaint the whole truck like this? just curious. I always get a kick out of your posts.

Ryan

 

The "YY" off-white paint will match the cab, as that's the factory color. The red painted stripe on the bed won't match the cab until I get to do the cab and fenders. I'll be replacing the fenders and radiator support later in the summer, so I'll be repainting the cab at that point. I have a few spots of surface rust under the doors and at the door edges, that haven't poked through yet, so I'll have to paint the cab anyway. The fenders are absolute toast, and I have teh new ones in the garage ready to go. Just not installing the new fenders or the radiator support until the new engine is ready to be swapped in. Easier to do an engine swap with the entire nose of the truck off.

 

Man rust sucks!

 

Im not great at body work either, but they way I look at it is anything is better than rust. All the body work I've done on my 82 F100 has been just cutting out rust and welding in patch panels. I have pictures in my gallery of my repair projects. I too had to use body filler on my repairs after the new metal was welded in. Its tough to make everything perfect. Good work though. Fred

 

yes it does! What sucks even more is letting it sit there a while to get much, much worse. I've learned time and time again, to take care of it as soon as I see it, and can get to it.

 

I'm embarrased to have to skim repairs as much as I do... I've owned and restored too many cars at this point where I should be able to do repairs like this much better than I do. But, looking at how thin a skim I got away with this time, I really shouldn't complain. I get better every time I have to do this.

15 years ago I'd slather bondo on like it was shaving cream. And repeat that process every month as it fell off while driving over potholes.

 

And finally, after 206 interruptions, the finished bed. Well, the outside of the bed. The inside looks like ... well ... you know



Now that the bed is done, and on the truck, I got into "motivation mode" and started working on other things.

 

Primed and painted new fenders....



Then patched and repaired the door sills both sides, front and back door bottoms. This came out darn good I have to say, and was fairly easy:



My front doors are loose, because the hinges are worn out. THe back doors are fine, only needed slight adjustment, but they are rarely used anyway so there is no wear on the hinge pins. I was going to repin the front hinges, but at the junkyard today I spotted an 88 F150 with BRAND NEW DOOR HINGES on both sides. Brand new, factory Ford hinges. Oh my. So, now they are on my truck

 

Then while taking the new fenders off:


I discovered the driver side of the radiator support is very wobbly. I can move the top corner forward and back at least 6", and up and down about 2". Definately not good. Here is a picture of the rust at the bottom, on the "good" side, though this has poked through also. So, I have to tear down further and replace the radiator support:


Tomorrow is going to be fun

 

I must say, you did an excellent job! Are you for hire for the next one?

 

LOL. You're the ultimate driveway amateur mechanic.

I hope you realize how much we all appreciate that you photographically document your projects and post them for us!

 

geez fredric, you make me want to take my truck apart for no reason at all... just so I feel cool.

Ryan

 

I'm glad people enjoy the pictures. I try to be frugal with the amount of pictures I do post, simply because I video tape most of my projects (if I remember that is) and clip out frames that I like as jpegs, then scale, put my name on them as a watermark, and post them here and on my web server. So thank you for the positive feedback.

This was just to be a quick welding in of patch panels onto the bed's wheel wells, and when I prime and paint that I was going to zip over the new fenders, and install those too. Then as I tore into things, I started seeing so many things that needed to be fixed - inexpensive stuff that I had parts lying around for (for the most part), but time consuming to do. So waht started out as a week or so worth of work has turned into 5 weeks. My wife's been a good sport, though she is getting really annoyed at my newly painted fenders sitting in the dining room.

Tore things down to the radiator support... and removed it with a major fight. I'll have pictures tomorrow and some descriptions... the rust there was rather severe.

 

Frederic - How goes the project? Not to be impatient, as I know you have a life, and occasional weather. Any progress since Tuesday?