Working Man's Burbon

[HO455]

Originally Posted by BAD1916

That came out looking great. I need to do the same repair on mine as well.

Thank you. Here's a shot after some clean up and paint. Black wasn't the best color for the camera. I didn't grind I completely flat for fear of weakening the welds.

The other weld task was to tack weld the nuts to the back of the plates that hold the 2nd row seat back latches. When I built the plates I hadn't thought the whole assembly process through completely. Adding the wood side panels prevented me from reaching the nuts that attach the latches to plates.

I did think to put some insulation in the void space behind the wood panels. It's 1/2" (I think) Styrofoam with foil backing. I hope the foil will help keep the truck cooler inside. And maybe it will help quiet some of the roar. With no panels or carpet in the back It's not exactly quiet inside.

And a BIG shout of thanks to all around good guy Richard2717 for hooking me up with the brackets that the wood panels will attach to. (Yellow arrows in last photo point to a pair of them) Most of mine were missing.

['68OrangeSunshine]

I need to score a pair of those Squarebody Burban #2 Seat lockback latches as seen in Post #1101, pix #2 + 3.
I have the split back folding seats, just need to find a way to set them up in White Fang. 2'' Body Lift and drop the rear seat area floor pan 2'' so it rides flush.

[HO455]

Although the squarebody Burban's are getting harder to find in the wrecking yards those rear seat latches are almost always still in them. Which good for you.

Here's a picture of the rest of the brackets Richard2717 provided me and a shot of the insulation installation.

I delayed installing the lock sets as I wanted to replace them at the same time as I recovered the door panels. The fabric installed on the door panels was showing its age. I wanted to just replace it same for same but that fabric was no longer available. So after much looking I finally settled on some fabric which is supposed to be rated for use on outdoor furniture. Thus UF resistant and water proof. We'll see.

I also went with a 1/4 inch foam for padding instead of the polyester batting the PO used. The batting worked ok but it every time you removed the screws on the bottom there was always long threads of it wrapped around the screws and sometimes when installing the screws the threads would get jammed up with the material and you had to remove them and cut the batting off and start again.

When I stripped the old fabric off the panels I found the batting had been glued down with contact cement and was difficult to clean off. (Photo #2) I'm by no means an expert on upholstery but I don't recommend the use of batting in this application. Where's Grumpy when you need him? I used 1/4" foam padding when I reassembled the panels.

Once the panels were cleaned up I wire brushed the small areas of rust and treated those areas with Ospho. Once treated and neutralized I spot painted the areas and it was time to start in with the new.

Once again to be clear I am not an upholstery person and only know what I think I know from a book the wife has and from things on the interweb. This video was really helpful for me. I liked the lack of narration and to just watch the technics used was great for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCT86sd37g4

Used a commercial upholstery spray contact cement (Tensorgrip P300) to glue the panels together it was expensive but it was really nice to work with. Very controllable when spraying compared to the regular 3M hardware store stuff. Which was nice as I was able to keep from getting glue on things I didn't want glue on.

The process for me was to cut the foam slightly oversized (1/4 to 3/8") as I found that it was easier to trim the foam on an angle with an Exacto knife when I had that extra bit of foam to pull on as I slid the knife on the foam. I discovered that it took a new blade on each panel as the foam takes the edge off the blade and the foam starts to rip and not cut cleanly. (Photo #3) I would spray glue on the panel and the foam and lay foam on the panel followed by triming the foam to the exact size, as well as cutting the holes for the door handles and window regulators. I used a different technique to make the holes for the mount screws which I will cover later.