First Build Thread! (picture heavy)

[TbirdIV]

Hello All, I've been lurking on the forums for a long time, and figure it's about time to start contributing some myself. I have a 1967 C10, base model that has had a heck of a life, My dad and I think it was a state truck based on the orange and the obscene amount of rust. It came with a three on the tree and an I-6 though those were long gone before we got a hold of it. It came to us with a shelled out (3-4 main bearings spun, several rod bearings spun, serious rust in cylinders, sat with no carb on it for several years...) 350 and a TH350, P.O. said "it made some noise when I parked it, still ran though..." and many, many shoddy repairs. It is also missing the box, it came with a wooden flatbed on it which was promptly removed.


How it came to us, on the back of a tow truck fresh outta the weeds


this is as it sat for the last year


Nasty rotted out fenders, and a surprisingly good cowl and grill.


Frame sans cab.


And, cab sans frame.


lots ‘o’ rot… riveted in patches seem to make things much worse.


rocker remains, these were patches, and they were held in by all of six rivets each, but that’s par for the course.


bracing in progress, cheapo harbor freight welder doesn’t make it any easier but you use what you’ve got.


Mo bracing.


one more


gross, but reasonably strong.


And there it is, no more floor! I just ran a sawzall across this, close the flange but being careful of the firewall braces. I’m currently in the process of drilling out all the spot-welds the remove any remains, then it’s on to fitting the new piece!


drilling spot-welds, using the harbor freight centerless cutter, it works well, cutting lube of some sort definitely helps with longevity, and my drill doesn’t always fit in there the best so I have to over cut a lot of them, but considering my plans I suppose that isn’t much of an issue.


So this is how it sits, hopefully with more to come this weekend. A big thanks to all the members on this board, Many of the builds on here have given inspiration and/or instruction that has already proven invaluable.

Wish me luck!

-TbirdIV

[Overdriven]

Those harbor freight welders aren't the best but you can get alongside them ok once you get used to them. Best thing I ever did when I still had mine was go to a solid core wire with shielding gas. The thinner wire made getting an arc going much easier and obviously without the clouds of vaporized flux.

She's pretty rough but you'll get there. Just keep plugging away at it.

[TbirdIV]

Hey overdriven, yeah, I looked in to that as well but unfortunately my welder is the bottom of the line, no gas conversion available that I could find. I did find a couple of recommendations on a better quality flux core wire though, I hear that it is much better laying than the harbor freight stuff. I bought a roll to try so we'll see. Otherwise, yeah she'll get there, like you said, I'll just keep plugging!

[Bomp]

Wow, admire your courage.
Along for the ride.
Not knocking HFT welders but keep an eye out for something more user friendly, will help greatly in the future.

Sub'd

[TbirdIV]

Thanks Bomp! means a lot coming from a guy who's making a stretch cab, i'd have to say that's a couple steps above my pay grade!
Anyways, I'm no big fan of the HF welder myself, it doesn't even cut power to the gun after you stop pulling the trigger, you have to be real careful where you set the thing down, and having all of two amperage settings isn't much of a boon either, coming from a nice miller auto-set mig back at the school it's a bit barbaric. But, it does the job, and once I have a few bucks lying around i'll start looking for a nicer machine.
Another thing, how sensitive is mig to wind? I have to do most of my work outdoors so that was a concern of mine, does porosity become more of an issue...?

[swamp rat]

I love watching total floor replacements! Keep up the good work!

[TbirdIV]

well, it's been slow going lately, just removing as much metal as i can with the sawzall since a neighbor has the air compressor. once i get that back i can finish drilling out spot welds and then it's on to fitting the floor. before I get too far into that though, i wanted to pick you all's brains.

I have a decent amount of rust under the dash, it doesn't seem like a structural area since most of the panels don't look to be welded in, but i would like to know how you have dealt with this area



this is the area directly under the cowl vent section, to the far left and right, the top of the image being the front of the cab.



a better image of some of the damage..

anyways, the metal seems to be rotted pretty thin in this area, since i can peel parts of it back by hand, and i figure this is the best time to deal with it since I have about as much access as I ever will. So, any recommendations?

Thanks!

-TbirdIV


P.S. saw a really cool Packard hearse at the Seward 4th of July show:

[Bomp]

While things are apart is as gooda time as any.
On wire feed outdoors. If its flux core you should be okay. Gas, I try an cup the weld area to keep the gas from blowing away.
I'm sure others will chime in on this.

Glad to see your addressing areas of concern now rather than "Not going to worry about it cause no one will see it".

[swamp rat]

What i have seen in past threads are 2 options, cut out the rotted metal, make a templet and hand hammer out a replacement piece using a sand bag and rubber mallet, weld it all together as one piece by removing the over lap, or 2 find someone that has a cab that they are selling rust repair sections, i have seen a few on the parts board, again cut out the bad, weld in the good, but chances of finding this section in that good of shape on a cab being sliced up is kinda rare..

The can of worms can be that to gain better access they removed the outer section by using a spot drill and drilled out some of the spot welds to the outside cowl section and cut it with a sabre saw. Welding upside down sucks, but you can rotate your cab being as its on the ground so maybe you can get it patched without removing the cowl section.

[TbirdIV]

Originally Posted by Bomp

While things are apart is as gooda time as any.
On wire feed outdoors. If its flux core you should be okay. Gas, I try an cup the weld area to keep the gas from blowing away.
I'm sure others will chime in on this.

Glad to see your addressing areas of concern now rather than "Not going to worry about it cause no one will see it".

Well, I’ll be getting there at least haha, it may be a couple months before I attack the cowl section though, I think I may go at it like mike shows in his post, I can’t find a good angle to get at it while the cab is on its back.

Originally Posted by swamp rat

What i have seen in past threads are 2 options, cut out the rotted metal, make a templet and hand hammer out a replacement piece using a sand bag and rubber mallet, weld it all together as one piece by removing the over lap, or 2 find someone that has a cab that they are selling rust repair sections, i have seen a few on the parts board, again cut out the bad, weld in the good, but chances of finding this section in that good of shape on a cab being sliced up is kinda rare..

The can of worms can be that to gain better access they removed the outer section by using a spot drill and drilled out some of the spot welds to the outside cowl section and cut it with a sabre saw. Welding upside down sucks, but you can rotate your cab being as its on the ground so maybe you can get it patched without removing the cowl section.

unfortunately I think removing the cowl may be the easiest option, there isn't much of an easy way to get to this area from the underside.

So, anyways, I finally have some updates on the build, or at least some time to write it all down.


It’s been pretty hot the last few weeks so I commandeered my parent’s tent thing, makes for a nice place to work on the truck. Anyways, I worked on getting the cab ready to accept the new floor for about a week, patching the cab to floor braces, cleaning out the flanges and getting them primed.









I did get some new flux core wire, it seemed to help some with burn through though it still had some porosity problems, nothing that I’m too concerned about for body work and small repairs, but I am borrowing my Girlfriend’s Father’s welder for the structural stuff, a small Hobart mig.



not coming out too badly



Penetration wasn’t too great though, ended up switching to the “high amperage” setting, it helped some, though again I wouldn’t use this for much in the way of structural welding.



ground out, cut our next piece to be replaced



yay butt weld clamps!



this side is done, on to the next





POR 15 is some crazy stuff, I’m a believer. it hardens like a rock and I would assume seals things up pretty nicely. I figure anywhere I have a non-welded joint I’ll give this stuff a shot, I never want to cut into this thing again to mess with rust.

I’m very glad I started with the floor though, this is the first patch work I have ever done and I am fairly pleased with it, plus it gives me a chance to learn on some non-critical parts, hopefully the bodywork goes as well.



this stuff works wonders, though I think I will invest in a bottle of picklex 20 soon, I don’t particularly want to buy 20 cans of the one-step, while it works great it seems better suited to small areas.



ground all the soon to be mated areas clean, hit them with one step to kill any remaining rust in the pinholes.



I also found out that epoxy primer will eat lesser plastic cups… dad wasn’t too pleased with the stain on the driveway.





everything in epoxy!



on to the good stuff! Pulled out the tri-plus floor pan, looks gorgeous compared to what was in the cab, very pleased with it so far, though it is definitely not perfect.



lining it up!





and…





…wait for your friends to show up, ‘cuz this thing is heavy and it doesn’t go in without a little convincing






…but,




The money shot! It’s in boys and girls!!
Still needs a lot of tweaking before it’s ready to weld but I gotta say I’m pretty pumped!!



one more for good measure!

That’s one heck of a hurdle for me, It feels real good to have a big hunk of good, solid sheetmetal sitting in the cab, hopefully it starts to go a bit more down hill from here! still a bunch of work to do, but it’s (almost) a structurally sound cab again!!

In other news, I got most of my stuff moved back up to SD over the weekend for college, and unfortunately updates will be a little slower during the school year, I can’t quite drive back 8 hours to work on the truck, as much as I’d like to. I did bring up the drivers side fender to work on so it won’t be completely abandoned! I also worked on my boss’s daughter’s first car some during the week, an ’87 el camino (color me jealous…) I put some cavalier buckets in it, bolted right up to the factory brackets with a little bit of tweaking, and also adjusted the kickdown and some other minor stuff…

ANyWaYs! Thanks for the advice, and keep on truckin!

[swamp rat]

Good luck with school and don't loose the drive for getting this thing finished! Nice work on the floor.

[GR8-68]

Looking good, good to see someone this young trying every effort to do it correctly. Keep it up and keep showing us these pics