71 K20 Idaho Edition

[landarts]

So this morning I was having trouble getting back to sleep so I decided at 4:30 to get out of bed and get out in the shop early before work and get the top of the cab skin removed. My number one goal was to not drill through the rain gutters. So with a knotted wire wheel I went around the edge of the roof gutter to cleanup and help expose the spot weld locations. Then I used a 5/16 drill bit to drill on top of the spot weld just a little bit. Then used a sharped chisel and hammer to pop the skin lose from the gutter. Then once I was all the way around the gutter section on both doors and front window area I just cut about two inches along the back before the factory seam. I will go back and do a measured cut and match that on the donor skin I saved from last week.

Took out the sacrificed wood chisel and scrapped off the rest of the insulation and tar that remained on the roof from the factory install. Then fired up the vacuum and tried to clean out all the areas and debris to get it ready for the next step. I have a few spots that I will need to grind down to make a flat matting surface for the new skin. Clean everything off and then give the inner top roof and structure a full coat Ospho as well as the underside of the top skin for rust treatment. I purchased a can of 3M cavity wax and a wand application kit. So I will be treating the A-Pillars and top of the inner roof locations just behind the windshield and door channels. What is leftover from the cavity wax will go into the rockers on each side down below.

Then plan now is to tack weld the skin onto the gutters and slowly tack weld the rear section of the roof skin to the area 1" from the factory seam. Paying attention to going slowly so I do not warp the metal like I did on the first repair.

Pict 1 - shows the carnage from removing the roof
Pict 2, 3, 4 - shows the inner roof sections

[best view]

U don’t think it would have been easier to cut it down low on the 4 post I know the glass would have to come out

[landarts]

Originally Posted by best view

U don’t think it would have been easier to cut it down low on the 4 post I know the glass would have to come out

No, I am in this about 1.5 hours removing, cleaning and treating. Should take about another hour to install skin. Not having to mess with taking glass out and reinstalling is worth the effort. Also the rest of the structure is solid and had no signs of rust deterioration just some minor surface rust.

[landarts]

Again was able to get out in the garage this morning before work and get the measured cut done along the back of the skin. Used 3/4" 3m yellow masking tape butted to the rear section that starts to turndown and made the cut on the outer edge with a 4.5 grinder and a Diablo metal cutting blade. These blades seem to not heat the metal up as fast as the others.

When that was complete I cleaned up any cutting dust and blew it off with a few squirts of air from the compressor. Then put on a full coat of the Rustoleum Rusty Metal primer over the top of the cured Ospho coat. Did not put any primer over the areas that will be welded will be using the 3m weld through primer I purchased with the cavity wax.

After work I will be getting the insulation cut out and secured in the center of the roof, then treating the underside of the roof skin. Hopefully if all goes well I will get it tacked in and ready for finish metal work for tomorrow morning.

[57taskforce]

Really nice work!

[landarts]

Originally Posted by 57taskforce

Really nice work!

Thanks for the shout out. By the way I still intend to use the winch plate drawing you sent. Probably won't be working on that until paint is done. Thanks!

[Ol Blue K20]

Looks good, I'm watching. How do you get to the back to weld it?

[landarts]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Looks good, I'm watching. How do you get to the back to weld it?

I made the cut 3/4 of inch in front of the factory seam, that is where I will weld along the back. On the repair I first did I rushed the spot welds and warped it. Hopefully this time around I will go slower between each weld and skip about 12 inches to the next weld in a rotation fashion. Fingers crossed.

[landarts]

Finished getting cutting the used roof skin to match cab and treated the other side with Ospho. Installed the insulation to the top of the cab roof inner.
The product is from Home Depot has self adhesive backing with a layer of high density foam and a aluminum type outer backing, it is used for HVAC duct work. I use the product when I redo the floors in the trucks and put it down before laying the carpet.

Got everything fitted up and ready for spot welding sometime today when I get break from work. Will be working these spot welds slowly and planishing the welds as I go.
The new goal for the week is to have the back of the cab and front of bed front panel painted so I can mount the bed back on the truck.

Also had another K20 I bought about a week ago show up in town this weekend. I still have not had a chance to see it in person, hopefully by the middle of this week I will get a chance to go over and get it off of the trailer and do a once over. This truck is a 72 K20, Medium blue (510) paint, matching camper, Custom deluxe blue cloth trim, belt line trim, sliding rear window, tow hooks, tach, tilt, 350/350, posi-rear end truck. This truck comes with protecto-plate, build sheet and all of the maintenance records.

[landarts]

Was able to get about 75% done welding in the roof skin. So far no warpage at all on the skin. Taking my time and skipping around about a foot or so apart on spot welds. Pushing to wrap the rest of the spot welds sometime late morning or on my lunch break. This evening I will knock down the spot welds with my small air grinder with metal cutting blade and follow up with a 80 grit flap disk.

Once the metal is finished I will go through with a thin coat of filler over the weld areas and wrap up with self leveling seam sealer in the rain gutters.

[68bowtie]

Looking good, keep it up.

[Ol Blue K20]

Nice.

[Greg58]

Looking good!

Greg

[landarts]

Originally Posted by 68bowtie

Looking good, keep it up.

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Nice.

Originally Posted by Greg58

Looking good!

Greg

Thanks for all the positive comments. First time doing a roof skin, was not that hard to do just time consuming. When the repair is done I will have about 7-8 hours total into including cutting and drilling out the donor roof versus buying a reproduction skin. I guess it would be trading time for money. Again thanks for the positive comment.

[landarts]

Was able to finish up all the tack welds yesterday and this morning. Got out in the shop a bit this morning and finished knock all the spot welds down and got the first coat of filler to make a seamless blend.

Now I need to finalize the big parts order that I need to get this truck wrapped up. Try to push to get this thing done and out of the garage before the end of the year. Have several weeks of vacation coming up and will use most of the time to get this project wrapped up. Would like to start the year off with another project that will be getting an LS swap into it. That will be a new adventure to learn all the ins and outs of LS swapping into this era of trucks. As of right now I have one motor already in the garage and ready to go, and another that I bought that I still need to go pick up.

[best view]

I’d like to try this my self can u sometime show your welder and your favorite tools I use to weld for coke but that was 40 yrs ago and it was heavy metal u must u a tig Eastwood has them but to many choices

[landarts]

I have an old Lincoln Weldpak 100 amp mig welder that I have had for twenty years. I dont think they make this one anymore so if I was going to get the same type I would go with the Lincoln Weldpak 140. It plugs into regular 120 volt house socket and comes with everything to add the gas setup that you will need. I would suggest getting a unit that has at least two knobs, one for adjusting wire speed and the other to adjust temperature. Again I am no expert on welding I just do this as a hobby and this setup works for what I need it to do on these trucks.

Other items that I find helpful are the following:
-gas tank that is 75% argon 25% Carbon Dioxide
-Lincoln .025 Superarc wire - excellent for welding sheet metal on these trucks
-set of good quality Neodymium Disc Magnets - 1 1/2" to 2" excellent for hold metal where you want while welding
-set of panel clamps
-various vise grip clamps
-self tapping sheet metal screws for temporary holding a panel if needed
-set of wire snips to cut of wire to the proper length
-welding hood that is auto dim
-welding gloves
-weld through primer
-knotted wire wheel, flap disc, etc to clean up metal before welding

Photo 1 - is my setup
Photo 2 - is screen shot of Lincoln 140 WeldPak from Home Depot

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by landarts

Was able to finish up all the tack welds yesterday and this morning. Got out in the shop a bit this morning and finished knock all the spot welds down and got the first coat of filler to make a seamless blend.

Now I need to finalize the big parts order that I need to get this truck wrapped up. Try to push to get this thing done and out of the garage before the end of the year. Have several weeks of vacation coming up and will use most of the time to get this project wrapped up. Would like to start the year off with another project that will be getting an LS swap into it. That will be a new adventure to learn all the ins and outs of LS swapping into this era of trucks. As of right now I have one motor already in the garage and ready to go, and another that I bought that I still need to go pick up.

It looks good, you made it look easy.

[best view]

Thank u for taking the time to do that when do u sleep besides not often

[tekin112000]

Great to see such progress.

[landarts]

Originally Posted by best view

Thank u for taking the time to do that when do u sleep besides not often

No problem glad to help where I can. I usually get two hours in the shop from 5am to 7am before I login to work. Then I try to get out there a little in the afternoon when I am done with work. Now I am starting a 9 day vacation from work so things are really going to move forward.......stay tuned

[Ol Blue K20]

I'm definitely staying tuned......

[landarts]

Spent all day Sunday in the shop working getting the roof and other areas ready for some primer. Kept on finding areas that needed attention so the usual routine, sand, hammer and dolly, then fill, then sand again. Hopefully by the end of the day on Monday I will be ready for primer or have some of it in primer. Then sand, sand, sand again.

Removed the front bumper and push guard so I can address the core support paint and the lower cups on the fenders. Have the seam sealer ready to go down on body seams and around the newly installed roof skin.

I only found one area that will need some attention with rust repair on this truck. The passenger front cab support had a small rust spot about the size of a quarter right next to the debris exit hole. I will cut out the area, treat the inside and patch with new metal and 3m under coating. The other supports are all in good shape and the cab mount bushings are brand new.

Last thing on cab body will be to finish stripping the drivers door I removed a while back. Exterior side has been completely stripped of al paint and some of the interior side paint still needs to be finished. Speaker hole has been completely fixed and mirror holes welded shut.

[Ol Blue K20]

Looking good, it will have paint in no time!

[landarts]

Wrapped up a few items on the bottom of the cab corners that need attention before painting. Used some UPOL glazing filler to fill a few areas that had some pin holes in the filler. Then went over a few of the repair areas with some spray can SEM high build primer to fill over some of the sanding scratches and catch any of the pin holes also. After getting this knocked down i will get things ready for primer hopefully.

Positioned the bed on the cart so I work on the front of the bed panel and get it ready for primer and paint while the other areas on cab were drying. Noticed that there was two areas that had grease pencil markings from the factory. The one on the passenger side top was a capital "D" in cursive, on the other side near the top was a "22-NL2". They were both done in black grease pencil underneath the Ochre paint. I noticed it because it was slightly raised and the paint was a little thin in that area. As I began to sand the paint with a DA and went over these locations it knocked the paint off and exposed the grease pencil markings even better.

This panel will need to be sanded down and about three or four small areas will need some glaze. The areas that have natural waves or indentations from spot welds I will leave alone and paint over. This is the way it came from the factory and that is the way it will stay in my build.