My 78 K15 High Sierra build - Fish Tremble

[gmachinz]

wow...I commend you for such an audacious approach! Most people-including myself would just drag home a rust free cab....lol. If I can offer a little bit of help-it appears to me after reading all your threads and albeit a little late in the game now for this....but I think you're putting too much heat into each spot weld-which is burning through it-trying to weld to crappy thin semi-rusty metal will also give you a "popcorning" sound as you attempt to weld it as well. Are you mig-welding the repairs? If so, turn down the voltage a hair and increase your wire speed a touch. And, try to place your tacks about an inch apart and give them time to cool before going back in-between them again. I admire your attempt at salvaging OEM panel sand resisting the urge to buy aftermarket! All in all, very good work, sir!

[rgunlock]

Thanks for the welding tips gmachinz. I try to follow that advise, but sometimes easier to say than do I guess. I don't do too badly when I'm welding right in front of my face. Speaking of which, I been making slow progress the last couple weekends. Got the passenger side cab corner in and started on the firewall. Good bit of rust around where the ac/heater stuff and hoses go through the firewall, and even more when I started cutting away some of the metal. Felt like good progress this weekend though. I'll clean the welds up a bit more, but wound up ordering the wrong abrasives for my die-grinder

[rgunlock]

Well, I have kept at it in the month since I last posted. Just not a lot in any given week. Finished up the firewall and moved onto the windshield pillars/frame (not sure what they are called). Had to shape the patches using bench vise, pliers, a little hammer and dolly. Not sure what tool would have helped on these smaller pieces, but the curves are tough. I've just rough ground the welds with my cutting disk. Still waiting on my course sanding disks for the die grinder to finish up. All things considered, I think these turned out ok.

[19silverado77]

Your builds going nice man. Do you think you could give me some pointers on patch panel repairs. I need to replace the rears of both front fenders.

[rgunlock]

Thanks 19silverado77. Sure I can give you tips, but fair warning, this project has been my first experience welding sheet metal as well.

First tip is the google search box at the top of the screen is your friend. Type in "welding patch panels" and select the "67-72chevytrucks.com" dot and you'll get links to a ton of threads specifically on this. Here's an example of a thread I posted asking for this same kind of advise myself.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=576708

I can also give you a few tips that may not be spelled out clearly elsewhere. When you buy your patch panel, it will likely be much larger than the rusted area you need to patch. You don't need to use the whole patch and probably don't want to for these reasons:
1) Smaller patch means less weld which means less opportunity for warping (but you'll probably get some anyway).
2) The leftover patch material is good for those places where you have to make your own patch. I have more of these spots on my cab than the spots I was able to get a patch panel for.
3) Most important, by cutting the patch down to just what you need, if you screw up you can cut the patch and a little more original metal back out and a new patch will still fit for a re-do.

I probably spend twice as long getting a patch to fit as actually welding it in. If you leave gaps that are too wide, they are tough to weld and generally in my case make the job of grinding, fixing burn holes, etc. bigger than it should have been. If your best effort at fitting the patch still leave some slightly too big gaps, use a copper backer behind what you are welding to help you bridge the gap. Weld won't stick to it, and it absorbs heat helping you not to have burn outs. I use a piece of copper tubing I smashed flat with a hammer.

When welding in the patch, everyone will tell you to take it slow. Make a few tacks to hold the patch in place and then fill in the gaps a little at a time, letting the metal cool before you go back to the same area of your patch. One piece of advise I got was rather than putting tacks in the middle of other tacks, start each tack on the edge of another to help prevent burnout. I'll only put 2 or 3 tacks in a row slightly overlapping the last one and then move to another area. Some may say even that is too much in one spot.

Grinding is where I probably have made the most mistakes. In my own experience, when I do a butt-weld for a patch panel, the metal shrinks in a way that leaves the weld in a slight valley. Not a problem if you have access to the back of the weld because after grinding the weld close to flush you can use a hammer and dolly to flatten the area before finish grinding. The mistake I made was attempting to grind the weld flush when I couldn't hammer it back out and didn't really realize what was going on. I was taking off too much metal on either side of the weld. Then, when filling pin holes I'd end up burning a hole in too-thin metal. I've actually had to cut some of these areas out and patch my patch The technique I've adopted lately is to take the weld down near to flush using the edge of a cutoff wheel, just moving back and forth on the weld. I have better control than using a grinding disc because for me it is tough to see just what is being ground (likely metal beside the weld) using the grinder. When you get it close to flush, I've had pretty good success using either a flap disk or a 36 or 50 grit roloc disc on a die grinder to finish taking it down.

For all that, I still don't get patches that look as good as many examples you'll see on this forum. I will be using some "kitty hair" filler over my butt welds. It is supposed to resist cracking better than regular plastic filler. It is also waterproof so it will hide the ugliness and fill whatever gaps I left in my weld.

Hope this helps you some. Main thing is read as many of these helpful threads as you can first, and then practice on something else before you jump right into your fender.

[19silverado77]

Thanks man and ill look into it and let you know how it turns out.

[rgunlock]

Ok, too cool even here in Texas to spray epoxy primer on the cab, so I've moved to the bed. For the most part, its in pretty good shape except for a couple spots behind the wheel wells, and the bed floor itself is rusted pretty thin. After removing the trim and rails, I started tackling a rusted spot in the bed side. In an attempt to reach a "last page" on my build rather than having each page listed, I'm going to post a step by step of this rust repair.

I'd bought a patch from LMC that actually would replace the entire lower rear bedside, but cut out just a small portion of it that I needed to deal with the rusted area. I used electric shears to cut out the patch. Then I held the patch up to the bedside and used a sharpie to outline the patch, and a cutoff wheel to cut out the bad part of the bed side.

[rgunlock]

Then I use a "surface preparation" pad on a die grinder to remove paint and expose the spot welds. For the type of spot weld bit I have, I first use a small bit to drill a pilot hole, then the spot weld bit to cut through the upper layer of metal. You can usually tell when you've cut through by feeling a little more give, and rust and dust start coming out of the hole while you are drilling. Then a screwdriver to pry the cut out portion loose, and voila, the bad part is off. BUT WAIT!!! Behind that is another chunk of metal that looks just as bad as what I cut off (story of my life on this build )

[19silverado77]

Boy do those look nice great job.

[bilfman]

One of my favorite builds is BACK!

[rgunlock]

Thanks guys! Project never stopped, just moving slowly. Here are a couple of the step mounting brackets done. I had been trying to figure out a good way to handle getting my bed on & off and found an add for a device that was a couple hundred dollars. I figured I could build one that worked as well, and it did. Stuck the bed back on the truck to test it out and so I can dial in my tailpipes and get them welded. Felt so good just to see it kind of looking like a truck again that I spent about an hour just looking at it and taking a bunch of pics.

[rgunlock]

Couple more. One shows my other project waiting in the wings. Now the bed has to come back off so I can blast it inside and bottom.

[Bomp]

Such a great feeling of accomplishment when you can build your own jigs to move things around. Plus, save all that Cold Hard Ca$h!
Truck is coming along great.
Future project looks promising.

[rgunlock]

Thanks Bomp! Lots of feel good going on, and building confidence making stuff from scratch. I'm really looking forward to starting (actually restarting - but that is another story) on the '59. Sure be nice to have a 1st gen Camaro hanging from my rafters though!

[Greenlee]

Nice work! Just read through the entire thread. Looks like you are an expert at sheet metal work after working on this truck!

[rgunlock]

Thanks for checking it out Greenlee! Not sure about expert, but at least I'm not totally embarrassed about the last patches I've done. Think I'm even going to go back and redo some of the early fender patches, but first I'm in the middle of covering all my cab patches in kittyhair.

[rgunlock]

Well, this post is just to prove I haven't been totally slacking the last few weeks. Started bodywork on the cab. Kitty hair first over the butt joints on the patch panels. Pretty much done with that on cab and started filler. What you see isn't nearly done. Got a LOT of sanding and more filling between now and done! Also, finally got a nice weekend here and been blasting the bed. Actually started it a couple weeks ago, then it got to sit in the rain. Plan to blast all but the outer bedsides, but damn this is a SLOW process - at least for me. At the current (lack of) pace of progress, this phase of the project is going to take a lonnnnggggg time!

[MTCK]

Looks good, keep it up!

[mjensen]

Coming right along!

[boynton]

Coming along very well. Wanted to let you know I sold the white truck and started another one...

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=617630

Now you don't have to hear it from Jared, you are the first to know (I think).

[rgunlock]

Just realized its been 4 months since I posted on this build. You guys have probably forgotten all about it. I haven't dropped off the face of the earth or even stopped working on the truck - just been slowly doing filler work - slather and sand, slather and sand, etc. Not much fun I've decided so its going slow. In the meanwhile, I just spent 3 weekends working on my son's truck. It is the first and only vehicle he's ever had (he's 27 now). He was rear-ended by a woman most likely texting. Insurance was going to total it, but he kept it and got a reduced payout of $2600. So far, he's about $900 in repairs, which includes a couple hundred for tools he bought me to compensate for labor and materials :-) as well as new shocks and struts which he needed, but only one rear shock was broken in the accident. Had to cut off and fab new ends for the rear frame, and straighten brackets. BTW, that is member boynton (and my son) in the last picture helping out. It was what I've learned on this project of mine which gave me the confidence to tackle my son's damage.

[rgunlock]

As mentioned, been doing filler work for a while now. Have the cab close. Just a little more work on the firewall and windshield frame. Got a new toy for Father's Day which should speed things up. It's a Hutchins 3800 Orbital Action Long Board Air Sander. I did some research and most that got this sander said it was great and sped things up. The inline air sanders - not so much. I'd read a bunch of reviews where it was used once and the owner didn't like it so never used it again. I've only tried this one on the firewall - vertical surface. A bit tough to control but I'm getting the hang of it. After I finish these couple areas of fillerwork, I need to sand down the entire cab and hit it with epoxy primer. Even though I hit it with a rust converter months ago, it's been so long its getting surface rust in places anyway.

[Mustard72]

Nice work on the Yota. I bet your kid is happy with the extra money. I had a similar situation with an old Buick many moons ago. A kid pulled ou in front of me and my 69 LeSabre. I think I got something like $400 from the insurance company and spent much less than that on a junkyard bumper and grill.

Good to see some progress on your truck, too.

[rgunlock]

Thanks for checking in Nick. Good luck on your kitchen remodel. Tonight I decided to follow Mike's (mjensen) lead and will go with aftermarket AC/heat. Cut a huge hole in my firewall where I'd done a ton of rust repair and applied a lot of filler. Wasn't real happy with how that was turning out anyway. Now just have to do one large flat patch.

[Bomp]

Nice work on the firewall patch. Your welding skills look to have come along nicely.

I know what you mean by feeling like your slogging along. Little by little, You'll get there.

Looking good and getting better as ya go.