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.

[TxCajun]

More roof disassembly pics and the Craigslist roof.

[TxCajun]

After much research, I finally worked up a plan that would meet city building permit requirements for a workshop. There were restrictions on building size relative to my house and lot size, but I was able to get approval for an 800 sq ft building. It also has a 14 ft wide x 18 ft driveway leading up to the building which will eventually be covered for outdoor work space when the weather is good and/or the tasks are messy.
The permit was approved in early September, we poured the slab by the end of the month. The Mueller Steel Building kit arrived in early October, and despite a lot of rain, we finished the shell assembly before Thanksgiving.

[TxCajun]

Paying for this as I go, so still need to do insulation, floor paint, and electrical as the funds are available but I've always wanted a work shop so I'm pretty excited.

[roll_the_dice]

Nice work shop! I can't wait until I buy a house with land on it for a building like this. I did build a 12x12 "workshop" last year for my blast cabinet and some other fabrication areas. Works well for what I do...but can't wait to have a shop I can put my cars/trucks in with a lift! Keep up the good work on the truck!

[TxCajun]

I've been wire brushing and poking at the rust in the roof and around the windshield to determine which areas need to be patched using parts from the extra roof that I found on Craigslist. There are several areas around the windshield and the driver's side drip rail that are pretty crusty.

I decided to dive in and start with the center section above the windshield which was a nasty mix of bondo, window screen, fiberglass resin, canned spray foam, and rodent nest/droppings.

I've heard that if you have to grind your welds to make them look good you are not a welder, you are a grinder. I definitely fall in to the latter category, but I think the welds are full penetration and strong. Hopefully I'll improve as I go along.

[TxCajun]

My brother was in town visiting for a couple days. We really enjoy working on projects together, so he helped me out by cutting and fitting a few patches while I was welding and grinding. Big thanks!!!

These are the passenger side patches to the windshield upper and lower frame.

While patching the rust at the lower corner, I also welded up the body seam in that area because it had rust through. That turned out nicely, so I'm thinking about welding up the other windshield body seam gaps to minimize the use of seam sealer.

[TxCajun]

Driver's side upper patch.

[Captainfab]

Welding sheet metal is much different than welding something structural. With welding sheet metal you do not weld a constant bead, just a series of tacks. Otherwise you will end up with a warped up pile of crap. And sheet metal welds will most always need to be ground/sanded flush.

[TxCajun]

Originally Posted by Captainfab

Welding sheet metal is much different than welding something structural. With welding sheet metal you do not weld a constant bead, just a series of tacks. Otherwise you will end up with a warped up pile of crap. And sheet metal welds will most always need to be ground/sanded flush.

Affirmative on the "series of tacks" skip welding required for sheet metal. My "tacks" are not as smooth as some of those that I see in on-line demos (particularly when welding overhead), and require more grinding. However, I'm getting better as I go along.

[TxCajun]

I continued doing roof rust weld repairs, including filling in the windshield body seam gaps to minimize the use of seam sealer; the upper gaps were 1/4" to 3/8" wide. I also replaced the driver side drip rail area as it was very crusty.

Next step is to apply POR 15 to the top side of the inner roof and complete the repairs to the outer roof before bonding it on.

I'm also investigating sound deadener mat to apply to the top side of the inner roof.

[kdad]

Your repairs are looking really nice.

[TxCajun]

Finished the rust repairs around the windshield, drip rails, and inner roof. Applied POR-15 to the top of the inner roof except the ~1/2" wide perimeter where the outer roof mates.

I also started on repairs to the donor outer roof, i.e. work out a few dents, repair rust, repair weakened areas.

These are repairs to the rust at the passenger side front corner.

[TxCajun]

....And these are repairs to the driver side front corner of the outer roof panel. Next up, I'll POR-15 and paint the underside of this panel.

I'm waiting on an order for some sound deadener mat which I plan to apply to the top of the inner roof. Then I'll be ready to bond on the outer roof panel.

While I'm waiting on that sound mat order, I think I'll run some some new wiring to the dome light to replace the original wiring that has rather brittle insulation.

I also going to fab and install some shoulder harness upper mounting points in the "B" pillars so that I can install three point belts at a later date.

[TxCajun]

Fixing a couple things inside the cab before I put the outer roof back on:

While I still have access to the inside of the B pillar from the top, I added upper shoulder belt mounting points following the method described in the post -> http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=shoulder+belt

My cab did not have a passenger side sun visor, but the donor roof did, so I added in the mounting features on the inside of the roof to use that passenger donor visor when I start putting things back together.

My dash radio area was not as mangled as some that I've seen on this forum, but it had been modified at some point in the past with an extra hole and a larger rectangular cutout. I welded in a couple of patches, but still need to re-cut the rectangular opening to the correct size so that the pattern will be hole Ctr to Ctr 6 3/8" and radio-face rectangular opening 1 1/2" x 4 1/2".

I also weld plugged and ground flush about a half dozen miscellaneous drilled holes on the face of the dash. (It would be interesting to know what kind of strange stuff previous owners mounted on the dash with sheet metal screws. (CB radios, cup holders, auxiliary gauges, ...... ???)

[TxCajun]

Originally Posted by kdad

Your repairs are looking really nice.

Thanks kdad. I checked out your build thread. I think we are both headed down the same path of trying to make a daily driver at a reasonable budget.

While I enjoy reading about some of the over-the-top builds that people on this forum are doing, I think I like the daily driver, hands-on builds the most.

[TxCajun]

Bonding the outer roof back on.

After doing the rust repairs noted above, I prepped the top of the inner roof and bottom of the outer roof using POR-15 and/or primer as appropriate, and then added a coat of semi-gloss black. When painting the roof sections, I avoided painting the approximately half inch wide contact area around the perimeter so that I would have bare metal contact for the bonding adhesive.

I applied Noico 80 mil reflective sound deadener mat using a Noico Metal Barrel Roller (both purchased on Amazon) to the roof panels. I chose the Noico because it seems to be less expensive than some of the other brands, and it has little or no smell. I applied it to most of the inner roof for sound deadening and to hopefully reflect some of the Texas sun's heat, but I only applied a few sections to the outer roof to cut down on the “steel drum” effect.

[TxCajun]

Bonding the outer roof back on, Part II.

After reading the product descriptions and MSDS for several panel bonding adhesives, I decided to go with Evercoat FIB-816 Maxim Large Panel Bonding Adhesive. I chose this because it is a two part, one-to-one epoxy adhesive with a mixing nozzle but it is packaged in a single tube that fits in a standard caulking gun (unlike some others that require a special applicator gun).

The product description sheet claims that the adhesive has corrosion resistant properties which I thought was good since the panel-bond-line has to be left as bare metal. Also, the Working Time is 90-110 minutes which is good since I was doing this work by myself and it took the full 90 minutes to apply the adhesive, get the roof in place, and apply the clamps.

Clamp Time for the adhesive is 6 hours and Full Cure time is 24 hours which is fine for my schedule.

The adhesive application instructions say to brush the adhesive to a thin coat to cover all exposed bare metal, then apply a 1/4” to 1/2” bead of the adhesive to the frame or new panel, align the new panel to the frame, slide the panel to re-position, clamp the new panel to the frame. I had been concerned about how much money I would have to spend on clamps to go all around the roof perimeter, but my brother suggested heavy duty spring clamps that can be found on eBay or Amazon for about $25 for a “Lot of 24 - 6" inch Clamp Large Heavy Duty Spring Metal - 3 inch Jaw opening”. Using these clamps and several 3/8” square wood spacers that I cut from a scrap 2x4, I was able to apply an even clamping around the perimeter, and I used a few C-clamps that I had on hand in areas that needed some additional force.

The pictures below show the roof bonded/clamped in place.

Next step after the panel adhesive cures for 24 hours is to remove any excess adhesive, prepare the rain gutter area, and then apply seam sealer in the gutter.

[Clyde65]

Very thorough! Well done!

[Duncan K]

Great job! Thanks for sharing this, I'll be doing the same on my 66 very soon

[SCOTI]

Nice!

[TxCajun]

Clyede65, Duncan K, SCOTI, ......... Thank you for your kind comments. I get lots of great information and ideas from this forum, so it's great if some of the details that I provide help someone else.



I removed the clamps from the roof today after the adhesive had cured and I'm pretty happy with the results.

A couple things to note:

While installing the outer roof, when you clamp down on the perimeter, some of the adhesive will extrude out around the edges or any holes. I had put some plastic film between the wood spacer blocks and the metal to prevent them from sticking to any excess adhesive. This worked fairly well except where the adhesive extruded over the top of the film. I had cut strips of the film to go under the blocks, but in hindsight, I should have made the strips larger and formed a "U" shape so that the adhesive would be less likely to extrude around the edges (see pictures). In any case, the wood blocks and most of the film came out easily in about 15 minutes, and I'll only need to spend a little time with a grinder to clean out any excess adhesive from the gutter before applying primer and seam sealer.
The film that I used was some material that was given to me from a printed circuit board shop where it is used due to it's non-stick properties. I don't know what it is, but it is very similar in feel to Mylar or Vellum. Alternatives might be a thin sheet of Teflon or maybe even wax paper.

I also found that my outer roof did not sit completely flat on the inner roof even after a little massaging. A few areas required more clamping force than just the spring clamps would provide, so I used about 10 small C-clamps in those areas to clamp the two roofs together tightly. I mainly needed these C-clamps along the sides above the doors, and in the area just behind the doors where the rain gutter slants upwards.

[aggie91]

Great details on how you did the roof repair. I have thought about doing it this way once I commit to a full on rust repair to my '65.

Mental note to look here for future reference!

[TxCajun]

Seam seal the rain gutter using 3M Self-Leveling Seam Sealer, 08307, 200 mL Cartridge.

After a lot of reading on the forum about people's experiences with various products for the rain gutter seam sealer, I decided to use the 3M Self-Leveling Seam Sealer, 08307.

Several people said that they were able to borrow the special cartridge gun for this from a paint supplier or a body shop, but I was unable to find a loaner or rental. I ended up buying the 08307 cartridge on eBay for $37.50 and the 3M 08571 Manual Applicator for $57. I figure when I am done with the applicator gun I'll sell it for $15 or $20 less than I paid for it and consider that a “rental” fee.

I had already cleaned up and primed the rain gutter as per the instructions, and I elevated the front of the truck so that the side gutters were horizontal/level. I put some cable ties in the rain gutter drains at the four corners to keep the sealer from running through those holes. And I also put some 3M Masking Tape on the roof side of the gutter, about 3/16” from the bottom of the gutter, in order to keep stray sealant off of the roof.

I installed the cartridge in the applicator and primed the mixing tube per the instructions. At about 75 degrees F in my shop, the 08307 seam sealer is about the same viscosity as honey or a thin syrup. It was easy to pump the material out of the applicator gun, and it flowed very nicely in to the rain gutter channel. This material sets up relatively quickly; it has a nozzle dwell time of 6 minutes, a working time of 8 minutes, and can be painted after 15 minutes. The 3M instructions say to “Extrude sealer onto surface, being sure to keep end of mixing nozzle submerged in the seam sealer to reduce the possibility of entrapping air in the product.” I worked my way around the gutter doing this, and got a nice bubble-free flow.

A couple things I learned:

1) I used a good quality 3M masking tape to mask around the gutter, but this tears easily if some of the sealing material “sets up” on it before you remove the tape. I found some online video showing the use of 3M vinyl masking tape (like the tape used for fine lines), and I think that would work better for ease of removal.

2) I was working by myself, but I think it would be better if someone could follow you around and start removing the masking tape at the 8 minute point, because by the time you get all the way around the perimeter of the roof, the material is already setting up in the area where you started. This makes the tape removal a bit more difficult.

3) Some people said that they used a different sealer on the gutter area that angles upwards from behind the doors on the sides to the rear of the roof due to the “flow” of this sealer. However, I found that since this sealer sets up so quickly, I could use a “paddle” to scoop or slide the material back up the slope as it began to set up, and very quickly it was stiff enough to not flow down the sloped gutter, but still sufficiently thin to cure as a smooth surface. The “paddle” was just a rectangular piece of plastic material (probably polyethylene) that I cut from a margarine container. The "paddle" is the green thing in one of the pictures.

4) The cable ties that I stuck in the gutter drains helped to keep the sealer from running out, but the drains will take a little more work with an exacto-knife or Dremel tool to open them back up completely.

5) I tried to apply the sealant no more than 1/8 thickness. (As someone else said in the forum, it is a sealant not a gutter-filler.) If you can stay within this thickness, you should be able to seal the gutter all the way around the roof with maybe 20% to 30% of the material in the cartridge left over.

[raggedjim]

Nice work and write up on the seam sealer, I have to do that to my Blazer this spring.

Thanks, Rg