taking two cabs to make one good cab

[twillie2460]

Hi guys it has been a few months of cold weather and a few more months of refurbing the house for the wife but I am now ready to get back to the truck. I will post pics very soon but I am also wanting to ask about taking two cabs to make one. I want to cut both cabs in the rear post and seperate the cabs where the firewall meets the floor pan. The take the two halves and make one cab. My firewall\cowl area was gone and someone put a sunroof in the truck which I really did not like. I have been trying to find a thread on here or youtube video's on something like this but no luck so far. So any advice I can get would be helpful. I will post pics of the two trucks I have to work with tomorrow. Thanks

[twillie2460]

Well ran off from the house and left the memory card at home I will have to get those pics tomorrow.

[Rob H.]

I'm just curious why you don't just swap the cabs, be alot less worry than making sure everything is lined up correctly. Although, I've considered doing something close before, just don't have a shop to do it in. LOL

[twillie2460]

Because the back of one cab is beat up and the floor pan is also gone while that cab has a very good top, firewall,dash and the other cab has a sunroof and the firewall is gone but the back of the cab and the floor pan is good. the cab corners have already been replaced. I want to try and do this as I think it would take less bondo to make the cab look nice again. Not a big fan of that stuff. Just trying to take the best of two and make one. I may try and run home for lunch so I may post pics today.

[bobs409]

No reason why it couldn't be done. I just swapped a firewall chunk from a 67 into my 69 wreckers cab. I needed to keep the cab because of the roof lights but the side vent area was badly rotted so I found a good donor in the junkyard and sawzalled it off.

I'm just waiting on a new floor to continue on...

[67c10rustbuket]

WOW bobs409 your a brave man! now thats some serious repair work ! nice job

[twillie2460]

Bob that is really close to want I want to do but I want to take the top with the firewall which means the cut will be made in the rear post of the cab. I will get get pics of the two cabs on here very soon. I have them just forget to bring them to the computer.

[twillie2460]

I do have my pics ready to load on site but having a problem with uploading them and will post as soon as the problem is fixed.

[twillie2460]

I tried two diffeent computers so far and I am still having problems uploading picutres to this site. I will try and get them load thru a different network tomorrow and see how that goes.

[67c10rustbuket]

Have you tried resizing or loading one at a time ?
Posted via Mobile Device

[twillie2460]

Well yes I did try and resize them and I did try and load them one at a time but for what ever reason it loaded all three pics today. On the picutres you can tell where the one cab has already be cut and welded on the real post and I want to cut it just above the old weld and seperate it where the floor pan meets the firewall to use and put that on the white rear part of the other cab. The white cab is very nice not beat up and no bondo in that part of it. Plus it already had the cab corners done and I just removed the rocker panels so I will have to put them back on. So I will look at all sugestions and I will also try and get in touch with bobs409 as look like he has already done this once. Well almost the same thing anyway.

[bobs409]

About all I can say is think it out real good before hand and measure twice before cutting! I'm no professional but I like doing things myself whenever possible.

I used a carpenters square to make the marks at my front pillars. I made the cut where there is a factory notch in the pillar so using that as a guide, I was able to mark the 2 posts on the old piece and the 2 posts on the new one in the same location. I made all 4 cuts and they were perfect! I used a sawzall to do the cuts.

I had no helpers so in my case, I supported the bottom of the firewall chunk on some blocking so that when I removed the old piece, I could simply set the new firewall right on the blocking and it would be at the correct height. My plan was successful. It really went easy (almost too easy)

Good luck,


Bob

P.S. I got my new floor in the other day and I'm starting on the lower pillars, lower kick panels and rocker install now. I'll be updating my build thread so will soon have lots of pics of all that.

[67c10rustbuket]

Looks like a big project, like bob said measure alot before cutting. Why not split the rear roof seam instead of the rear pillars again ? that way all the joints are original instead of guess work and measuring. Ive never done it just seems like it might work other than alot more welding and smoothing the seam all the way across the top and inside the cab.
im going to do it that way SOME DAY with a chop cause my donor roof is a big window and my cab is a small window, my small window is rotted through the drip rail so i am going to reroof it, tack it in place and then slice it back up and chop it. using some of the small window roof to fill in the center cross cuts off the roof. and take 3" out above the rear window instead of making the window even shorter.
but either way its definately doable with the right skills and lots of measurements and bracing where necessary. Theres plenty of parts truck cabs out there if you goof one up too so dig in.

[Shaky]

I didn't do anything that wild, but I did do this to fix a big dent in the top:

[twillie2460]

Well my truck has been put on hold for some time again as a huge tornado came thru town about 9 days ago and I have been trying to help out where ever I can. I been cutting down tress and moving rumble. It was a EF 5 and it tore the place up really bad and killed alot of people. It was so bad because it moved so slow thru town.

[mcbassin]

Originally Posted by twillie2460

Well my truck has been put on hold for some time again as a huge tornado came thru town about 9 days ago and I have been trying to help out where ever I can. I been cutting down tress and moving rumble. It was a EF 5 and it tore the place up really bad and killed alot of people. It was so bad because it moved so slow thru town.

I understand the tornado thing and the pics look real familiar. I have been through this, my brother in law lost everything one year ago. We spent three weeks straight on the clean up alone. Glad to hear you are pitching in. If you haven't seen the damage up close, pictures won't tell the whole story.

Look forward to progress on the cab.

[Shaky]

Brother - my heart goes out to the people in Joplin when I see the pictures of what happened. Best wishes for you and yours...

[POPO1984]

Best wishes to you and your Family in these hard times bro.

[Rob H.]

Atleast you're alive and still have a truck to put on hold! Glad to hear you're helping out, that is what makes a community strong, working together like that! Goodluck in all you do and keep safe!

[Classic Heartbeat]

I just can't believe the devistation you are going through. It has been a bad year for natural disasters.
wes

[Dieselwrencher]

I wouldn't worry about your cab due to your situation. I'd just keep doing what you're doing. Good luck man!

[bcutt]

My heart goes out to you!! I live in Ringgold GA and we were just hit by an EF4 tornado on April 27, wiped out our little downtown and killed 8 people but nothing on the scale of what you guys in Joplin are going through. I just found this post today and noticed you were from Joplin, MO before I started reading. I just kept thinking to myself as I was reading down "man he posted this before that tornado hit, I sure hope he is alright" Glad to hear you are okay man, keep on truckin

[67c10rustbuket]

hey, i didnt notice you're in joplin, it is a terrible thing to see all the damage from the tornado there and i feel for all the lost lives there , we had a few shortly after yours (im in OK)but it all went around me and we didnt have nearly the amount of lives lost as your state. thank you so much for helping others by giving your time to help. trucks are nothing when it comes down to it , helping your neighbors it what really matters. Thank you for helping your a great man.

[twillie2460]

Well now that most of the rumble from the EF5 has been moved out and we are now thru our 100 degree plus days I have started back on the rebuild. My frame has now been blasted and the first coat of POR-15 is going on. It gets me excited to know that it is time to start putting it all back together. Very soon my running gear goes back on plus I get to start buying parts, new brake lines, bushings, mounts stuff like that.

[mcbassin]

Looking good Man! Hear what you're saying about the heat!