Roostre's 1967 C20

[Stephen717]

Looking good, I need to reseal the drip rails over my doors, cut off the rail going over my windshield though and have slowly been welding the top back down ever since whenever I get a free moment. Can't wait to see more from you

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by Stephen717

Looking good, I need to reseal the drip rails over my doors, cut off the rail going over my windshield though and have slowly been welding the top back down ever since whenever I get a free moment. Can't wait to see more from you

Thanks! I'm doing what I can with the time available. We have a 2 year old, and the little guy takes precedence with time. Very soon he'll be out there helping me!

Next up I'm hoping to get the front clip squared away and spray some paint while we have this nice, low humidity weather.

[Roostre]

I sold an old car to our local grab & go today. While there, I wandered back to the two 68 trucks sitting in the back of their yard. I scored a sun visor for $5.66. The green will look a little weird in my red truck, but at that price it's better than the current one with the split seam and it's inside falling out.

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by Roostre

I sold an old car to our local grab & go today. While there, I wandered back to the two 68 trucks sitting in the back of their yard. I scored a sun visor for $5.66. The green will look a little weird in my red truck, but at that price it's better than the current one with the split seam and it's inside falling out.

That will work and you can dye it to match

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

That will work and you can dye it to match

I'm sure I'll dye it someday. For now it will work fine. I have other body work on the list to do! It will also give my friends something to comment on!

[Roostre]

It has been a while since I've done anything to the old girl. We've been busy buying a new house, moving, and selling our old house. Today I brought my truck to the new house. Had to leave a calling card in the old shop. A little weak, but the truck hadn't run in a year! Three days on the battery charger and a shot of staring fluid and she fired right off.

[Roostre]

It has been a while since I've updated this thread. In truth, the truck has been hibernating. We bought a new house, about 20 miles from our old place. Everything got moved, and the other place sold. The truck was packed up and stuck in one of the out buildings. We got through winter as I worked on cleaning out and setting up my new shop. It's not completely done; I need to paint. But the beautiful weather today must have inspired me to get the truck out, to heck with painting the shop!
A couple of hours on the battery charger, 2 mouse-chewed spark plug wires, and 2 mouse-chewed distributor wires later, and she fired right up. We did a quick spin down the lane and it was into the new shop.
Now the cab will come off to replace the floor. Hopefully I will be able to push the frame and box out into another shed while I work on the cab. I'm looking forward to making progress again!
Here's a picture of her in the new shop.

[Ol Blue K20]

Nice!

[LT7A]

Nice truck, cool project. Great shop with a(t least one) neat window.

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Nice truck, cool project. Great shop with a(t least one) neat window.

Thanks. Yes, I'm happy with the shop. There's 3 windows like that. Unfortunately they're getting rusty and leaking, so I think I'm going to have to replace them. The previous owners had a bunch of crap in there that I had to clean out before it was a usable space. What I really didn't understand is that they had shelving covering the windows. I also had to put in better lighting. Here's a picture of what it looked like from approximately the same angle. The toolbox, air compressor, and ladders I brought with me.

[Chevys4life]

Nice work on your truck and nice shop too!!!

[Roostre]

Thanks everyone! I hope there will be progress on the truck to share soon.

[LT7A]

Crazy to cover the window, unless it was a security issue. What's your shop square footage; it looks big.

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Crazy to cover the window, unless it was a security issue. What's your shop square footage; it looks big.

I live just past the middle of no where, not much security issue! It is around 20' x 30'. I like my current set up better than my previous one because I have several other buildings to store stuff so my shop is just for the current project. My previous 40 x 40 was the only building I had so it was storage, workspace, and garage all in one. Also, the 20 x 30 is much easier to heat!

[Roostre]

Last night I stripped the paint off of my grill trim pieces. Then I worked the worst dents out of them and painted them with some rustoleum. The finish isn't great, but was cheap, easy, and will look ok on my driver. Unfortunately, I didn't think about before pictures until I was half way through straightening them. I really have to get better about that! I do have an after picture though.

The color is kind of an ivory off white. I'm going to do the grill trim, headlight bezels, and bumpers the same color. It will look better than the rusty bright white they are now. If I don't like it, I'm only out some time and can always repaint.

[Ol Blue K20]

Looks good to me...

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Looks good to me...

Thanks!

[LT7A]

That's a very interesting idea. Sometimes with patina rigs, the mirrors, bumpers, and wheels get painted back to a factory white while the body keeps its bumps and bruises. I totally get squaring away some of those bolt on pieces to sharpen up the truck without spoiling the patina. But sometimes they end up looking brand new while the rest of the truck looks old. Using an ivory or off-white is an idea I hadn't thought of, that might true things up a little bit without making them stand out as much as a bright white. I will like to see your pictures on this.

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by LT7A

That's a very interesting idea. Sometimes with patina rigs, the mirrors, bumpers, and wheels get painted back to a factory white while the body keeps its bumps and bruises. I totally get squaring away some of those bolt on pieces to sharpen up the truck without spoiling the patina. But sometimes they end up looking brand new while the rest of the truck looks old. Using an ivory or off-white is an idea I hadn't thought of, that might true things up a little bit without making them stand out as much as a bright white. I will like to see your pictures on this.

Yes, I agree with you. If you look at the picture of the headlight, you can see some of the grill trim. Someone painted them bright white before I got it. They just didn't look right with the weathered paint of the truck.

I realized that I haven't updated the plan in a while, and this ties into it. I'm replacing a bunch of rust and fixing some road rash. The box on the truck is faded red paint. I like the look, so I've got some single stage satin red that I'm going to make the entire truck one color with. I think the off white trim will look really sharp with the color. So its not going to be a true patina or faux patina truck, but I think it will look ok.

I'm also not a professional body man, so I don't want to spray super expensive product on the truck.

[Roostre]

Tonight I spent some time cleaning up my headlight bezels to paint them to match the grill trim. The bezels were rusting under the three layers of paint. I think someone probably primed and painted over the rust. As I stripped them, they look like they were chrome at one point. There were a couple of minor dents in the edge of one that I worked out after taking the paint layers off.

This time, I got before and during pictures. The first one is what they looked like before I started. You can see the edges of the grill trim in the picture to compare the color. The next picture is after I hit them with my air angle grinder with an 80 grit pad. I then went over them with 80 grit by hand. The next picture is after some 100 grit by hand. The final one is in primer.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some pictures of the finished product.

[Ol Blue K20]

Looking forward to the finished pics.

[ItWillBeSlow]

Originally Posted by Roostre

A friend came over last night and we glued the new roof skin on. Because it is an aftermarket panel, it didn't fit perfectly, but that was expected. I also suspect that the rear panel of my cab has been tweeked in the 50+ years of the truck's existance. It went together well enough in the end for my driver quality truck. Here's an overview of what I did.

I used 3M 08115 structural adhesive. It comes in 200mL tubes, and one tube was enough to do 1/4" bead all around the skin with enough left over to kind of fill the rear gap. It has a 90 minute work time, a 4 hour clamp time, and a 24 hour cure time. The instructions say to scuff down to bare metal with 50 grit sandpaper. I could only find 60 grit, so I went to town to remove the e-coat on the panel and the surface rust on the truck. I then wiped everything down with some 3M surface prep that I had. We then test fitted the panel and got our clamps set up. After that, we applied a 1/4" bead of adhesive to the truck and carefully set the outer skin in place, front first. We clamped down the front and sides, then squeezed the rest of the adhesive tube into the gap at the back. We rachet strapped a 4x4 to the back of the roof to press that joint down a little bit. We then walked away and it currently is sitting with the clamps still on it.

I will have to put a little more filler in the rear seam, but I think it will be good enough. I could probably have worked with the replacement panel and gotten the back to fit better, but with the twist it had, I'm definitely time ahead just getting it to bond to the cab and then filling in the seam wherever there is a little more of a gap. This is definitely not going to be a show truck.

Here are the pictures!

Can you share more info about your removal of the roof skin, and how you clamped the new one in?

How did you get the rear seam cut out without damaging the lower cab skin? Did you find a way to cut the spot welds on the "lips" that hold these 2 skins together?

I am guessing you were not able to clamp the "lips" the hold the new skin and old rear skin together. You used the wood block to hold some pressure on it, and the clamps around the rest of the perimeter to keep a healthy pressure on this joint while the sealer set up?

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by ItWillBeSlow

Can you share more info about your removal of the roof skin, and how you clamped the new one in?

How did you get the rear seam cut out without damaging the lower cab skin? Did you find a way to cut the spot welds on the "lips" that hold these 2 skins together?

I am guessing you were not able to clamp the "lips" the hold the new skin and old rear skin together. You used the wood block to hold some pressure on it, and the clamps around the rest of the perimeter to keep a healthy pressure on this joint while the sealer set up?

Sure, I took my angle grinder with a cutoff wheel and cut the outer roof panel about 1/2 inch away from the seam. My old panel was trash, so I didn't care about ruining it. I then took the same cutoff wheel and grinder and used that to cut out the spot welds and carefully pulled and pried the thin strip of roof panel off the rear panel.

I had to think for a while about how to clamp the rear seam because I couldn't get to it. I ended up using 2 ratchet straps secured to the firewall and bed over the roof with a 4x4 board under them to put a little clamp load on the rear seam from the outside. I then squeezed a little more adhesive into anywhere I felt the seam wasn't filled adequately. This should work just fine. Remember that this is structural adhesive, so it's really strong. The outer roof skin just needs to be held in place and the seams sealed from water. If the rear seam isn't 100% strength of the seam sealer due to not being fully clamped, I really don't think it's a big deal. I used a bunch of vise grips with dowels in the drip rails around the sides and front of the panel. I'm sure these had enough clamping force to give the adhesive plenty of strength to hold the roof skin on.

Another thing that is helpful is that the rear panel of the cab has kind of a double bend on the lip that helps align the roof skin and hold it in place.

There was about an 1/8 inch gap between the roof and rear panel. I filled and sealed it with the adhesive, and will have to fill some voids with body filler. I could have probably worked with the two panels and made the seam much tighter, but didn't feel that it was worth it for the scope of this project.

Sorry, I see you asked how to not damage the inner roof panel. If you cut about 1/2 inch away from the rear seam, there's about a 2 inch void between the roof panels, so my 3 inch cutoff wheel did just fine. You can kind of see it in the pictures of treating the rust on the inner panel. I also like using the same wheel to cut spot welds because you can see when you are getting close to the lower panel and can stop before cutting into it.

[ItWillBeSlow]

Originally Posted by Roostre

Sure, I took my angle grinder with a cutoff wheel and cut the outer roof panel about 1/2 inch away from the seam. My old panel was trash, so I didn't care about ruining it. I then took the same cutoff wheel and grinder and used that to cut out the spot welds and carefully pulled and pried the thin strip of roof panel off the rear panel.

I had to think for a while about how to clamp the rear seam because I couldn't get to it. I ended up using 2 ratchet straps secured to the firewall and bed over the roof with a 4x4 board under them to put a little clamp load on the rear seam from the outside. I then squeezed a little more adhesive into anywhere I felt the seam wasn't filled adequately. This should work just fine. Remember that this is structural adhesive, so it's really strong. The outer roof skin just needs to be held in place and the seams sealed from water. If the rear seam isn't 100% strength of the seam sealer due to not being fully clamped, I really don't think it's a big deal. I used a bunch of vise grips with dowels in the drip rails around the sides and front of the panel. I'm sure these had enough clamping force to give the adhesive plenty of strength to hold the roof skin on.

Another thing that is helpful is that the rear panel of the cab has kind of a double bend on the lip that helps align the roof skin and hold it in place.

There was about an 1/8 inch gap between the roof and rear panel. I filled and sealed it with the adhesive, and will have to fill some voids with body filler. I could have probably worked with the two panels and made the seam much tighter, but didn't feel that it was worth it for the scope of this project.

Sorry, I see you asked how to not damage the inner roof panel. If you cut about 1/2 inch away from the rear seam, there's about a 2 inch void between the roof panels, so my 3 inch cutoff wheel did just fine. You can kind of see it in the pictures of treating the rust on the inner panel. I also like using the same wheel to cut spot welds because you can see when you are getting close to the lower panel and can stop before cutting into it.

Thank you, great info. You also mentioned in your earlier post there were a couple minor fitment issues with the new panel. Can you elaborate on those? This panel makes me more nervous than some repops in that it could only be “adjusted or modified” so much.

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by ItWillBeSlow

Thank you, great info. You also mentioned in your earlier post there were a couple minor fitment issues with the new panel. Can you elaborate on those? This panel makes me more nervous than some repops in that it could only be “adjusted or modified” so much.

I may get a little long-winded with this, so I'll give you the Cliff's notes version first so you don't have to read the story if you don't want to.

Cliff's notes: The replacement roof panel had a slight twist to it. When I test-fitted it to the cab, if one corner was clamped down, the opposite corner would pop up a little. This wasn't a big deal and may well have been caused by the shipping damage, or even the cab being 50+ years old and not completely square. The rear seam gap wasn't consistent and anywhere from 0 to +3/16 inch wide. This could probably have been fixed through spot welding sequence while installing, but I didn't want to tear into the cab to spot weld that seam.
All in all, this panel actually fit much better than the fender patch panels I've been using.

Settle in, here's the whole story and my opinions:
My truck is not going to be a show truck. It is going to be a driver that I use as a truck and have fun with. It is also a learning platform to figure out how to do rust repair. The end goal of it is to be something I pull up at the local trap range and the old farmers say that looks like a decent truck. From that standpoint, I don't need it perfect. I want the rust fixed, and understand that it will get dented and chipped up. That's OK, I'll just fix it again.

I was replacing the seam sealer in the drip rails on my cab roof. Like many have had issue with, my sealer was dry and cracked and started to allow moisture under it. I caught it before it damaged the inner roof. As I was cleaning the rust out of the drip rails, I found some body filler above the passenger's side windshield. As I got into it, I realized it was 1/4+ inch thick, about 8 to 10 inches back from the windshield, and about half way across the roof, something must have hit it at some point. I didn't want to replace all of the body filler and risk it coming loose in the future, so I started thinking about a patch panel. I didn't really want to do the whole roof to begin with because I didn't want to deal with the rear seam. I called the local shop that specializes in these trucks and parts, Bowtie Truck Stop. I get everything from them. Kevin and Lisa are wonderful people and I trust them completely to shoot straight and help me out. Come to find out, no one makes patch panels for the roof. But they had a roof panel that was damaged in shipping and they were willing to give me a smoking deal on it. I picked it up, and there were three small dents in the center of the roof where it looks like someone set something on it and maybe slid it a little.

I got the roof panel home and started playing with my hammer and dolly. I am not a body man. I just have a few tools, patience, and want to learn how to do this stuff. I managed to get the dents out to the point where no one would notice them unless they are doing a concourse level inspection. This may be where the slight twist of the panel came from.

After taking the old roof panel off, I started test fitting the new one. Aside from the slight twist, it fit really well through the drip rails. The rear gap wasn't very consistent. It didn't fit snuggly against the cab rear panel anywhere, but it could be pulled into place in most places, if I had access to the pinch welds. I decided that the good fitment in the drip rails was good for me, and since I was going to use adhesive anyway, I could get the rear seam close and fill any voids with body filler, again this isn't a show truck. The adhesive I used has some gap-filling capability, so I used it to fill the thicker gap spots. I used the lumber and ratchet straps to put a little pressure on the rear seam, so that some of the product did squeeze out.

There is also nothing saying that my rear cab panel is straight and correct. The rear of my cab has some dents that I'm really not doing anything about. This is a 50+ year old vehicle that has been used hard and put away wet more times than I care to speculate on. Personally, I don't think it would be realistic to expect a replacement panel of this size to fit 100% correct even if it came from the original tooling.

So the panel ended up working for what I'm hoping to achieve and for what I'm willing to spend on it. I've got pretty limited bodywork skills and so don't really have the knowledge to get it to fit better than adequately. I do have people I could have had help massage the panel and cab to get the rear gap better, but when it came right down to it, I didn't have the ambition to get it to fit better either. I'm happy with how it turned out, and I don't have to worry about a large chunk of body filler blowing off of my roof in the future, or worse trapping moisture against the steel and rotting it out prematurely.

Sorry for the long winded post, but I did warn you at the beginning!