The English are coming! Or..another C10 in the Motherland.

[ibrown50]

That turned out really well Paul , love the fixture, simple but very effective.

[Paul Y]

Originally Posted by Waynesworld

Hello Paul!

Repair looking good! Less than a week until I head to Seattle and pick up mine! Getting excited!

A quick question, what did you do about headlights? Can they be swapped for a standard Lucas unit? Same as on an old spitfire/mini etc?

Cheers

Danny

Sounds exciting Danny, make sure you provide the adoring throng with pictorial evidence.

Will drop out the the garage later and give you the part numbers I used, still have the boxes with the original units in.

P.

[Waynesworld]

Cheers Paul,
I'll start a thread this weekend,will be cool to upload some pics of it when I collect it!

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Waynesworld

Cheers Paul,
I'll start a thread this weekend,will be cool to upload some pics of it when I collect it!

Welcome to by far the best resource on these trucks.

I can tell you mate, people mock me for taking photos but they are both a record and evidence of stuff done.

I see these build threads, like Pauls one here and guys like Markeb01 as a testbed and turorial for the rest of us.

I hope you will tell us about your past history with pictorial evidence too.

Garage time now.

[Paul Y]

Right!

Phase 2, in which my Cajones grow to the size of Cantaloupes as I use the awesome power of Mr Grinder and Mrs Welder….

After sitting on my favourite milk crate for a good 45 minutes I reconsidered my cut line as I wanted to make sure that the join for the B pillar and the cab skin did not over lap - not sure if it is relevant but it just sort of seemed like a good idea.



With the panel mocked up, securely bolted to the sill I took another 45 minutes looking, measuring and taking deep breaths until I could feel the power emanating from my loins reach sufficient levels to make the final cut…



Held in place with the finest Unicorn Poop - and a pair of dodgy mole grips and a panel clamp… Quite pleased…



Managed to tighten the gaps up a bit by moving the pillar up on the bolts. but not before I checked that the sill panel fitted.

New



Old



VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!

And here it is all stuck together with more Unicorn Poop and Rainbow Kisses….



Little bit more grinding will get that looking lovely…



And the Money Shot…



Have to thank everyone for their encouragement and advice on undertaking what, for me anyway, was a pretty major task. Having got this bit in I am feeling rather good - think it is time for a celebratory beer and the 50th Episode of RoadKill!

Hope to get the cab panel all sorted over the weekend, but things change rapidly here at Chez Y so we will see.

BAM!

P.

[mjh1965]

That looks really good Paul . Well done

[60chevyjim]

your making good progress !!

[Grizz1963]

Well, at this rate, you may have a list of trucks to weld on soon.

Nice job.

[Johnny_Lamebridge]

Nice job on the door jamb. You made it look easy!

Good to have the advice of an experienced bodyman like 60chevyjim.

[Paul Y]

I never knew that body work was so mentally and physically taxing… I am knackered.

Right, lets pick this up from Saturday morning. The rather wonderful Lady P told me that it was pointless spending a week of nights getting the repair finished, and the knock on effect this had on my working week, why didn't I just spend the weekend finishing it off? I was quick to take full advantage of this but not before I had procured 2 bottles of a rather nice white to ensure that the path to the shed was properly…lubricated..

I know I have said this before but this was the hardest cut I have made to date.



I ummed and ahhed on this one for ages. Do I make a smaller cut and leave the slightly crumpled area or bite the bullet and chop it all out to the good.

Suppose that picture answers that one!

With the cut made I trimmed down the last bit of Martins truck to fit the hole.



Problem was I couldn't get it to fit as I wanted it.

There was too big a gap around the top and getting the swage line to line up around the back of the cab was causing all sorts of issues



Martins panel had some fairly heavy rust issues at the cab bottom and Woodys bottom was a bit beaten and full of filler (narf narf) so I decided to make that repair once I had everything else done as it would/should be easier to melt them together once everything else was lined up. More of that later…

More pushing and more cutting



but still not happy until I just decided to drill a few holes and use self tappers to hold it in place whilst I tacked it together.



Still not perfect but getting there



Nearly!

They say that out of the mouths of Babes and Children comes forth truth…

Well after sitting looking at the pigs ear I had made of cutting the panel and still not getting it to fit, my youngest son ventured forth into the night with a beer and stern words from Lady P that I was taking the P at 10.30pm. His comment? I’ll hold, it you tack it.



And just like that it all lined up! Sure the Beer helped….



Fast forward to this evening because I am fairly sure you are all bored with my ramblings may I present…



All buzzed in. I knew it was time to call it quits as the more astute amongst you will notice the rather odd pattern to the welds on the lower repair patch… Yup, forgot to turn the gas on…

Gap pretty good.



Still got to finish off the bottom and tidy up the sill ahead of putting that patch in but quite please compared to what was there before…





Bit annoyed with myself that I warped the top of the panel (will be hidden behind the bed) but,if I had paid to have the work done, there would have been a layer of Glenn Miller over it and I would never have known.

At my work rate I hope to have this all finished by Tuesday evening at which time I will stop boring you all with this particular stage of body work and go back to talking about interesting stuff.

So, on that bomb shell…Goodnight!!

P.

Just noticed that this is my 400th post - time to go and enjoy the other bottle of that rather good white!

[Paul Y]

Originally Posted by Johnny_Lamebridge

Nice job on the door jamb. You made it look easy!

Good to have the advice of an experienced bodyman like 60chevyjim.

Johnny,

If a Hamm fisted Luddite such as I can do it then anyone can!

I did thank Jim privately for his words and encouragement, without it I feel that I would not have been quite as brave.

Hows your truck coming along? Recovered from your daughters wedding yet?

P.

[ibrown50]

Nice job Paul, massive improvement.

[Grizz1963]

APPROVED.

[Palf70Step]

Very nice....

You aren't the only one that did the welding with the gas off. I did not find out real quick either why my welds looked like crap.

[Paul Y]

You may think that your car is relatively rot free but, nobody really knows until they play…

The Knot Wheel of Truth!(™)



( a bit like Wonder Womans ‘Lasso of Truth’ But without Linda Vaughn…and the shorts…and Boobs)

As I had stripped out the interior- well as much as there is- to perform the repairs above - I decided that a quick run over with ‘The Knot Wheel of Truth’ (™) was in order to knock off the ‘surface’ rust and dirt accumulated over the years before treating with a layer of Schutz to help protect and reduce the noise level in Woodys cab.

Looks good…



Now, I already knew about this -




- on the drivers side toe board but ‘The Knot Wheel of Truth’ highlighted a few other issues…

This on the bottom of the ‘A’ pillar



A number of ‘pin holes’



And a corresponding bit of Frilly on the passengers side toe board



(That is a shadow by the way - just looked at the picture and had to go back out to the shed to check as gave myself a fright!)

So…All in all not so bad, in fact a lot better than I was expecting for a 50 year old ex service truck.

Question is… On the ‘pin holes’ the surrounding metal is pretty good, not soft and took a fairly good beating from a pair of scissors I happened to have to hand.

Would you cut it out or spot repair it with weld and grinding? It is the area under the drivers heel below the accelerator pedal.

Using only the highest quality CAD




I used some of the removed panels to shape this.



To repair the ‘A’ Pillar. No picture of the finished item but looks pretty good.

Toe board was repaired in an equally ‘Womble’ way

Cut Cut



( I tacked the bolt on there to give me something to hold whilst positioning the patch and also somewhere to stick the earth)

Buzz Buzz



Quite pleased with that.

Running out of time to patch up the passenger side I decided to finish off the ‘B’ Pillar



And throw some red oxide at the back of the cab.



The sins can now be seen in all their glory…An appointment with Mr Millar will be forth coming soon.

Next will be to repair the passengers side, fix the pin holes (method dependant on advice) then a skim of seam sealer, paint and seal the floor, and move on to the next thing on the list.

P.

[Grizz1963]

Knot wheel of Ooohh Sh1T.

How I deal with pin holes.

Note: I did try to weld the tinfoil thin metal, unsuccessfully.

Calling Mr Grinder....







Ending there......

[60chevyjim]

Paul you did a nice job on the cab corner repair .
it looks 100% better than it did before and you are learning
that you can do it your self and save a lot of $$$ .
and it feels good when you can look at it and say I did it myself .

[mjh1965]

Looking good paul .

[Johnny_Lamebridge]

Give yourself a pat on the back! The cab corner repair looks great. Floor repair too.

[clemdaddy]

Way to go Paul. Time well spent. Feels pretty good huh?

[djones1a]

Looks good,well done.I think you would have found that if you would have cut the cab corner of the on the flat area in the back instead of getting into the contour it would have lined up easier.

[Paul Y]

Originally Posted by djones1a

Looks good,well done.I think you would have found that if you would have cut the cab corner of the on the flat area in the back instead of getting into the contour it would have lined up easier.

As I have been know to say many times in my day job...Experiance...something you get 15 minutes after you really need it...

Completely agree on the cut. My thinking was that I could loose the join in the pressing. But, as the panel is behind the bed and so unseen, it was a bit of a mistake.

Never mind, will know for the next time!

P.

[Paul Y]

Originally Posted by clemdaddy

Way to go Paul. Time well spent. Feels pretty good huh?

It certainly does Clem!

P.

[ibrown50]

I too have a knot wheel of truth, but recently I have wished I didn't . Cab corner came out great. Have you tried welding over a piece of copper for the pin holes? push a drill through the hole so you've a nice hole to weld, put the piece of copper on the back of the hole and then plug weld.

[Paul Y]

Originally Posted by ibrown50

I too have a knot wheel of truth, but recently I have wished I didn't . Cab corner came out great. Have you tried welding over a piece of copper for the pin holes? push a drill through the hole so you've a nice hole to weld, put the piece of copper on the back of the hole and then plug weld.

Have to admit Ian that since finding out about the copper backing it is a go too tool when I am welding. Really helps.

I have a 2" copper pipe that I have hammered flat, find that I can then bend the ends over to make a handle or for those harder to reach bits.

Yours is coming on nicely.

P.