TA_C10: Stage 1

[cornerstone]

There is no difference in strength when using the smaller gauge wire. It just makes it easier to dial it down and have fewer blowouts. I suggest that if your not having blowouts then stay with the .030 gauge, you will get more metal laid down faster with the .023.

[TA_C10]

Updates.

Finished the passenger side floor and kick panel. I welded up the rest of the floor seams and got most of the kick panel piece ground down. Still have some grinding to do here and there but pretty much completed.

The outside lip where the kick panel butts to the floor I just welded up solid. I also took some pics of the bottom of the floor where I patched in the floor to show the seam is gone now. Not sure how I am going to finish where the old seam meets the new floor pieces but I'm happy with how it turned out. Good enough

Enjoy the pics.








Floor seam that meets the trans tunnel completed.






Kick panel meets the floor seam all welded up.






Outside kick panel seam and plug welds.











Here is the outside of cab, kick panel, back side under cab. I beat this piece pretty thin to make it stretch and shape to fit correctly so I didn't want it rusting or being weak so I welded 2 beads down the weak spot to re-strengthen the piece hopefully. It will not get grinded down. Just cleaned up and painted. (gold colored welds here)






Here are a couple shots of the bottom of floor where I cut out and replaced the floor with replacement floor panel. No more seam. And I will be removing the floor supports and replacing them soon. So I will be welding more on those seams from the bottom and grinding them down.






The old piece I cut out and replaced.







Almost finished




At this point I am ready to roll over the cab, finish the floor supports, roll it back upright again and put jack stands under the cab mounts like its sitting on the cab. Then I will mount the doors and finish the outer rockers. I will then roll it back over on its nose again, prep and spray the bottom of floor pan.

I will prep it, spray epoxy primer first, then I have a bucket of lizard skin ceramic coating that goes last. I am trying to decide what to put between the epoxy primer and lizard skin however. I can either do 2k urethane primer as a sealer, or I have eastwood rust converter I could use, or maybe something else I dunno yet.... I thought about rubber undercoating and then the ceramic lizard skin but im not sure I need all that....


.

[raggedjim]

I like to use the .023 Esab Ezgrind for outer body panels. I did use .030 fluxcore for floor pans (heck, I got a free roll of it so why not use it and save the good stuff). Not changing polarity from fluxcore to mig is a common mistake. You welds look much better now.

Good work so far, Rg

[Sparky dave]

Ahh was polarity incorrect I was thinking it was low on gas. Your welds are really starting to look good now! I read the start of this post and you said you was low on confidence with all the work to do. Well you deffinatley have turned things around it’s looking really good and I can’t believe the pace your working at. Your smashing it! Keep up the good work and thanks for making this thread

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by raggedjim

I like to use the .023 Esab Ezgrind for outer body panels. I did use .030 fluxcore for floor pans (heck, I got a free roll of it so why not use it and save the good stuff). Not changing polarity from fluxcore to mig is a common mistake. You welds look much better now.

Good work so far, Rg

Originally Posted by Sparky dave

Ahh was polarity incorrect I was thinking it was low on gas. Your welds are really starting to look good now! I read the start of this post and you said you was low on confidence with all the work to do. Well you deffinatley have turned things around it’s looking really good and I can’t believe the pace your working at. Your smashing it! Keep up the good work and thanks for making this thread

Thanks guys for the support! I will buy some .023 next time I hit up the harbor freight and give it a try

[TA_C10]

Rocker Panel Repair - Driver Side

The outer rockers were replacement panels the previous owner used to cover up the rotted floors with sheet metal screws PO's suck sometimes... I knew they would need some work because the drivers side was starting to rust pretty good in one spot but not too badly. So I decided to just repair them myself instead of buying new ones.

Well everyone says these aftermarket pieces don't fit very well and boy are they right. It's almost deceiving at first glance, didn't notice how bad they were. Here is a look at the fitment of the rocker, and the rust spot to repair.













My plan is to use my body saw and put a thin slice at the top of the rocker at the same time I cut out the bad spot to replace. The slice at the top will allow me to open up the metal at the top to get it to fit in the corner better.











Now I will do the same with the next corner.









Now I moved on to the hole I cut out to patch. This took a while. I cut the patch larger on the sides because I knew I was going to have hammer and shape the piece to have the same contour of the slopes it has in that location. Turned out pretty good I thought. And you can also see how much tighter each of the corners fit at the top, nice and snug. Now the rocker is ready for install when I get the cab mounted properly or back on the frame and can hang the door to get the gaps correct.















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[kxmotox247]

Lots of work and welding! Switch to the .023" wire as mentioned already and I'll think you'll be happier. There will be a lot less weld to grind.
Looks good!

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by kxmotox247

Lots of work and welding! Switch to the .023" wire as mentioned already and I'll think you'll be happier. There will be a lot less weld to grind.
Looks good!

Ok thanks, will do! There is definitely a lot of weld to grind right now and having less sounds really nice...



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[TA_C10]

Cab supports - Under Cab Repairs

Before I complete the rockers I needed to complete the under cab supports. All 4 of them needs replacement unfortunately. One of them at first looked fine but I see rusted pin holes right up next to the support rails so they all have to go.

So I flipped the cab to make it easier to work on. I got the back 2 supports cut out and filled the whole support column with some Eastwood internal frame coating. The tube has a brass tip on the end with like 5-6 holes so it sprays almost 360 degrees. It's easy to use and prevents rust. I led the hose in each side of the support rails and sprayed as I pulled the hose out slowly.








This stuff did a pretty good job. I should have done 2 coats as I think I would have gotten coverage but I think it definitely going to help. I didn't look at these pics until I already welded in the new supports but that's the nice thing about the hose is it fits in small holes so I will do a second coat tomorrow.











I just connected their paint pre-prep spray to the hose when I finished and it cleaned the hose out really quickly. So now I can use it over and over no prob.

[TA_C10]

While I was waiting for paint to dry I was looking at my floors and noticed something I didn't like. Cold welds. I had finished the drivers side floor pan replacement a couple months ago, you know, back when I didn't realize the polarity settings on the welder was wrong.... So little did I know those welds were really cold. And I think someone even noticed on here and told me but it still didn't really register until I saw good penetrating welds after I fixed the welder settings.

So I ground down the under side welds and re-welded the entire seam. And I'm glad I did because I had a couple spots just burn straight through because I had welded the metal too thin. I also had pin holes in the cold welds and re-welding from the bottom side really penetrated well and sealed all those pin holes us nicely.

Here is some of the progress.









Here is the top side and you can see the penetration is good.






All buttoned up, weld thru primer coated and ready to burn in my new supports.










I love seeing the weld penetration now, it just makes me feel better about the metal work being a solid long lasting fix.

And FYI I scuffed and sprayed weld thru primer on the under side of those replacement support pieces. I still have a few more spot welds to finish up on the supports and then I will drill the seat belt holes and weld the nut to the bottom of the support like factory did it.


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[kxmotox247]

Good idea on how to clean that spray tube out! So do you think it coated everything really well? I bought some for the last truck but never got around to using it.

Another cool item for welding this stuff in is this magnetic copper blocker. The weld won't stick to the copper so you can fill holes and larger gaps. I've also taken 1/2 copper tubing and flattened the end and used it to hold behind areas where I needed a copper backing.

Grinding welds sucks. Just the heat from that can warp panels. I've purchased "easy grind" welding wire but honestly wasn't able to to tell the difference from regular wire.

Looking good!

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by kxmotox247

Good idea on how to clean that spray tube out! So do you think it coated everything really well? I bought some for the last truck but never got around to using it.

Another cool item for welding this stuff in is this magnetic copper blocker. The weld won't stick to the copper so you can fill holes and larger gaps. I've also taken 1/2 copper tubing and flattened the end and used it to hold behind areas where I needed a copper backing.

Grinding welds sucks. Just the heat from that can warp panels. I've purchased "easy grind" welding wire but honestly wasn't able to to tell the difference from regular wire.

Looking good!

Seemed to work pretty good. But I am definitely going to do a second coat after I looked at the close up pics inside the rails I sprayed. I posted a few pics of them.

And yeah I picked up a variety of these copper spoons from harbor freight. They work great. And great idea on using copper piping! I need a smaller piece for tight spaces!!

[68Gold/white]

Job well done!!! I've read most of thread...a great DIY for anyone that has little or no experience rebuilding their ride!!!

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by 68Gold/white

Job well done!!! I've read most of thread...a great DIY for anyone that has little or no experience rebuilding their ride!!!

Thank you sir. I sure hope all these pics and info will help someone out

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[TA_C10]

Front Cab Supports - Under Cab Repairs

These cab supports were worse than I originally thought. Driver side I only had to replace half the support but the passenger side had to come all the way out. These were very different than I had ever seen. Nobody documents this stuff... So here you go, your going to see the underside and inside of these front cab supports. Hope this helps someone out.

Here you can see all the spot welds I had to cut out. 4 on the under side of the support around the body mount hole, 4 on the back side(2 tabs on end of support), and several going down the rest(upper sides) of the support.

You can also see the spacer that the factory installs for the body mount bolt to use for support. Without that spacer it would collapse. You need to be careful when you cut the 4 spot welds out on the bottom end that you don't cut into that spacer.












A few of the tools that I used.







At first glance the reproduction supports looked pretty good. And really they weren't too bad. But I did have to make a few modifications to make it fit and up to my standards

The end of the original support had an angle cut out and so putting the two together I found that, marked it, ground it down to fit. I also made a slit in the corner of the right hand tab and peeled back the tab a little further as well to make it sit flush with the cab frame rail it gets welded to.

Then, lastly I noticed how the tabs on the reproduction didn't have material all the way to the top of the support and because of that it didn't cover the same area all the way where I cut the spot welds so I added some little strips to make the work. Otherwise my spot weld holes I cut were only halfway covered with metal and I wanted them completely filled when I go back to install them using those same holes.

I hope this all makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't and I can explain a little better perhaps.

















Peeled the tab back to sit flush with the new angle cut.










Here are my holes I cut for spot welds. Some of the floor pan was messed up from me using a hammer and punch wedge... LoL i'm tired and can't remember the name of that punch wedge tool.....

Anyways I got rid of the tore up floor pieces by simply cutting the spot weld holes through them so I will spot weld the floor supports in these areas from the top. The rest of the holes I cut in the support tabs and will fill those from the bottom. No big deal and makes fixing those small screw ups nice and easy









And here is how I added the new material to the tabs to complete them so I can reuse my spot weld holes I cut out from the original.














All done, now they fit pretty good. Currently I have the e-coat sanded off where needed and covered in zinc weld thru primer. Tomorrow I will be welding them in. Stay tuned.

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[nlped]

Man!!! You have come a long way in a rather short time with your metal working skills. I’m definitely in to watch this one! I’ve got a little metal work I want to tackle on Walter, so I’ll use this thread for some inspiration.

[Scurry67]

Looking real good! Are all of your body panels going to require that much work, too?

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by nlped

Man!!! You have come a long way in a rather short time with your metal working skills. I’m definitely in to watch this one! I’ve got a little metal work I want to tackle on Walter, so I’ll use this thread for some inspiration.

Thank you sir. It feels like its taking forever. It's been a journey and i'm still welding up rusted parts and panels...

Originally Posted by Scurry67

Looking real good! Are all of your body panels going to require that much work, too?

Boy I sure hope not!!! I am going to save the inner fenders by repairing some sheet metal on them. The outer fenders and bed seem to be in good shape, we shall see...

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[TA_C10]

Finishing up the supports!

I ended up using clamps to hold most of the supports flat against the floor but I didn't have big enough clamps for one side of the front supports so I used self tapping sheet metal screws to suck them close then I just welded up all the holes.

Got everything primed in weld thru primer and went to town welding in the spot welds and butt welds...








I found a socket that fit inside spacer just perfectly and that held my body mount bolt hole true while I welded up the front support that had to be completely replaced.

















And here are some of the spot welds I had to make from inside the cab. Don't mind the crap looking floor, I ended up removing more of the dynomat that was down to access the section of the floor to weld and yeah, I see the pitting, but it's just gonna have to stay that way.. I will clean it up nice, spray some rust encapsulator on it, then redo the dynomat which seals pretty good. Only reason it was pitting was because of the water getting into the cab and I don't anticipate anymore of that happening. The underneath side of the floor is perfect so this pitting didn't go too deep.






And here is a shot of a few of the opposite sides of the spot welds to see the penetration, looks good if you ask me. Polarity, Polarity, Polarity.... Get that right!







Stay tuned, I already cut the patch for old floor shifter in trans tunnel and started burning it in. Updates on that tomorrow. Then its time to sit the cab on the frame and finish the rockers, roof panel, and stereo DIN fix.

PS: I put a second coat of that frame sealer in the cab support running along the back end of the cab and as I pulled the tube out I spun it in my fingers so it was twirling around to make sure I got all the crevices this time. I think it did really good. Anyway that is why you see those black runs going down the cab, its where it leaked out of the frame rail. I actually have a hole to weld up further on one of the welds inside the cab because it leaked out of the spot weld...

.

[68Gold/white]

A bunch of your pictures in post 65 did not show up...

Are you grinding the welds down with the flap wheel? or just using the flap wheel for final smoothing?

What welding technique has worked best for you? What heat setting has worked best for you? Welding rust is sooo much fun

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by 68Gold/white

A bunch of your pictures in post 65 did not show up...

Are you grinding the welds down with the flap wheel? or just using the flap wheel for final smoothing?

What welding technique has worked best for you? What heat setting has worked best for you? Welding rust is sooo much fun

Interesting, I can see all the pics, maybe try to refresh the page? Let me know if you still can't see them.

Yeah I pretty much just use the 36 grit / 40 grit flap wheels from harbor freight to getting the majority of the welds down. Then I finish them off with 36 or 80 grit air grinder discs.

What welding technique do you mean? I like hitting the previous weld then dragging the puddle with me. But usually I'm hitting the tack welds so fast there is no dragging.

I will look at my welder settings tomorrow and let you know what voltage and wire speed im using. It's pretty close to the panel settings on the welder lid. And my polarity is set to positive + polarity, not negative.

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[TA_C10]

Finishing touches on the under side of floor pan...


Well I finally finished the floor pan. All the supports are burned in and today I sealed up the old floor shifter hole and and old fuel tank holes. Got everything cleaned up and a little weld thru primer over the welds to hold it steady while I flip the cab back over and plant it on the frame rails tomorrow.

I can't wait to show you guys the jig I am building to pick the cab up with the cherry picker. It's gonna make this a one man show with ease. Cost me $20 to make this thing.

The trans tunnel turned out better than I thought even though it doesn't look like it in the pictures. I still need to dolly out the bumps but it ended up fitting pretty well after I thought I cut too much off my patch. I like to start on one end and then start stretching the piece to fit.







This is as good as its gonna get right here. a little primer, little seam sealer, lizard skin, this thing will be good as gone.





Fuel tank holes filled...













And here it is finished. When I finish all the rest of metal work it will get flipped back over, cleaned, scuffed, and e-primed then lizard skinned with ceramic coating. I'm wondering if I shouldn't just remove all the leftover dynomat and just lizard skin the inside too. We'll see... I either need to buy more dynomat or a bucket of sound deadner lizard skin to go with the ceramic lizard skin.




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[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by 68Gold/white

A bunch of your pictures in post 65 did not show up...

Are you grinding the welds down with the flap wheel? or just using the flap wheel for final smoothing?

What welding technique has worked best for you? What heat setting has worked best for you? Welding rust is sooo much fun

Fixed the picture that had a broken link. Thanks for bringing that to my attention

[TA_C10]

Ok guys, I fixed all my pics in post 65. Thanks for the heads up 68Gold/white !

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[68Gold/white]

Originally Posted by TA_C10

Ok guys, I fixed all my pics in post 65. Thanks for the heads up 68Gold/white !

.

Maybe it's my end of the deal...I can see NO pictures at all now on post 65, and also no pistures on post 72....