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I bought a pickup the same time as my panel back in 1999, don't have any pictures of it before it was torn down and wasn't sure if it was ever to be a project after I started to pull it apart. I basically scrapped the cab and picked up another that believe it or not was in better shape and one that many would have also scrapped, but where I live these trucks don't jump out at you. I started working on this cab last April of 2014. I'll post pics of what I started with and what I did as I went. If this all works out I may even do a late but better late than never build thread of my panel also.
So this is what and where I started
It's funny when you want something so bad you tend to over look just how bad things really are
The drip rails seen better days too
!
Of course it shows some of the usual rust like the front cab corners
and rear cab corners
as well as the rocker panels and all the floor in general
First thing I started with was the inner cab corners, I had to make the rib between them in 2 pieces,
I also left the rear cab corners on to help with the orientation of the rear cab mount holes.
.
then I carried on with the rocker panels and firewall section. Those triangle reinforcement pieces needed a lot of reworking to get them to fit as well as I got them and the rocker panel needed a bit of work under them as well, wish I had taken pictures of how much they didn't match.
I had made a repair to the lower door post but didn't quite make the mark and ended up redoing it when the front
cowl panel didn't match but the work I did to the reinforcement is shown better in this picture
Fitting better now
After the rocker panels and firewall section was installed I welded in the rear floor section, it was lap joined along the bottom of the rocker panel using plug welds
this is the underside after plug welding the back rib from the top
the front sections were butt welded in place
repaired the bottom of the cab back that had seen better days and removed rear cab corners
You are a metal master and some. Quite a daunting task you have taken on and you are absolutely right when you say the majority would pass on that cab. A project of that scope will keep you busy for awhile and also very rewarding, few people will ever really know how much work you have done. My hat is off to you.
Here it's off the rotisserie and the original doors installed but the outer skins were very badly pitted and decided
to use the doors that were original to my panel instead which were far from perfect but better than these.
I started by marking up for the rounded corners I preferred over the sharp corners
Started by cutting the corners off
and then got them ready to weld the pieces in place after spraying with some weld through primer
Sections that needed repair was all under the weather stripping in the dog leg area and down the front of the door as well as bottom inside and outer door skins.
The driver side door was fine behind the weather strip bur passenger side as you can see did need some work..
Did this repair in 2 pieces
Missing a few pictures here but the inner and outer skins are done here, I had to do a few modifications to the inner bottom piece to fit properly
