69 Longbed c10 restoration

[Sparky dave]

The metal was paper thin here and split for some reason so I had to weld in another patch panel. This is what you get when sellers say 100 % rust free California truck. I'll never belive one of these 50 year old trucks to be rust free again

[Sparky dave]

There were a couple of areas where there were pin holes from welding and the roof was slightly warped so I decided to use lead instead of chop strand finer filler. So I bought a lead loading kit off eBay and gave it a go. After a bit of practice I really liked it. Filing it after to smothe it out was a bit of a pain and I read on the Internet as long as you don't use anything finer than 80 grit you can da it. Which I did using gloves and a top quality respirator. I'm no way advising this and I know health and safety officers will start chiming in now buts that's what I did. Lead poisoning is a major issue and hazard everybody! Turned out nice and solid though

[Sparky dave]

More lead work on the drip rail seam welding

[Sparky dave]

The lead kit consisted of:
Lead stick
Lead paste
Tallow animal fat like lard
Brush
Wooden paddle

And I used a normal blowtorch to melt the lead which worked fine

[Sparky dave]

Any dents were pulled out using the stud puller to 1-2 mm lower than the surrounding bodywork then filled with lead and filed flush. This technique made a very visually pleasing repair which I knew would be solid with minimal body filler

[Sparky dave]

The doors were stripped to bare metal and were rusted out on the bottom of the outer skin so small patch panels were needed to be welded in place

[Sparky dave]

This pic is when I'd finished all the welding
, dent pulling and lead work I moved on to straightening out and shaping the minor imperfections in the dodywork ready for primer

[Sparky dave]

Ok guys excuses time for me now! It looks like there is a lot of body filler at this stage but most of it will be sanded off! I didn't relize at this time that I could add fibreglass resin to body filler to thin it down and my filler was drying up a bit and going on thick, another thing learned! And now the excuse for the wheels I know they might not be everyone's cup of tea but they were only £200 and all tyres are legal and I still have the 15s when I fancy the classic look or need traction! The 22s fill the arches well but the low profile pirellis do not hook at all!

[Sparky dave]

I was talking to my mum on this day ( she is 60 ) and telling her I was ready for primer as I was exited and she said to me ; ' don't you think you should check the doors fit first'. So I did the obvious thing and told her I'd already thought of that and I was fitting them on next thank god for mums she even helped me fit them! Good job we did as a little bit of door gapping was required

[zicc1835]

for somebody with limited experience you seem to be a quick study and managing to produce some nice work, ill be following your progress ...thanks for sharing ...from the other side of the pond
jz

[Sparky dave]

Thanks jz this site and you tube really has taught me everything I needed to know apart from patience I had to learn that my self

[Sparky dave]

I decided I was going to build a shelter out of things I had lying around. My friend had been renovating his house and had removed a load of floor joists so I built the roof out of them. Then laid some plastic corrugated roof sheets over the top. I didn't want the truck to take all my space up in the workshop anymore and as winter was getting closer and closer I knew it would be a disaster if I had to leave it outside in our cold rainy uk weather.

[Sparky dave]

This is when I needed a break from body work on the cab so I side tracked myself to a lot easier and quicker job of painting the rear of the chassis. Lucky for me it had already been painted a while back so rust was minimal, just needed a freshen up so I blasted it Down with my steam cleaner. Then scuffed everything up with a scotch brite and treated the odd patch of rust here and there with some rust convertor, spot primed those areas then sprayed the whole lot in 3 coats of single pack black enamel. Looked much better!

[Sparky dave]

I got the back of the 69 back together after the paint also by this point had laid 2 coats of epoxy primer over the whole cab sealing the bondo work in then sprayed 3 coats of filler primer over the top of that straight away to minimise sanding. So the epic block sanding task continued!

[Sparky dave]

Not happy with the colour on the brake drums. They are a bit " hey look at me" don't you think? but it's what I had lying around so that's what colour there going to have to stay for now

[Sparky dave]

More pics

[Sparky dave]

By this point I was loosing the weather to paint in as summer was over as well as loosing the will to live so I decided to cheat a bit with the priming. It had already had 3 coats of filler primer which I sanded, then I looked closely for any pits, holes or imperfections. Filled any small defect with spot putty then blew that area in with a single pack aerosol sand able primer and flat blocked in. The only reason I say Iv cheated is because I belive really should have sprayed another 2 or 3 coats of 2 pack filler primer down really. But just the masking and block priming the whole thing down again I wouldn't have had the time or the will power! Anyway stand by for paint job!

[Sparky dave]

Here we go another pic! This is showing when you think your done and you find a couple of areas your not happy with. I sanded back to bare metal or epoxy primer applied body filler then spot primed with epoxy then used aerosol primer over that and flat blocked it in

[Sparky dave]

I just looked and I never took any photos of my make shift spray booth but I'll tell you about it. I used my new shelter as a spray booth but put a little more effort in to keeping things clean for the topcoat. Firstly I stapled plastic sheet to the ceiling of the shelter to stop the dust and the dirt falling off the beams onto the roof of the truck. I then took the. Wheels off the truck and lowered the whole thing down to the ground to give me clearance over the top of the roof to spray as the shelter is a bit on the low side. I then wet the floor down, made sure I had a fresh water trap in my air line, drained my compressor of water, masked up the rest of the truck with plastic sheet, wiped down all the panels with pre panel degrease wipe. And I was off ! Time to lay Down 3 coats of satin cellulose!

[Sparky dave]

Here it is in its cellulose satin. The satin was made up of 4-1 ratio of gloss and Matt cellulose paints mixed together. So it's quite a shiny satin. One thing to mention I'm not sure it was the easiest paint to spray for a beginner in his back garden because dirt and runs can not be buffed out afterwards like a gloss. However I found it didn't need spraying on thick and didn't need a wet edge like gloss. So thin coats could be built up carefully

[Sparky dave]

Pic

[Sparky dave]

The cab was sprayed and the doors were hung, the cowl was sprayed and so was the bonnet. I did these inside whilst doing the cab outside that way I could have sunny day jobs and rainy day jobs. I'd previously ordered the windscreen and that was waiting in my hall way ready to be fitted. The last big worry was the front wings or fenders which after shot blasting were not in a good condition at all and getting some new ones would mean spending a fortune in shipping. So I decided to repair the originals

[Sparky dave]

Here is an example of some of the damage. Forgive me at the time I didn't know I'd be making this blog so photos do not show everything. I will take a lot more photos from this point on as were nearly up to date on the progress. The area to the left hand side of the removed cancer was also a new piece I welded in. I repaired it using 2 pieces due to the fact it was contoured in 2 directions and I didn't have the equipment or experience to hammer and dolly a patch in this shape,

[Sparky dave]

Made a patch for the area and slit it using a thin cutting disk with the grinder, this way I could easily bend the patch in 2 directions untill it fit the curve of the fender

[Sparky dave]

Then I drew around the patch and cut the cancer out once again using the electric grinder