pdx-sanity66

[pdxhall]

Originally Posted by cwcarpenter98

I really like the look of the hood with no seams. Have you thought about doing the same thing to the front fenders?

Thanks. it was a lot of work but well worth the effort I think. I'm not sure which part of the front you are referring to?

Originally Posted by 88Stanger

nice work sir!

Thanks, I'm having a lot of fun right now that the truck is about ready to drive more than around my driveway.

[cwcarpenter98]

I was referring to the outer front fender where the outer skin meets the part the surrounds the grille. Those two sections are spot welded together and I think had some seam sealer in it from the factory, but I'm not sure on the seam sealer part

[pdxhall]

Originally Posted by cwcarpenter98

I was referring to the outer front fender where the outer skin meets the part the surrounds the grille. Those two sections are spot welded together and I think had some seam sealer in it from the factory, but I'm not sure on the seam sealer part

Any other seam filling would not allow me to replace/remove the fenders or the grill surround.
I finished wiring the horn and it works great. I also finished wiring my trans temp gauge except for the sender which I'm still working at sender location.
I've also been working on the headlights and grill. Right now I have 3 grills, 2 aluminum and the original painted grill with a nice patina. The 2 aluminum have issues. One is a grill that I picked up several years ago for free. I went to a guys place to get another part and this grill was just sitting out on the ground and he had no interest in it. The second grill is the so called NOS grill that I paid way to much for. It is my fault for not asking for more pictures. I don't doubt it was a NOS grill but I believe it was a defective grill that was replaced. It has all the problems that started showing up as the dies were starting to wear out. Most of the grill bars are bent, there are some bad creases in the outer part of the headlight bucket part of the grill. It is not fit to be used. I cleaned up my original painted grill a bit and I am using it for now. I am looking in to a place here in Tucson that I'm looking in to for restoration of one or both of the aluminum grills. I've got the headlight assemblies and wiring done on the grill. I'm waiting for headlight relays that should be here tomorrow and then the grill will be installed.

[pdxhall]

I've been slow at getting posts up but I've been getting alot done. I left off with the grill. I cleaned up the original painted grill, got all of the hardware installed that I previously blasted and painted or polished up. and finished the the wiring with an added pair of relays. It all works except I need to buy a couple of bulbs.
I've also been prepping the door jams and the sides of the roof to get some slick sand sprayed. Then I can get the top painted white so I can install the windshield and rear glass.

[The Rocknrod]

Great progress, it's looking good already.

[88Stanger]

looking good sir!

[pdxhall]

Thanks you guys.
I've got the top all sanded and taped off. It's a little cool out right now but Sat. and Sun. are supposed to be back in the low 70s. so I'm shooting for then. I've got the outside of both doors stripped, also, and I'm hoping to get some epoxy on them. The hood has been adjusted and I have an area on the rear corner of the hood does not line up. I got it a little closer to being okay but I have decided to fixt it with a patch. Luckily I still had enough of the donor hood to cut a couple of pieces that match the contour of the hood that I will trim up and use.

[pdxhall]

I've almost completed all the mechanical and wiring of the truck. I have been working heavily on body work right now. I've been working on stripping the outsides of the door panels. I've also repatched the gas fill hole after a complete fail with the aftermarket patch I wasted $10 on. I cut it out and made my own patch. It worked out much better.
I've also been working on the hood. I finally got it adjusted to my liking but the pass. rear corner did not align properly. This is an area that was suspect from the beginning of alignment. Luckily I was able to salvage a couple more pieces from my donor hood to make a new patch to correct it. I'm still working on it but it's going to work out well, I think. I also got a couple of coats of slick sand on the sides of the roof.

[pdxhall]

pics of the hood.

[53Sparky]

Originally Posted by pdxhall

I've almost completed all the mechanical and wiring of the truck. I have been working heavily on body work right now. I've been working on stripping the outsides of the door panels. I've also repatched the gas fill hole after a complete fail with the aftermarket patch I wasted $10 on. I cut it out and made my own patch. It worked out much better.

Looking good! What method are you using to strip the doors? It looks even and clean.
The gas fill repair 2.0 looks better, too!

[pdxhall]

Originally Posted by 53Sparky

Looking good! What method are you using to strip the doors? It looks even and clean.
The gas fill repair 2.0 looks better, too!

Thanks. I used my 5" random orbit disk sander with 80 grit. Then did a little sanding by blocks and 120 grit. These doors are in extremely good condition on the outside. I will be media blasting the insides and after I cut the bottom inside rust out I will media blast the insides before patching things back up. I really prefer to large panels by hand rather than media blasting. I can get a better feel for any problem areas as I strip them. As for the gas fill, I had some left over steel from my cab corner patch that I was able to form the bends with a little tweaking here and there and a light skim coat of filler.

[roll_the_dice]

Sometimes you just have to step back and take a break! I have many times hit my head against the wall...stopped waiting and then it all made sense and I got done what I needed.

Door looks good...that is about the only thing I still need to do to mine...but I am enjoying driving it too much to take the door off. haha

[pdxhall]

Originally Posted by roll_the_dice

Sometimes you just have to step back and take a break! I have many times hit my head against the wall...stopped waiting and then it all made sense and I got done what I needed.

Door looks good...that is about the only thing I still need to do to mine...but I am enjoying driving it too much to take the door off. haha

Thanks. This was supposed to be my last body work and I was going to wait until I got on the road before starting them. But now I have this hood thing going on I decided to go ahead with the doors.
Yesterday I decided to cut up the driver door bottom and prep it for blasting. It's such a messy job I figure I will do both doors while I'm at it. I'll post some progress pics later.

[pdxhall]

I've got the driver door bottom cut out. It is not as bad as the pass. side. I'm still working on it but as soon as our winter weather here in Tucson improves I'll be media blasting both doors. I got my LED tail light and front turn signal lights a couple of days ago. I installed and tested the front lights even though I haven't got them installed and they are real nice. The tail lights are another story, first try after installing the LEDs and I have no power going to the rear. I need to trouble shoot but I don't anticipate anything serious.

[SkinnyG]

Nice to see drains in those patches. Mine didn't come with drains; I had to put them in.

[pdxhall]

Originally Posted by SkinnyG

Nice to see drains in those patches. Mine didn't come with drains; I had to put them in.

I noticed that on your build page. These are tri-plus pieces and the fit is very nice. Not perfect but an easy adjustment. Right now I'm waiting for nicer weather so I can do some blasting and move ahead with this project.

[pdxhall]

Here are a few more pics of the pass. door. I blasted the entire inside and then coated the inside with rust reformer and then a coat of Eastwood rust encapsulater the patch has been tack welded on. test fitted to make sure it fit. Now I will finish welding it up and then the outside gets epoxy. I'm also at the same point with the drivers door. pics to follow.

[Android04]

Looking good!

[pdxhall]

Originally Posted by Android04

Looking good!

Thanks for compliment.
Here are the pics of the drivers door. There is much less surface rust on the inside and the corners are better. Same procedure as the other door. The one shot shows the pie cuts and manipulation to make the sides match up. The corners on the original are sharper than the patch so I had to get them to blend together. I had to do this on both doors. Now that I've checked the fit I get to finish weld the whole thing.

[cwcarpenter98]

Your repairs are lookin' great! Having doors without giant holes in the bottom is so nice. There's considerably less road noise even without adding any sound deadening

[roll_the_dice]

I've got to repair the bottom of my doors...I just got my welding setup...time to start practicing before I do the doors. What adjustments did you have to do to the bottom patch panel to make it work better? Love the drain holes!

[pdxhall]

Originally Posted by roll_the_dice

I've got to repair the bottom of my doors...I just got my welding setup...time to start practicing before I do the doors. What adjustments did you have to do to the bottom patch panel to make it work better? Love the drain holes!

The patches on the sides had a more rounded edges where it joined the side of the doors which have a sharper 90 deg edge . I had to make a few pie cuts to blend things together. the rest fit together very well and they came with drain holes.

[pdxhall]

I've got the welding and grinding done on the inner patches of both doors. I am going to get some epoxy primer on both sides of them before before continuing. So I'm working on setting them up to spray today. I'm also trying to set up scaffolding of sorts so I can get to the front of the roof to start installation of the roof lights.

[aggie91]

Looking good!

[pdxhall]

Well, I've been real lazy about posting my progress but I have made a lot of progress and I've tried to check in on others work almost daily. By the way. thanks Karl. I have the doors epoxy primed and ready to continue with some more bodywork, I made a redneck scaffolding and got my roof lights wired, and I revisited my attempt to fix the passenger side rear corner of the hood that I totally botched the first attempt. It was so bad I'm embarrassed to show pics so I covered it up with a rag so I would quit being obsessed about it and let it go. My biggest dilemma was finding a patch. Trying to find a decent hood patch was not working out. I decided to cut out the bad patching job while looking for a solution. There are a lot of complex curves involved so I just didn't want to tackle fabricating what I needed.
So I'm sitting looking at the hole in the hood and I had an idea. If you take the cowl extension from the opposite side that you are working on, you can drill a few spot welds out (this gives you a perfect back lip) and then carefully cut the rest of the brackets including the extension. This gave me an almost perfect 12"x12" patch for the corner. I'd be surprised if nobody has thought of this but it worked out great. I had a bigger area that I needed to replace. I still had pieces of my donor hood to extend the patch another 3" or so. I welded the patches together and also used a piece to extend the bottom lip(the cowl extension has about a half inch lip so I welded a piece in to extend the lip to match the rest of the lip). I am very happy with the fit and I started to tack things in place. Here are some pics of the project.