'67 C10 Shorty Stepside

[RWB-713]

Originally Posted by Chev71

Good progress man, I'll be following for sure
Hey just wondering. Won't the front lower part of the cab bend since you don't have the lower part of the pillar for support? I would tack something on their so it won't warp, but then again idk lol
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I both think and hope it's ok, that foresight wasn't there when the cutting wheel came out, and it's sat like that for years now.... so what's done is done . I think since most of the inside kick panel and dash is still there, it'll be alright. At least that's just the thought I'm going with until I come to the point where I found out I screwed up. I appreciate the heads up tho!

[Chev71]

No problem man, just lookin out. Just make sure the doors square up you'll have fun with the rest I'm sure hehe
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[RWB-713]

Some progress was made over the last week. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I felt it was worth an update. I got the kick panels, door pillar, rear floorplan & inner rocker, and rocker panel all welded on the passenger side. I had mentioned to 69swb in his build thread about the issues I had with the jack dimple area, which, as you can see in these pics, didn't line up perfect, partly because of the differences in stampings of the patch panel, and partly because I had to cut a piece out of the the adjoining panel for the rear floor, a very very slim piece, which made it difficult to fit in. None the less, I used some careful grinding & a gentle body hammer to get it close enough to be acceptable I think, i'm not 100% done with it yet, but I left it as is for the moment.

[RWB-713]

I also hung the door to make sure my cab hadn't warped or shifted since i let it sit for so long with the pillar cut out (as Chev71 pointed out). All the gaps came out good, and the dorr shuts nice and smooth, so I think it's OK! project is still a go lol. I found out that my door wasn't entirely straight, about the front 4" of the lower front corner is slightly messed up, but it's not a super hard fix.

I Also made some progress with that nasty spot on the roof. Again, some work left to do there, but it's coming along much better than it was when I started on it a couple years back.

The next couple weeks is a very busy time of year for me, so I probably won't make a whole lot of progress, but I'll hit it hard again after the new year, lot's of boxes headed my way via the brown truck in the next couple weeks , so i'll have plenty to look forward to!

[~Whitey~]

My cab corners from GMCPauls are coming in today.. So hopefully by this weekend I'll be hanging a door and checking the gaps. I was wondering what you're going to do with that seam that runs along the rear part of the outside roof. Do you plan on just smoothing that all out? Do people do that or is that a no no?

Can't wait to see some more progress pics.

[RWB-713]

Originally Posted by 69swb

My cab corners from GMCPauls are coming in today.. So hopefully by this weekend I'll be hanging a door and checking the gaps. I was wondering what you're going to do with that seam that runs along the rear part of the outside roof. Do you plan on just smoothing that all out? Do people do that or is that a no no?

Can't wait to see some more progress pics.

Yeah, just gonna smooth it out all the way across, i was planning on doing that before i realized i was going to have to cut through it. I think it'll add a nice, subtle, steamline look to the back of the cab. I hope it's a not a no no, lol, i can't see why it would really cause any issues.

I'll definately check your pics out and see how those corners fit, I ended up using the ones I had gotten quite a while ago from LMC ( Ithink?), which as I Mentioned, were from a completely different Manuf. But knowing that GMC Pauls has good stuff will be nice for the memory bank.

I've made a little progress since the last update, but nothing picture worthy. I own a ski & snowboard shop, and as you can imagine, Christmas & the couple weeks around it allow me very little free time. But it's starting to settle back down now so hopefully I'll be back at it in full force pretty quick!

[~Whitey~]

I think I'm gonna do the same.. It will sure look better in my opinion. I just didn't know if there were any kind of flexing issues between the top and back of cab that would cause any filler used there to crack... probably would be best to fill/level it with seam sealer and sand that down since you have to seam seal it anyway. then use a small amount of body filler to smooth it out. I guess I'll ad that to my ever growing list of things to research.

[RWB-713]

That was my plan too, I hadn't quite got to the research section for that task yet. Let me know if you find anything vital.

[RWB-713]

Got a few nights of work in over the last two weeks, made some forward progress, and a suprise rust discovery that resulted in backward progress .

I got the passenger side cab corner welded up, after making a bonehead cut on a cab corner i've had forever (measure once, cut twi..... oh wait),I decided to order a new one from LMC and start over. Well, that turned out to be just as bad of an idea. The cab corner's LMC sells now are not correct at all, 69swb also ran into the same problem with the same corners, so it wasn't just the one I got. They seem like they're alright, but the lines and distances between the corner contour are off just enough to make them junk really. I've lost faith in LMC's sheetmetal now, as I was skeptical before even. From what I've found, it seems Tabco may be the way to go from now on. End Result, I ended up using the orginal cab corner I had from a ways back, and just fabbing up a piece to compensate for my mistake. I'll get a picture of how it turned out in the future, I took some, but they turned out bad and you can't really see anything.

I made some filler/delete panels for all the holes in the dash I plan to smooth out. Heater Controls, Dash speaker, Defroster vents, and the wing vents in the Kick Panels. I had to do that stuff to take a break from Rust repair, and I find that form of sheetmetal work SO much more bearable, and kinda of a relief from the tedious norm of rust repair.

[RWB-713]

aaaaaannndd... On to the backward step. I discovered some rust I had missed where the dash meets the winshield seal area. I looked across the forum and found it to be a rather common problem, that I feel there is no awesome fix for.

The major problem area is the passenger side, the driver side is showing signs too, but nothing near as bad as the passenger side. I chipped the rust out of the area on the pass side with a screwdriver & chisle and was trying to find a way to fix the area in a decent way without removing the whole dash. Well... i picked up some carbide bits for my die grinder so I could work in the tight area, but as i went to work on it, I found further rusting down the side of the dash, between the area where the dash bolts to the cab. I pondered half-assing a fix & ignoring the parts I couldn't get to, but my conscience got the best of me (Good thing) and I couldn't let that happen. So out the dash came, and exposed became some pretty bad rust. So all in all, I'm glad I pulled the dash, even tho I felt it was a daunting task.

It turned out it wasn't THAT bad, 6 bolts and 15-20 spot welds on the winshield seam, I just hope everything goes back in as easy as it came out.

Anyway, this is pretty much were it sits now, I started a littled bit of cleanup tonight, but nothing quite picture worthy just yet.

[Portmod7]

Nice! You and a lot of the guys on here make me feel like a big weenie, I copped out on a lot of rust work on mine. Keep it up, ought to be pretty nice and solid when you get done.
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[67cheby]

great progress on the rust repair !

[RWB-713]

Originally Posted by 67cheby

great progress on the rust repair !

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Portmod7

Nice! You and a lot of the guys on here make me feel like a big weenie, I copped out on a lot of rust work on mine. Keep it up, ought to be pretty nice and solid when you get done.
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Hahaha, when you don't plan on painting your truck, and it's got a nice old aged look & feel to it that is basically impossible to replicate, it's dern near impossible to fix alot of the rusted areas buddy! At least you got the floor taken care of, that's a big one!

[~Whitey~]

You're making some great progress. I wish I had never read the part of about the dash! I'm gonna have to check mine out now. ugh.

I really like how your smoothing the dash and what you did on the firewall... I want to do the same but I also want heat. :-/

keep up the great work. It's inspiring!

[RWB-713]

Originally Posted by 69swb

You're making some great progress. I wish I had never read the part of about the dash! I'm gonna have to check mine out now. ugh.

I really like how your smoothing the dash and what you did on the firewall... I want to do the same but I also want heat. :-/

keep up the great work. It's inspiring!

Yeah, it's definately not something you want to find, it's an intimidating fix too. I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya! On the optimistic side, it's makes it a whole lot easier to work on the inside of the firewall , and I think i'm gonna hold off on puttin it back in for a bit. I have been planning to spray the back wall / floor / inside firewall with the same liner I'm gonns use on the underside (Al's), and not having that dash there will make that a whole lot easier, and allow me to get into tighter areas for better coverage.

Thanks! I'm in a great debate on what to do with the heater control location, I had thought about putting 2 2-1/16" gauges there, but I might leave it smooth, i can't decide if it's going to look too "empty" with all that open area or not, and there's probably a few other things that run through my head every now and then, but nothing life changing yet, good thing I have time to think about it! I hear ya on the heat thing, it has always been my plan to get rid of it all and have sort of a "bare bones" truck, but I can deinfantely see how having some heat on a colder day is appealing.

Likewise & thanks! I love watching your build come together too!

I took a couple of pics tonight of how my passenger side cab corner came out after I fixed my oversight. This is one of the Tri-Plus branded cab corners I had from long ago, that I may or may not have gotten from LMC, still can't completely remember.

[RWB-713]

Made some good progress over the weekend, although it still felt like I should have made more, It always stuns me as to how time consuming this stuff can be.

First, I cleaned up the rust that was on the cab from the dash/cab joint. There was some pitting in that section that wasn't all that horrible, and was still pretty solid. I chose to use some "Fast Etch" on the pitted area that I picked up from Eastwood. I was decently pleased with how it worked. Just like it claims, it converts the rust to a Zinc Phosphate that is sandable/paintable. After letting that stuff do it's thing I sprayed some primer/sealer on there to protect the area after the dash goes back in.

I made some filler panels to block the hole for the manual vents in the kick panels and got the passenger side one all welded in. I sealed the area behind there and sprayed some primer/sealer in there & stuck some Fat Mat because I am tossing around the idea of putting some speakers in there in the future. I think it'd keep them fairly hidden, and the box created in there with the front being sealed off may have decent acoustic properties with the Fat Mat as well. I am planning to smooth the wiper cowl & seal off the area under it, so water getting down in there shouldn't be an issue.

I had attempted to contact Porterbuilt to see if I could get them to make me one of their heater delete panels for the outside firewall, except with the beadroll causing the raise to come toward the inside of the cab. I never got a reply, but I know those guys are super busy and a little dinky one off thing like that isn't top priority, so I completely understand. I measured and cut out a panel for the area and enlisted the help of a buddy with a beadroller, and we put our rookie skills to work to create what I was looking for. It didn't turn out perfect, but considering that I had never used a beadroller, and he had very limited experience with it, and it's location and use, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I'm gonna go ahead and say we still have quite a ways to go before Nate & the guys should start gettin worried tho.

[Portmod7]

Schweet!

[~Whitey~]

You sure are making progress... nice work on the firewall and the vents!

[67cheby]

corners are the kicker for bead rolling, i talked to Jamey Jordan at SEMA he said the best thing you can do is get some scrap metal and draw a ton of circles on it and when you master the circle everything else will be alot easier ! ....i will be doing this soon myself !

[RWB-713]

Originally Posted by Portmod7

Schweet!

Thanks buddy!

Originally Posted by 69swb

You sure are making progress... nice work on the firewall and the vents!

Thanks! looks like you're making some good headway as well!

Originally Posted by 67cheby

corners are the kicker for bead rolling, i talked to Jamey Jordan at SEMA he said the best thing you can do is get some scrap metal and draw a ton of circles on it and when you master the circle everything else will be alot easier ! ....i will be doing this soon myself !

I found that out firsthand for sure, we got two of em real nice, but one is a slightly larger radius than the other 3, and the other corner was the one very close to where we started/ended, and the lines didn't line up perfect, they were close, but not quite perfect. I fixed that fairly well with a body hammer tho.

Another problem we had was distorting the outer edges of the panel as it fed through the roller, probably because the edge of the panel wasn't quite long enough to make it all the way into the throat of the roller. they got a little warped and I had to straighten them out in a vise a tiny bit. But all in all, im pleased with my first experience, definitly learned a bit!

[RWB-713]

Progress over the weekend! I did some "finish" work on the passenger side, smoothed out the rocker seams with filler, and I went over some spots in the floor weld seams with some "metal fill". I don't know a gigantic amount about this stuff, but i noticed a couple guys using it on load bearing seams such as this, so i figured I'd give it a shot. It's aluminium re-enforced, but it is a PAIN to mix, it uses a liquid hardner, not cream. I messed up mixing the first batch, so i only had enough left to do the lower spots on the seams. It's hard to spread, and a pain to sand. Overall, i think the idea is a good thought, but i doubt i'm going to use it again.

I made a little piece with a 90d break in it to replace the support under that floor pan that was cut out with the original... kinda of a pain to get in there to grind welds down...dumb little tedious stuff like this is the real patience tester on a project.

Also, that panel i built for the inside heater core area was an after thought after I had already done filler work on the firewall, Filler doesn't like it when you weld on the backside of it. I expected to have to go back and re-do that spot, but it gave me a chance to do a little better job on some not-so-quality work I had done a couple years ago, so I'm good with it.

[RWB-713]

And on to the driver side we go! The floor on this side was done a couple years ago by a buddy of mine and his brother, It was when I first had the idea to fix this truck up, and I had about zero confidence in my skillset at the time, so they were helping me out.

With that already taken care of, I went right on to replacing the kick panel & pillar with new pieces, and the rocker went on pretty easy as well. Always nice when things go together the way they should! I hope to get the cab corner finished up on this side in the next couple days and hang the door and makes sure everything lines up nicely.

Made a simple little piece to cover up the wiper motor area, might use that for mounting some electrical in the future. And I also have another interior firewall panel to build for the OE fuseblock location. Slowly but surely!

I was in "go mode" since everything was going so smoothly, and I slacked a bit on taking progress pics, but here's how it sits now

[~Whitey~]

That's exactly where I'm at right now.. just waiting on patch parts.
Very nice work!

[RWB-713]

Originally Posted by 69swb

That's exactly where I'm at right now.. just waiting on patch parts.
Very nice work!

Yeah, I've noticed we are running very parallel with our projects right now. You'll jump ahead of me after the cab is done tho, I'm gonna pull mine off (because I never did the first time around) and tear the whole thing back down to bare frame. Probably even seperate the rails and have them podwercoated individually. I've got some greater plans in mind for the build than I did when I first started ages ago, and I kinda half assed the cleanup on the frame & suspension parts, and that just won't do anymore.

[Portmod7]

Heck yeah, looking good! Rollin right along!