Project "My Happy Mess"

[doubleb's69]

Thats screwed up. All that hard work just to have to do it all over again. I think you should let everyone know what shop did this and who was the foreman in charge of the idiots that thought they could do body work.

[YBNORML]

Nice build! I think it is pretty cool that you are going to leave the underhood as the PO left it.

Unfortunately there seems to be more crappy body shops than there is quality ones. I'm glad you noticed that poor workmanship before you got too far into the final stages of bodywork. I think it is the scariest part of any build!

[litew8]

Originally Posted by oldman3

Sorry for all the **** you are going through, I've seen a lot of this type of work. I've corrected more than I wanted to for friends that wanted to save a few bucks and went to the wrong places.....Jim

When the owner tells you that they specialize in
our trucks, I guess that's a red flag. What a joke.

Originally Posted by doubleb's69

Thats screwed up. All that hard work just to have to do it all over again. I think you should let everyone know what shop did this and who was the foreman in charge of the idiots that thought they could do body work.

Not sure it was solely the "foreman" that is
accountable, since I dealt directly with the owner for all work. It's a small
shop with only a few employees - he's for sure in charge and the one I'd
lay blame.

Originally Posted by YBNORML

Nice build! I think it is pretty cool that you are going to leave the underhood as the PO left it.

Unfortunately there seems to be more crappy body shops than there is quality ones. I'm glad you noticed that poor workmanship before you got too far into the final stages of bodywork. I think it is the scariest part of any build!

Thanks for the compliments. We are going to shoot
the supports that border the underside of the hood with a chassis black. We're thinking we'll
also use the chassis black for the front inner wheel housings.

Re: workmanship of that body shop: At least they managed to actually weld the panels on
I'd like to know what they thought - that we weren't going to dig into it and
find all this garbage work? LOL again, what a joke.


Here's their website, and they make claim of doing restoration work.
Can't speak for anyone else, but they sure as hell didn't restore mine satisfactorily.

Warren County Customs LLC
6294 55th Ave
Norwalk, IA 50211
515-371-4782

http://www.warrencountycustomsllc.com/

Give them a call if you want work as shown above done.
I did mention the windshield to him as being ruined due to cutting/grinding of the cab
corners and rockers - he refused to acknowledge it and said it must have happened when
I had taken my truck to the sand blaster. Yeah, right - like sand is going to somehow,
magically, embed/melt pieces of metal into my windshield rather than simply etch. Wrong.
I guess I'm lucky they didn't burn holes in my dash pad.

What a joke.

[litew8]

You know what would make me happy? If the owner of that shop came in
here (he says he knows a lot of guys here when I mentioned the site to him)
and was willing to own up to the bad work AND my messed up windshield -
and credit me 3 hours of labor and pay to replace my windshield.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The Fixer "fixing" the undesirable.

Three thin coats of this -




Hardener added -





Each coat thinly applied, let dry, then sanded. I forget, but at least 1/4
or more of what was applied gets REMOVED. Small amounts. Not for
certain if it's always policy to apply three coats, but I think he had to in
this case to conceal the dents they made. We did pull the gas tank out and
hammered the driver's side dents out, and the pass. side we got the bow
to correct. I took lots of pictures, hope I get them all in the correct order.

First coat -















Pass. side. Notice the fix my Brother made to that hole on the
pass. side rocker. He put a piece of metal on the backside of the rocker
and welded it in. Hit it a few times more on the front, then ground down.




Sanding -










Second coat -
















Sanding of second coat -






Third coat, not yet sanded -

[litew8]

Remember this picture from November of last year?

Inverted picture -



That's right - those little black spots are pieces of metal melted into
the inside of my windshield from cutting/grinding and not covering the glass
first. Found after I brought my truck home from the body shop. My window
guy actually noticed them.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Took the trim and old rubber seal off of the windshield the other day.
Not too stiff, not sure it's reusable. Board member Keith mentioned a process
he had heard of that supposedly can restore them. Consist of 5 gal bucket,
dish soap and Tide. Let rubber seal soak for 1 to 2 weeks. When removed
it supposedly is like new again. I'm considering trying it out just for the
heck of it, BUT - when we took my seal off - another seal/seam on the
inside pulled out (separately). It doesn't look like it tore out and seems
like it is standalone. Maybe it went around the glass itself before being
inserted into the main seal?

Old putty on seal. Mainly found on the sides -




Removing the Custom Deluxe trim -




Here's the separate piece of rubber we pulled out. It went all the way
around, but didn't feel like it was apart of the main seal. It was shinny too,
kind of looked like adhesive backed so that it'd stick to the glass, or the main seal itself?

See it on the inside, right -

[litew8]

Passenger's door. This was the replacement door I got. It had a large
dent in the top right/inside of it. To fix it, we cut off that section on my
original, rusted out door - before we donated it to the scrap yard.

Instead of using the entire length of the piece we cut off previously,
The Fixer decided it'd be easier, and quicker - to cut it in half and
just replace the dent itself.

































A little more touching up and it'll be like new.

[litew8]

Fitting of the doors after removing all that crap bondo.
Here's the tool we used to gap them -














I think these were Number stamps on the driver's door -




Check this one out,




Pass. door -




Number on the rear sill/cross member for the bed.
The one beneath the tailgate.

[litew8]

Misc. pics

One for the Pit Boss




Something cool, someone's daily driver -






Replaced the inlet/outlet filters on the free air pump.








Nos door handles I bought. Mine were getting bad.
A comparison, old vs. new. The boxes for these are stamped 1999 and 2000.
They weigh the same, stampings are different.

Old on the right -


Old


New (there's a Chevy emblem stamped in there - top/left next to the circle)



Check this out. We noticed it while comparing. My brother actually
noticed it - someone went into this handle and put wire inside
to hold it together. It must have busted during its lifetime?

[Low Elco]

Much more bueno, Senor! Looks just like when I did mine. Glad it's shaping up well.

[litew8]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Much more bueno, Senor! Looks just like when I did mine. Glad it's shaping up well.

Thanks man! You're more than welcome to load up the truck to drive
on over here and use our blast cabinet.

P.S. And no habla espanol. Capito Italiano Signore.

[Low Elco]

Originally Posted by litew8

Thanks man! You're more than welcome to load up the truck to drive
on over here and use our blast cabinet.

P.S. And no habla espanol. Capito Italiano Signore.

Appreciare de offreaire, needo del nada. Inspired by your post, bought my own! Even conned Mama into having the house cover it! Looka me go-a! See Yeller thread for details.

[litew8]

Megan Fox needs no introduction

[litew8]

Prego. Didn't see any pics of that cabinet in your thread. What brand?
Let me know if you want a link to the "Solution" that will make it so you don't
have to change your Mylar glass protecting sheets. I was only able to find
ONE source on the internet that sold what I was looking for, nobody locally.

-----------
Prodotto placement, quality -

[Low Elco]

Haven't assembled it yet. It's a harbor freight 40 lb. cab, the freestanding one. Not supercool but it'll git er done! Please tack on the link for the solution, I'm tryin to hotrod it up a bit before its assembled.
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[litew8]

PM sent.

[Dieselwrencher]

Litew8 sorry to see your bad deal with WCC. Last year when you started this I asked where the work was being done and you didn't really want to say. I was hoping it wasn't them. Sorry man. I know of a guy who just sued WCC. This person took them a completely repainted black 1981 Camaro and all WCC had to do was reassemble it. They chipped the doors/fenders, scraped and chipped the window openings, installed the head light buckets in the wrong sides and cracked them, it goes on and on. Basically they ruined a $4500 or more paint job and charged the guy $3000 for assembly. The owner took them to court and got some compensation back from the judge. You may go that route. I learned a while ago to not do any more business from him after I got shafted on some non rust free parts that were supposed to be rust free. It was just a big circle you know what.

On another note, I have a pretty nice OE windshield from my Longhorn that has a small rock chip you can have if you want it.

[litew8]

Thanks Ryan. It wasn't the body shop you asked about, it was where I took the truck to get sandblasted. I didn't want to mention the sandblaster's company name because during one of my visits, someone mentioned how the EPA was coming down hard on their type of work. I wasn't certain what she meant and I didn't want to mention their name because of that uncertainty, just in case. I also know their family personally. When I asked her if I could post their name w/the pictures, she gave me an uncertain look. She may have been old enough to not have fully understand what I had asked But they are REALLY COOL people to have worked with. And I was serious, they probably don't need the extra work - I think they run a million dollar company comfortably.

-----
As for WCC, I considered taking them to small claims to try and recoup. Options aren't off of the table. The damage to my windshield really pissed me off when I found out. It isn't something that you can see easily, that's why I didn't catch it right away - that and my windshield was dusty. But realizing metal was melted into the glass really sucked. Trying to clean it with a paper towel just tears up the paper towel. I could put it up against a white wall to expose it better for pictures. I figured I'd just buy another one, but I appreciate your kind gesture man!

[Dieselwrencher]

Oh, ok you're right on the questioning. It's a hard pill to swallow either way. At least you were able to get it repaired like it should have been. It's crazy the claims WCC makes when they have rides at shows. I learned a while ago that any of the vehicles they had at shows and such, the body work was done at other shops. Why would that be? Hopefully too many more locals, or any one else for that matter, don't get bit by these clowns any more!

For the glass look up Bucklyn glass in Baxter and Art's truck parts in Indianola for your gasket. Art is a great guy and stands behind what he sells and he sells precision gaskets. I have them with trim in my truck and they fit very nicely.

[litew8]

Very cool. When I bought the NOS rear wheelhousings from Art's Classic Truck Parts, Indianola IA - I went ahead and bought a Precision windshield seal too. Just in case the one I have doesn't work out like I had hoped. Not sure that inner rubber strip we pulled out from inside of the old seal is replaceable. I figured buying one from Art would be good insurance.

Art just finished installing a wood show deck in his blue truck and it looks very nice.
Thanks for the lead on the windshield, not sure how my Brother's window guy is going to deal with it or if my Brother gets a discount or not. He did say they were fairly easy to come by. We're still waiting to get a call back from him to ask about that strip we took out if he knows something.

[litew8]

Shooting the cab w/primer today

[Low Elco]

Go go go!
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[litew8]

Spoke too soon Shooting the cab w/primer tomorrow!
Forgot I had an appointment to deal with.
Masked off doors/window openings today.
Got pics will post later.

[Dieselwrencher]

Cool deal on that show floor. He keeps telling me I should put one in my truck, and maybe I will for going to shows. We'll see. Are you excited to get your cab in primer? I bet you are!

[litew8]

Tools used to smack dents out of driver's cab corner. We couldn't get it entirely "flat",
which is why you can tell we used a little more bondo on it than we did the passenger's
side in the pics below. If they hadn't of done such a sh!tty job, there could have been
even less. The bigger reason was probably due to warping of the metal and then them
smacking it to try and correct it, and them not taking the gas tank out. FAIL




Finished












The Fixer's engineering. Masked off window/door openings
with cardboard (were large boxes). Back window was the escape route -
paper was used instead.














Another stamp found, who knows where from?

[Low Elco]

You got further than I did- found more dents and gouges! Got em fixed, down for the next 4 days. Good progress!
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