I really enjoy seeing great body work. Very Nice.

Thanks!!

Does anyone near the upstate South Carolina area have a junk cab with a good roof skin? This one had something fall across the roof and do a lot of damage which I was planning on straightening but after looking over it closer Friday there is rust coming from the inside out near the driprail seam on both sides. A few areas have already rusted all the way through and poking it with a carbide scribe finds more weak spots along the edge, so it will be best to take the skin off and replace it. I have found a cab locally but it's too nice to cut up. PM me if you have a cab/roof or know of one nearby!

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Went ahead and started making a patch for the door bottom this morning.

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More door work.

The driver side inner door skin was cracked around the window felt area so I realigned the panel and welded it back together.

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To keep it from cracking again I bent shaped a 3/16" rod to fit inside in the corner out of the way of the felt clips. I only welded it to the inner flange so there won't be any "ghosting" of the welds showing through the paint later on.

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Corner finished.

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Digging deeper into the roof rust. This is looking from the inside over the door top.

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I cut out a section over the door to see inside better...

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Not good, so I started cutting the roof off. I trimmed right above the seam across the back of the cab to make easy access to the inner spot welds.

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I cut higher up on the sides, this shows the layers as they are when the roof is assembled- nowhere for condensation to escape between the inner and outer layers, and once the seam sealer degrades water comes in and gets between the layers.

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After cutting the spot welds loose from the driprail. This wasn't far away from coming through.

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The driprail flange was also in rough shape so I drilled out those spot welds and removed the drip rails down the sides.

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Driprails removed, ready for blasting and epoxy.

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I never liked the crimped on joint cover connecting the front and side pieces, so I cut though it when I separated the side driprails from the front. There was rust under the outer corners of the front driprail so I cut those out too. I'm going to check out a free parts truck tomorrow about 45 min away, hopefully the roof skin is straight enough to use. I'm not too worried about rust in the seams like this one had, it'll be easy to replace the flat sides since they're easy to fab, and it needs to come apart like this one to get at all the inner rust between layers.

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Fantastic work. Wish you would have lived here when mine was done

That would take me a long time to begin that repair. Looks like you got it down though!

I appreciate the comments!!



I posted a wanted ad for a roof or cab last week and had someone contact me about a '66 that they just wanted hauled off. It ended up having a usable roof and was only 45 min away. Got the roof cut off and separated the roof skin and drip rails from the inner bracing yesterday.

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We decided to eliminate the seam across the back of the roof for a couple reasons; it's in the middle of the wing shaped body line in the b-pillar and takes away from that shape, and it'll save time compared to separating the flanges on both roofs, blasting, shaping the flanges so they both match up 100%, and then the time of evenly shaping the seam sealer during bodywork. I was able to trim the roof skin along that seam to take the minimal amount off, and I'll do the same on the cab, but that still means the roof skin will either need a filler strip or the roof skin needed to drop down about 3/16". A filler strip would mean double the distortion from warping so that's not a good idea. From cutting the old roof skin off, there was no way to cleanly separate the roof skin from the drip rail by drilling spot welds; there just wasn't enough flange material left after all the drilling and chiseling and prying. So I thought it would be best to trim the flange in the corner of the 90* bend and move up about 3/16" and tip the edge of the roof to make a new flange.

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Roof cut off, flange still on the drip rail.

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Removing the flange by grinding through the spot welds without disturbing the drip rail underneath.

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Drilling the spot welds out, being extra careful to not bend or warp the flange when chiseling the two layers apart. I sacrificed the inner brace by hammering it away from the drip rail flange instead of pulling the flange away from the inner brace. I'm pretty happy with the way these came apart, they'll fit the cab nicely since they're not warped up from the separation process. I struggled to get the old drip rails off so I really took my time with the replacements.

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Front section- the first pic is with the spot welds 99% separated so it's sitting there with it's own weight holding it in place- zero distortion on the flange. Again, really happy with these results after the driprails on the first cab didn't separate well at all.

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All off, ready for blasting and epoxy.

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That is some amazing work right there with a ton of patience thrown in! Nice!

Thanks Doug, removing the donor drip rails cleanly was definitely one of the most tedious steps so far!

I blasted the inner roof rails and drip rails this week, taking care to get the pitted areas really clean. If you've ever blasted rusted metal that has deeper/thick rust pits you'll wonder why POR-15 and similar products are so popular... the really bad rust isn't growing on the surface where you're painting and a "converter" or "paint over rust" product isn't going to help anything at that point.



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One big thing that I wanted to address while the roof was apart was to do away with the welded clip that ties the front and side drip rails together. The factory left this area pretty rough with the two sections misaligned.



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To start I used the factory line-up slots to position the front drip rail. The factory spot welds were also in identical locations between this cab and the donor cab.

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I cut a section out of the old drip rails and used it to lengthen the side rail.

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Loosely assembled to mark the front rail for trimming.

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The fit at the A pillar wasn't the best from the factory.

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I used a pair of end nippers to twist the end of the front drip rail into alignment with the side rail and tacked the two together.

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Fully welded and welds smoothed.

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I forgot to drill plug weld holes where the factory left out some spot welds, so I used the cut off wheel to grind small channels to plug weld.

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I used a rounded over chisel to tighten up the fit of the drip rail to A-pillar fit.

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Driver side finished. Having both pieces in-line and one piece now will go a long way in creating a clean and even door gap against the drip rail, and the seam sealer will look much neater with an even gap between the drip rail and the main roof rail.

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All I can say is ....... WOW! Way better looking and function than any original factory could have accomplished that's for sure! Great work!

Nice work as usual but at a cost vs straight rust free dent free cab for fraction of cost. Not to mention the lost time.

I guess I just raised price on nice cabs!

just saw a repop 67-72 Chevy cab with price of
$9995.95 with people standing in line with cash in hand to buy one.

so much for the Mint 65-66 F100/250 cabs for 500.00

Astronaut, how is that cab coming along? I have been looking forward to seeing it!

Thanks!


Thanks! I'd say yes and no. It's definitely possible to get a cab that could just be stripped and painted. I'd rather have a cab that's been pulled apart at the seams and repaired from the inside out like this cab. No rust between the layers that way, and everything is fitted way better than factory spec when it goes back together. There's epoxy in places that can't be reached if it's not taken apart. A "rust free" cab will 99% of the time still suffer from dried out/cracked seam sealer allowing water into seams whenever the truck is washed, or it rains, or from condensation, etc. so I don't believe in "100% rust free" when it's old enough for the seam sealer to dry out and crack. Visible external rust free, maybe, but areas the between the layers aren't protected with anything from the factory. How much rust, and how long before it becomes a problem is the question. I've seen Arizona metal, a friend lives in Phoenix and I've been out there a couple times for track events with him. His 80's cars with less aged/more modern seam sealers are 100% rust frees still, but I'd still want to at least dip old cars to completely remove rust between the seams, whether or not there is visible external rust.

Then there's the issue of factory panel alignment; depending on the end goal the panels may need to be separated to make them fit better, or for modifications no matter how rust free it is. The pieced together drip rails and poor fit between the drip rail and roof pillars is a great example of that.


Still making progress, just been too busy to post lately. We have a good friend who's having to retire and move out of his shop due to health issues that recently popped up. We've been going over to help him sell off his tools/equiptment in the evenings so I've been getting home well after 10pm most nights.

Here's a sneak peak, I'll try to upload full details and post more pics soon.

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Astronaut, sorry about your friend and his health. This last year and few months has been brutal on everyone, lasts for sure. I hope he is able to recover soon.

Thanks for the quick post and great pictures. Your work is incredible. Hands down, that is the best looking cab I have ever seen! I'd take that cab any day of the week. Certainly wish you were out here on the west coast!

Take care of yourself and your buddy.
Doug