1966 F100 Short Bed Styleside Metal/Body/Paint Work

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

dang John...that epoxy looks as good as paint

While it's still wet, yeah. It's a different story when it dries, seems to show up the imperfections a lot better dry

Originally Posted by Russell Ashley

You have a keen eye for detail. Things like that distortion between spot welds are things that I just think of as being the way they are built, and don't really notice it. Now I'm going to go look at my 96 Silverado and see if I notice imperfections that I never noticed before.

Don't do it! Get a set of blinders, just look straight through the windshield and enjoy driving it, it all goes downhill once you start noticing defects!

[ajgriffin]

Hope your parents continue through to a full recovery 🙏🏾

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by ajgriffin

Hope your parents continue through to a full recovery 🙏🏾

X2, covid is nothing to mess with......

[mongocanfly]

X3...I missed the part where your folks had the coronas...glad they're doing better

[jhrusk]

I hope your parents continue to improve John. Truck looks amazing.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by ajgriffin

Hope your parents continue through to a full recovery 🙏🏾

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

X2, covid is nothing to mess with......

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

X3...I missed the part where your folks had the coronas...glad they're doing better

Originally Posted by jhrusk

I hope your parents continue to improve John. Truck looks amazing.

Appreciate the comments! Both are doing much better. Dad is still "running our of gas" as he says about midday but is otherwise doing well. Mom is pretty much 100% now.

[mongocanfly]

Good to hear..!!!!

[Ol Blue K20]

Yes, very nice to hear!

[theastronaut]

Now that my fingertips have grown back enough to type out an update... This is the real reason shaved firewalls are so popular lol.

I finished skimming and correcting the distortion in the firewall, then shot it with a few coats of Clausen All-U-Need. I've been wanting to try it since it's waterproof and is supposed to sand easier than Slick Sand, which I believe it does now that I have some experience with it.














The top section and it's flange was sanded flat up to 150 grit, keeping the edge of the paper slightly off the edge of the block to not sand into the corner and cut a sharp edge.




Guide coat applied, then the corner was sanded with a Durablock with a corner rounded to the correct diameter. Tape was used on the upper half of the block to keep the block from digging into the section that was already flat. Just the radius is shaped this way.





I blocked the tops of the raised stampings first, using a block wide enough to cover the areas where a section split off when applicable to keep the two sections on the same plane. The inner flat sections were next, same approach using custom cut blocks to leave the corners untouched, then the inside corners were shaped after the inner flat was fully flattened. Forgot to get pics of all that.




Brake brace details. I sanded the flats first, scribed a line of where I wanted the corner to start, masked on the line, then rounded the corner evenly top to bottom.










Some of the inside corners had large radii so I sanded a short durablock to the correct shape and used it to sand the corner.






The raised area around the heater box had four flat spots so those were blocked first, then guide coat applied and the outside corners blocked until they rounded into the flats evenly.

[theastronaut]

Same process on all of the random shapes.










Top edge and corners of cowl masked on the flat then blocked out to establish a consistent starting point for the edge radius.






Lower seam lip blocked straight.




With the shaping finished I shot a couple coats of black SPI epoxy to seal up the areas that were low and needed filler, and to make the surface somewhat reflective so imperfections could be addressed. Some of the lower areas have 80g stratches showing and weird sanding patterns; those areas will be hidden under the inner fenders and shot with Raptor Liner later on so they were only quickly sanded for adhesion, not to correct their shape. The gloss level of the epoxy will really help with being able to spot fix the areas that need touching up, then shooting a few light coats of red epoxy so it's ready to wetsand and paint.


















Back of the cab stripped and shot with epoxy. I left the drip rails and the cab corners bare since I'll be reworking those areas when fitting the doors.

[mongocanfly]

Unbelievable amount of detail work you put in the firewall..
I dont know why, guess I'm just weird, but I like the look of a factory stamped firewall and all the details of highs and lows over the slick/shaved firewalls

[Ol Blue K20]

Looks like perfection, you have a lot of patience...

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Looks like perfection, you have a lot of patience...

x2. What he said....

[Russell Ashley]

You have patience and skills. When it's finished I hope you or the owner takes this truck to a show and parks it next to an original one so people can see the difference.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Awesome work John!

[67C10Step]

Super work, but I've come to expect nothing less.

Your comments on the shine of the SPI epoxy made me smile. When I shot it on my rear step fenders I noticed a couple small places that will need addressing before I move forward with them come paint time. I thought those suckers were flawless until then. Nothing major, but a few small places you can now see.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Unbelievable amount of detail work you put in the firewall..
I dont know why, guess I'm just weird, but I like the look of a factory stamped firewall and all the details of highs and lows over the slick/shaved firewalls

Same, most shaved firewalls are visually boring. I've seen some that are shaved but have detail added back with a beadroller or Pullmax that look really good.

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Looks like perfection, you have a lot of patience...

Originally Posted by SCOTI

x2. What he said....

Too much patience

Originally Posted by Russell Ashley

You have patience and skills. When it's finished I hope you or the owner takes this truck to a show and parks it next to an original one so people can see the difference.

There are a couple of big F100 shows in Tennessee, we'll try to make it to them next summer.

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

Awesome work John!

Thanks Jesse!

Originally Posted by 67C10Step

Super work, but I've come to expect nothing less.

Your comments on the shine of the SPI epoxy made me smile. When I shot it on my rear step fenders I noticed a couple small places that will need addressing before I move forward with them come paint time. I thought those suckers were flawless until then. Nothing major, but a few small places you can now see.

Thanks!! It's really helpful for spotting imperfections, before or after sanding it. It doesn't need a guidecoat since it's so glossy.

[theastronaut]

I did a quick/light blocking with 220 on the areas that were already pretty good, and 180/220 on a few spots that needed a little more flattening. 3-4 spots needed a small amount of filler, and it was ready for the last coats of epoxy to seal it and make it ready for wetsanding and paint.






I mixed in a bit of red epoxy on the first coat, then shot two more coats of black epoxy. When I wetsand it to prep for sealer/paint I don't want to sand through the epoxy layer, so I'll be able to stop sanding if I start seeing the red tinted layer.





Checking the reflection for imperfections while it was still wet. That's the look of a man who's happy to be finished sanding such a detailed panel.






The vid shows how flat each facet is.

[youtube]5ye5g4ZEjvw[/youtube]


The blocks used, plus the PVC tube with slots cut to make it flexible for the double concave area on the back of the cab above the rear window.

[theastronaut]

With the firewall finished, I moved on to assembling the panels to start correcting panel fit and gaps. I mounted the cab back on the frame along with the front clip after blasting the header panel and doing a bit of initial straightening on the inner fenders. The fenders and radiator support are aftermarket and the fit so far is really good, I haven't had to do any cutting, bending, or slotting of holes to get them to bolt together.




The new hood hinges held me up from getting the hood mounted. The old hinges were super worn and sloppy so the hood would never stay in alignment if they were reused, and reproductions were available. Their fit left a lot to be desired... with the mounting flange flat against the firewall the lower mounting hole was off by half of the bolt diameter.




Tilting the hinge to show how far the flange needed to be bent to align the lower mounting hole.




When the two bolt holes on the main flange were lined up the inner mounting flange was also off; not just width-wise but the shape of the flange didn't match the angle of the firewall.








The curved lip on the back side of the inner flange interfered with the lip on the firewall so I reshaped it and ground it back to fit better, and so the edge had a shape that flowed better.




After about 40 trips between the firewall and vise to tweak the flanges into shape the hinge finally fit flat against the firewall and all four bolt holes were in pretty good alignment. Now when the bolts are tightened the flanges won't pull or twist the firewall out of shape, and won't chip the paint from the edges digging in.








Same process on the other side.

[aggie91]

Really nice work. The time it take to do all the adjustments for fit are well worth it in the end.

But, I think you need a few more sanding blocks..lol

[Ol Blue K20]

Nice work as usual!

[theastronaut]

Long winded hood hinge updat, I'll break it up into a few posts. The reproduction hinges ended up not working out once the hood was bolted on. Long list of problems with them-

1: The joints were too tight. I had to use a 24" adjustable wrench slipped over the flange that bolts to the hood to get the hinges to open and close, even with the spring off.

2: The individual arms are thinner and flexed easily which let the hood shift from side to side.

3: Each hinge angled outward front to rear by 5-7 degrees, so with the hood bolted on the already stiff joints were then in a bind from the joints on both sides not hinging parallel to each other. The thin and flexy arms somewhat minimized this problem This also made the flanges that bolt to the hood misaligned with the holes in the hood.

4: The passenger side hinge wouldn't fully drop as far as it should, so the back edge of the hood was kicked up above the cowl.

5: The joints were eating themselves. I cycled the hinges a few hundred times with the 24" wrench hoping they would "wear in" and loosen up, periodically adding oil to the joints to flush out the metal shavings that were building up. They eventually loosened up some but not enough.

6: The supplied springs were barely capable of holding the hood open, and not able to hold the hood all the way open. The hood has a section cut out at the very front for rust repair, no emblem, and the paint is stripped so it's lighter than a finished/painted hood. The friction in the joints were the main factor in the hood barely staying up. A full weight hood wouldn't have a chance at staying open.

7: The stops that set how far the hood opens were not shaped correctly.

[mongocanfly]

WOW...that is pretty bad..I'm sure you got a clever solution though

[theastronaut]

After searching the Ford truck forum for hood hinge info it seemed like the hinge rebuilding companies that others had used in the past were no longer willing to rebuild this style of F100 hinges, I think due to the hinge pin's rectangle shaped end that is used to rivet the pin in place. So, armed with the Atlas lathe and Bridgeport I set off to rebuild them myself.

I'm not a machinist, and certainly not very educated on how to properly use a lathe or milling machine... anything I've done with the lathe until now was just to rough out parts with no real need for precision. Preparing to make the lathe work correctly and then learning to use it somewhat correctly involved binge watching mrpete222, This Old Tony, and Blondihacks on youtube. The Atlas lathe was in desperate need of a tune up to make accurate parts; nothing was worn, whoever had it before us never really set it up correctly. None of the gibs were adjusted so there was play in everything. Eventually with considerable trial and error I figured out how to make a hinge pin.


I bought a Columbian 506 M2 vise awhile back but hadn't mounted it yet, so I went ahead and did that to hold the main hinge frame during the rebuild process.





I also recently found and bought an old Delta carbide grinder so I could shape and sharpen my own hss lathe bits and tune up the brazed carbide tools that came with the lathe. This would come in handy on the longer pin that the spring is hung from.




Once back to the shop I started cleaning it to see if I could get it back down the the original paint. I'll get around to cleaning up the rest of it eventually.








I checked the hinges on the parts truck and they were tighter than the original pair so I started with those.




The arms fit flat against each other, which creates wear and friction. I addressed this during the rebuild.





I carefully ground down the riveted end of the pins, and used the mill in the tighter areas where the grinder wouldn't fit.




Pressing out the pins.




Tons of wear and gouging. The metal was deeply pitted, likely from the metal galling.










The link between the two main arms was thick enough to rub both arms, removing the coating and causing friction.




The measurements show how worn the parts were.

[mongocanfly]

I just knew you had a John fix for those..!...love some machine shop action
Is your arbor press bolted down?..I flipped a 5 ton arbor at work awhile back,, pulled the anchor bolts up outta the concrete.. yeah it broke the ratchet and handle off