I have the cab on my 1950 F1 stripped of everything and the frame is stripped of everything except the front and rear suspension. Cab is now ready to come off. One problem. Mother nature stripped about 50% of the cab floor out of it for me before I got my hands on it. I need to weld some bars across both doorways and across the back of the cab to keep everything lined up after I pull it off.

I have a little Lincoln mig welder. It is a Weld-Pak 100. Not a high dollar unit but I'm hoping it will work well for sheetmetal work. I do not have the gas kit for it. I know that I can use flux core wire to get around this. Curious as to what sort of oopinions you folks might have. Should I get the gas kit? why? why not? I've welded some in the past but I'm not very experienced. That should change over the course of this project. See floorboard picture below.



All opinions welcomed and valued here. I'm ready to weld these bars in, just need to know how to set up the welder (gas or no).

Thanks,

Carl

 

Carl,
If you already have the flux core wire and the machine set up for it and all you are trying to do is weld in some support bracing....go for it.

The flux core wire is a bit messy and produces quite a bit of spatter, I prefere welding with a sheild gas. There are products on the market that you can spray onto surrounding surfaces so that the spatter will not stick. Your local welding supply shop should carry them.

Are you going to fab a rotisserie (spelling) to hold the cab and entertain the neighborhood kids?

Good luck
Bobby

 

I would go with the gas it makes a world of difference, much stronger and cleaner welds.You can get smaller wire for gas than flux core there for you be able to weld lighter meterial with better welds. For body panels its by far much better. IMO. As far as your bracing it really doesn't matter much use what you have for now. I'm told that anything that will require strenght and stress that flux core should not be used, not as strong I guess.
Good Luck
Mike

 

One look at the cab floor and it's obvious I will be welding more than the braces. Just about every body panel on the truck will likely require some welding to bring back to useable condition. Any idea what I'm looking at for the gas kit - pricewise?

No rotisserie (sic?) planned. Way I figure it, that would be one more bigg a$$ item I don't have room for and I suspect that I can get by with one. Might change my mind later.

 

Carl -

Ditto what they said. Just stick the braces in with what you have for now. The spray can no-stick stuff is a cool idea.

Like you, I started with an inexpensive (Lincoln Handy MIG) welder and flux core wire. I had problems getting the flux core to weld anything thinner than 1/16". It just kept blowing the metal away. It did do a very passable job on thicker material, although it was messy.

Once I got my tank (eic), things went just swimmingly. I have welded some really thin panels and patches and done some serious body mods as well as welded bumpers with my little toy. You are gonna love welding!!! It has been the most rewarding work I have done on Roscoe.

Just remember, every weld looks perfect after you grind it smooth.

BTW, that floor looks really bad. MIG (gas) welds need to be done with really clean material (no rust) for the best results. I hope you can get to some good material to attach the new floor pans to.

 

Carl,

I don't want to be a smart a** but maybe you should get a different cab. Are you going for a modified truck or a stocker? From this picture and the others you posted on the thread about the heater switch, this cab looks way too far gone to repair. I would think you could find a decent cab in your area somewhere. It will save you a lot of time and money. I run across trucks up here every once in a while that have a lot nicer metal and I live in one of the worse areas in the country to find decent sheetmetal so I would think there has to be a lot more down there. Our streets are coated in white during the winter from the salt they throw on the streets here nothing made of metal last up here. I am not made of money and I have to scrouge and horse trade to get the parts for my trucks so I don't want you to think I'm some rich investment banker with bottomless pockets. I know what it's like to work on a very limited budget.

I don't want to insult you, just my opinion.

 

Bob,

Not taking your comments as being smart a$$ at all. Logic would dictate that I find another cab since, as you pointed out, there are a number of other good ones out there. One problem is that I am rapidly running out or room. Problem two, there aren't many good cabs local which means I have to travel or ship.

Bottom line though, is I decided to do this to see if I could. Looking at the cab I have, I know that if I can bring this one back, I can do anything. So it's a personal challenge thing as much as anything else. Kinda like running a marathon without having to get up at three in the morning.

Cost isn't reallly a problem, at least not any more than it would be with anything else I'm doing though I don't want to pump a million bucks into it. This will be a learning experience for me and this is the cab to learn on. I have a 49 F2 in much better condition. I plan to restore it to original condition using the skills that I will learn doing this one.

As for what I am going to do - not sure yet but I will have to make up my mind pretty quick. The truck sat on three wheels for 35 years in the woods. The front section of the right side frame rail held water most of the time and is quite thin. This is in the area around the motor mount. I'm foing to have to remove the flathead motor mount to fix this and will probably box the frame when I fix it. It is at this time that I will have to make the decion - flatty or more modern driveline.

I do plan to blast the cab with either walnut shells or baking soda before beginning the floor work. I will media/grit blast the frame before working on it. Frame work will happen first and will probably keep me busy for a little while before I have to worry about the cab.

Sounds like I should spend for the gas kit since I will need it for the floor and other sheetmetal work.

 

Your truck sounds like a perfect canidate for a MII front clip or some other modern front end set up. I have never done one but my next truck, if there is on (Sure there's going to be another one ) might be a modified. It drives me nuts when someone takes a prestine truck and chops it up.

The cab on my F-2 was almost as bad as the one you have. The first time around, right after I got out of high school, I patched the cab up. Eight years later my wife found a donor F-7 firetruck with 3000 miles with a rust free cab which is now on my F-2. So I know what you are going through. My current project, a '48 F-4 had a pretty solid floor but had bad cab corners. Also, my '48 panel truck, the perpetual project, has a bad floor which I am going to replace with a floor from a F-6 that had a almost rust free cab but the roof was crushed down about 12". The only reason I am going through the hassle of replacing the floor of the panel is that panels are somewhat rare and it would be kind of useless to try to replace the entire body of the panel.

Good luck on your project and keep us update on your progress. I, for one, am interested on what you do with it.

 

Hey Carl,

I still have this cab for sale. It's a '48-'50. Comes with a bench seat and doors. Floor is rusted through in the front section, but it's in much better condition. I should have other pics of the inside or could get more detailed pics for you.

I'm in CA. Can ship on a pallet.
Let me know if you are interested. We could make a good deal.

Ilya

 

looks like you have a real project their . If you do the mig thing , gas is the way to go .
jeff

 

First choice: Get a new cab, it will cost a bunch of $$ and time to fix this one. Replacement floor panels are going to cost +/- $400 (not to mention the gas kit you likely need) and I think you could likely get a rust free cab for about $600.

Second choice: If you are going to fix the cab, I recommend putting the doors back on and replacing the floor with it on the frame on the truck to make sure things don't Move. If you take it off the truck it will be difficult to keep things where they belong, even with braces.

Third choice: Get a new cab. Sorry I am also not trying to be smart, but we put a bunch of hours in our cab before we bought a new one and it was waisted time and money.

What ever you do, we wish you good luck.

 

Are you planning on making or buying your patch panels? If making them, you'll definitely gain a LOT of metalforming experience. If you are planning on buying them, then it will cost you more than finding a better condition cab to start with. Since you said you will be starting with the frame, then you should have plenty of time to look for a good (better) cab. One other thing, if your frame has that much rust then for the safety of you and your passengers DEFINITELY find a better frame! Repairing frames is NOT the place to practice new welding skills, and replacement frames should be easy to find in any part of the country, just don't buy someone else's fail attempt, find an unmolested one.
IMHO The Mig 100 with the gas kit would be fine for sheetmetal work, but a little lightweight for anything over 1/16". I don't know what the gas conversion kit runs or what the condition of your welder is, but a Hobart 140 with all the gas parts included is <500.00 from Northern tool, is heavy enough to do most any welding you might need to do on your truck and still runs on 115V. Rather than buy the gas kit, I'd suggest selling the unit you have and putting the funds from it and the gas kit towards the bigger unit, it would be money smarter spent in the long run.

I've found that silicone spray works as well as if not better than the spatterguard they sell at the welding supplier for < 1/2 the cost. Spray some up into the shield cup to make it easier to remove the inevitable build up.

 

If you are going to remove the cab, first I would fix the floor on the frame as stated then put the doors back on and weld some 14 ga plates across the door frames and door on the inside to hold the alignment and be sure they fit when you are all done.

 

The one major advantage of the spatterguard is it won't interfer with your final paint. At least I have never encountered any problems painting metal I have used the spatterguard on. Whenever I weld two metal pieces together and I know I am going to have a hard time removing the spatter BBs, either by using a grinder or scraper, I spray the spatterguard on the metal. The majority of the BBs will wipe right off and then I wipe it down with laquer thinner before painting. I would be very leery of using any kind of silicone based product on something I am going to paint. It's hard to get all of it off and I hate getting fisheyes in my paint.

Just my opinion.

 

The only time I've ever heard of spatter sheild affecting any later coatings was with hot dip galvanizing. The spatter sheild we were using was water based and we flushed the surfaces after welding and the galvanizer even dipped the parts before the galvanizing process. The spatter sheild interfered with the galvanizing process for some reason. Strange

Bob, you're suggesting a MII suspension???? careful now, once you look in that direction the "darkside will suck you right in and you'll be slammin' your panel and adding huge cubic inches under the hood....

Bobby