Wampus Cat

[TxCajun]

I've now got the truck running and driving. I've driven up and down my 100' driveway several times, and also ventured out in my rural neighborhood for test drives, but I have to get the windshield installed so that I can get the state inspection and liccense plates. Before that, I have to fix the rust around the windshield frame and in the inner/outer roof panels above the windshield.

I removed the outer roof panel and discovered that it appears to have been removed at some time in the past. Instead of being held in place with a whole bunch of spot welds, it appears to have been spot brazed at about 3" to 6” spacing. The rain gutter appears to have been refilled with fiberglass resin which was brittle and cracked, thus making water ingress and rust worse. I also discovered a couple rodent nests, the results of a can or two of expanding insulation foam, and some window-screen/bondo patches.

I purchased another roof fairly cheap on Craiglist near San Antonio. It has it's own share of rust problems, and is not good enough to do a full replacement swap, but that swap would be beyond my fab/weld capabilities anyway. My current plan is to use parts of the second roof as patch panels on the truck. I'll clean up all of the rust, prime, and paint.

After the rust repair, I'm leaning towards bonding on the outer roof panel using 3M structural panel bond adhesive rather than spot welding it on. There are some posts in this forum and other places on line that make this bonding method look like an interesting alternative to spot welds for this outer roof panel application.