1966 F100 Short Bed Styleside Metal/Body/Paint Work
 

I just started another '66 F100 short bed project at the shop, this time it'll be a mild custom. I'll only be doing the metal, body, and paint work instead of a full build like the last one ('66 F100 Stock Restoration).

I'll be fixing the rust, correcting the panel fit and gaps like the last truck, shaving some items on the dash, mocking up a Vintage Air evaporator, smoothing the firewall, adding spots for A/C vents, and painting the truck.

Here is the truck. It seems to be pretty solid overall other than the bed floor and door bottoms; definitely better than the other truck we restored.


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Interior pics.

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Panel fitment and gaps.

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Subscribed. Did someone add reverse lights?

You do have a nice starting point. Nice Kight Rider steering wheel

Are the clutch and brake pedal welded together? Glad you are back!



Sean

This will be fun to watch. I was in competition with you when I was doing mine. Amature against professional kind of thing. :)

Cool, I'll follow along. I'm sure you'll get this one finished and I'll still be working on mine...

A great canvas to start on. I'll be doing similar on my dad's soon.

Yes, we'll remove those and weld up the holes.


The truck does seem to be pretty straight and solid. Hoping for no suprises when we strip it. It was really strange moving the truck around the shop without the top 1/3rd of the wheel, especially without power steering!


Thanks Sean, the truck was converted to auto at some point and they left both pedals in and welded them together.


Thanks for following along!


Thanks for following, I'm hoping to be done within six months. I have a couple of my own projects that are still not done so I feel you on that!



It's a lot nicer start than most of the trucks we've restored in the past, I'm looking forward to not needing to replace the bottom 1/4th of the whole truck.

First update. I took everything apart that wasn't needed to make it run. All of the small parts were bagged and labeled so reassembly will be easier. I'll drive it around to one of the rear shop stalls tomorrow and finish dissasembly.

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Teardown is finished. I'll finish removing the seam sealer and start blasting pieces next week.

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I have the bed floor and header panel out now, and have blasted around the peremeter to prepare for welding the new floor in. A 2008 Super Duty floor is the same dimensions so we ordered one to use, along with a new header panel and front sill from Carolina Classics. The rear sill isn't available so I'll have to repair and straighten it.

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The seam sealer was difficut to remove by blasting so I used a dremel to cut it out.

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New floor and header.

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Edges blasted to prep for repair work and new panels.

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Going to be a nice one.
What was up with the red light on the radiator support. Volunteer fire dept?

Thanks! That's my guess on the lights.

The four corner panels were all bent and sunk in so I started straightening those this morning. This was the driver side rear panel.

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I started with the flange, then used a socket and hammer to shrink the panel back flat. The socket "traps" the metal and lets the hammer push the metal into itself, shrinking the panel. The socket has to be bigger than the hammer head and you have to keep the hammer in the dead center of the socket or else you'll hit against the edge of the socket and stretch the metal. MP&C has info on the "donut dolly" technique in his '55 Wagon thread, post #973. 55 Wagon Progress - The 1947 - Present Chevrolet & GMC Truck Message Board Network

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Driver side front panel.

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After:

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I also made and fitted both front corners that were rusted.

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Blasted and shot SPI epoxy on the two floor braces.

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You do amazing work! Thanks for sharing and offering tips. I'm taking notes.

Maybe I can Learn Soemthing
 

I will follow closely. I'm doing my 62 and am having great difficulty with the body work on the top of the cab and the hood. I can't figure out how to get the "fine" waviness out of the metal. Used dollies and body hammers, tried a thin coat of filler but nothing seems to work. My first body work and have done the rest of the truck so far but these two areas are killing me.

Amazing for sure. I urge everyone interested in metalwork to see more amazing "metal bumping" in the '55 Wagon thread you added in post #16. Thanks for that.

Thanks!


What are you using to block sand with? And what grit paper are you using when blocking? The wrong type of blocks or the wrong technique or the wrong grip paper will have you endlessly chasing ripples. I've switched to homemade plexiglass blocks in varying thicknesses, lengths, and widths to fit the exact need of each panel. You can adjust the flexibility of the block by choosing thicker or thinner plexiglass, from 1/16" to 3/8", and narrower widths are more flexible as well. The hard surface forces the paper to cut much faster than a softer block (like Durablocks) and if you get the right thickness for the panel you're working it'll flex in a natural curve to correctly shape the panel without dipping into the low spots so you're only bringing down the high spots. Using a guide coat will show the high and low spots and allows you visualize how flat the panel is while blocking. Don't block just to remove the guide coat; block down the high spots until they blend in with the low spots unless the low spots are too low. If you hit metal on the high spots before they're flattened enough then you need to get the metal straighter before going to the bodywork stage, and the same is true with low spots- bring them up in the metal work stage before trying to fill them with filler or high build primer. I should be starting the bodywork on the bed in the next couple of weeks and I'll point out how to do all of this step by step.

You need to start with rough paper to shape the filler or high build primer. Worry about the shape first (making the panel straight and ripple free) then go back and smooth the panel with finer paper once it's shaped. Smooth paper (around 120/150 and higher) doesn't cut aggresively enougth to shape a panel properly, you're mostly just smoothing at that point.

The True Blox website has a lot of good info on block sanding and it'll help even if you're not using plexiglass blocks.

https://www.trueblox.com/pages/true-tips


Jeff Lilly's website has some info on blocks and techniques too, but I'm not a fan of how they add foam to the surface of the block.

https://www.jefflilly.com/build-tips/block-sanding/



Robert does exceptional work and I've learned a ton from his posts. Definitely check out his thread if you're into this type of work!

The inside of all the panels were shot with undercoating so I scraped all of it off to prep for blasting.

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After:

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The two center floor braces were bent so I used our tubing roller to straighten them.

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They were also dented around the mounting bolt holes.

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The truck was stripped and repainted at some time. The paint strips easily and quickly with a razor blade leaving a thin coat of primer and some spots of filler. I'll strip the primer/filler with a DA sander to avoid blasting and warping the bed sides.

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I test fit the front header and cross brace, the filler panels I made, and the center braces.

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Also cut out the rust that was on the flange that the bed floor spot welds to and welded in new metal.

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:-X06

Lookin good

I think you should change your user name to sheet-metal-magician

I have straightened a lot of metal and had to shrink a lot of stretched metal over the years and I've never seen the socket and hammer technique. I am definitely going to have to give that a try!

Great work as always, I have adopted several of your techniques, thanks for sharing here!

Been 6 days. Surely you must have done more. More please.

Thanks guys!!



It works best with a softer round dolly, like delrin, but I like the added mass of the socket. But if you miss then you end up stretching the metal due to the metal getting pinched. A soft-faced dolly prevents that. I'll buy or make a better dolly eventually, but for now I used what I had.


Been working, just not posting.


I've been working on blasting the bed, inside and out and underneath, that's about 95% done. I'll work on straightening and repairing as much as I can while it's in bare metal before going back over the areas I missed with the blaster and then shooting epoxy.

The seam between the upper and lower passenger side bedsides was pretty rough so I spent extra time cleaning it out with the blaster.

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The new F250 bed floor has stamping for a fifth wheel ball, and the owner wants to add a fuel tank under the bed with the filler cap in the bed floor. I'll cut out two sections and swap them to make the center smooth and have a stamped area around the filler cap.

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The rear corners had back up lights added, so I straightened the area and welded up the holes.

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The bedside is wavy and sunk in over the front of the wheelwell so I've started stretching the area by hammer-on dolly plannishing the area to raise the low spots.

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The bottom driver side behind the wheel opening had a couple creases, dents, and a torn spot on the edge of the flange.

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Nice work. I have sent you a PM

I've seen people use Bronco wheel tubs to widen the factory tubs, and to use for trucks with raised bed floors but not for stock tub replacement so I wasn't sure that they'd work. They were only $70 shipped each so we bought one to try out and the stamping ended up being identical with only a couple details that needed attention.


The stock tubs were pretty rough so I cut them out with the plasma to get to the inner flange.

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For Bronco applications they had a notch cut out for the shock mount. I welded that up since the bed floor will be welded to that area of the flange.

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Test fit.

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Trimming the bottom edge to match the original shape.

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Couple of pinholes welded up.

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There were dimples in the flange area from the original spot welds so I straightened those so the new tubs would fit flush.

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The driver side bed corner fit pretty well at the bottom but stuck out past the bedside towards the top.

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I was able to reach the spot welds through the taillight opening with an extended nose grinder and carbide burr. You can see how much I moved the panel inward to make the two flanges flush.

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We decided to shave the stake pockets, so I cut out the flanged lip and made a filler panel that keeps and extends the seam so it looks like a factory panel.

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I drilled a couple holes to plug weld the filler panel's flange in place like the rest of the corner's flange.

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Coated the inside of the corner with epoxy before welding it shut.

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Finished.

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:-X06

Looks great

Thanks!



The passenger side pocket was a bit more work since the seam was crooked at the top. I rounded off an air chisel tip and used that to move the edge of the long panel over to where it should've been.

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After moving it over, still not perfect but much better than before.

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Patch made, determining the right spot to make the bend so the gap is even.

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Bent, fitted, and welded weld in.

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The front bed pockets were opened up to get back to flat metal, then were straightened, spot blasted to touch up missed areas of rust, primed, and welded shut.

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The second wheelwell came in so I started getting it ready to install. The shock notch was welded up first, then I had to narrow the mounting flange to clear the raised lip on the inner bedside.


I scribed a line on the patch, then trimmed with tin snips for a near-exact fit with no grinding needed. This saves grinding discs and makes less dust in the shop.

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Difference in flange width.

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I welded in the header panel using the original spot weld holes, but some of those were halfway off the edge of the panel so I used a copper spoon to keep the weld contained and the edge straight.

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The upper seams weren't pretty from the factory and they won't really be seen once the truck is assembled. I welded them up and ground down the welds so that all of it would look decent once seam sealer is applied.


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Been 15 days since you posted anything. On vacation? :) Those welds on the front of the box were ugly. I walked in the day the body shop started to prep my box just as he started grinding those welds down. I said what are you doing? His response was this was scabbed together and I am going to fix them. I said leave them as they are that is a factory weld. But they are ugly he said. But they are original I said. They are still there.

Still working at it, did some small detailing on the wheel opening flanges. I'm about as far as I can take the bed without having the bed floor ready to go in; I don't want to start correcting the overall shape of the bed sides until everything is welded in solid.

The bed floor will be making a trip to Maryland to McCartney Paint and Custom (MP&C on a ton of forums) to correct the irregular bed floor stampings. I'm going to Connecticut to buy one of my old Conquest TSi's back and will be stopping in on the way to work on the bed floor. I've already sent a sample section for him to make dies for his Lennox reciprocating machine to replicate the existing stampings in the blank areas.

The wheel opening flanges, before and after. Things like this only take a few minutes with a hammer and dolly and make the bodywork go much faster. The end result looks much better also.

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I stripped the doors yesterday, razor blade and DA sander on the outer skin and blasted the inner panel (no finished pics yet). Started by removing the glue residue with a wire brush since the blaster doesn't strip soft coatings as easily.

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gotta post some pics of it, I love those twins. they are the only imports I really like. awesome little cars

These are from back when I owned it. I sold it around four years ago and it's been garaged since then until recently. It had an accident with the driver side fender and headlight door that'll need to be repaired, but it still looks like this overall.

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wow, VERY nice. how many miles? that's probably the cleanest one I've ever seen.

It actually had around 176k on it when I sold it. It had been repainted before I bought it and the wheels had been refinished. But it had been kept up very well, the interior was all original and was also in great shape. The cars are solidly built, you'd never know it had that many miles; everything was tight and rattle/squeak free. The person I sold it to swapped in a rebuilt engine with 28k miles and bought all the parts needed to convert from the annoying tbi intake to a more modern and reliable multi-point style intake. I'm also getting an extra set of original wheels with it.