Avoid the Concrete

[kgmunro]

Man what is that color blue? I love it!

[Low68]

Thank you BigMike


The color is called Intense Blue if i remember correctly. It was a dodge factory color off of rams and neons i believe. It has been a while, but i think it may have been a 95 model year color.

[Low68]

Frame tucked out of the way.




I have been making a little headway on the firewall. I lined up the panels and put some square tubing across the face of the firewall to make sure that I get it level. I got it tack welded around the outside of the cowl area as well as inside. The seam is not centered.




I am welding the cowl to the cab all the way around since I removed the vent underneath that area. Slow progress on the welding.




I am also welding the seams under the window weather stripping. I will to the same on the upper ones while I am shaving the drip rails. I did a little more welding on the lower ones after the pictures to get them a little smoother. I will grind them down tomorrow and see how they look.

[Low68]

Made some progress on the foot boards. I cut out the floor boards where the original foot boards started to curve up.






I then cut some extensions for the floor to move them forward. I moved them roughly 3 inches forward.




I bent some metal for the floor and cut it down the center of the bend giving me the two pieces for the foot boards.




I got those cut to rough size and then tack welded them on to the firewall.










I spent the rest of the day welding the joints. Still have a lot of welding and grinding to do.

[swamp rat]

Good job man! cant wait to see it all done.

[Bennett68C10]

Awesome job on the firewall. It's going to look really good when your finished with it. I welded up the seams on my front windshield too, kind of had to, I had some rust there.

[timmytimm3]

Like others have said, it sucks about the accident but you'll be back and better than ever. I'm going a similar direction with my truck.

[Low68]

Thanks for the compliments.

I have been welding on the firewall more. I got the foot boards welded top and bottom. Here is the inside view of the firewall so far.




Since I typically weld very small sections and let the metal cool between passes, I also started working on the seem at the back edge of the cab during the down time. I started in the center and worked my way to the outsides. What I did was cut right on both side of the seem and bent the metal to give it more of a curve. This gave me a profile I was happy with. I started by finding the center and then I would measure each way the same amount. I would make a relief cut to allow the metal to bent a little more evenly. I kept doing that until I got all the way across. Here is a slew of pictures of that process.

Before:




Center section cut and tacked to give you an idea of the difference.


You can see the lines/relief cuts where I measured to help keep things even. As I went across I would also measure from the peak of the old seam to the new radius. I would compare both sides as I went to make sure that they would be even.


Here is the final profile. Just tacked in this photo. You can see some of the gaps are pretty large. Since I don't have any tools that can help me bend compound curves in sheet metal yet, I decided I would just bent the metal that is already there instead of cutting out a larger area and trying to make a filler panel. The problem is that it created these larger gaps. I did two things to deal with this. First was cut narrow strips to weld in. The second was to use a piece of copper behind the gap and weld over it. The piece of copper can be removed and it helps to prevent the burn through on the larger gaps.

[swamp rat]

I really like that rear roof profile! I'm sure you will be able to get the gaps filled no problem.

[Bomp]

Thats taking on some serious stuff.
Watchin intently.

[Low68]

I also have almost all the outside edge of the firewall welded. Need to grind it down a little to clean it up.



The back of the cab is welded and ground down. I still need to grind the inside smooth and then do some hammer and dolly work to smooth out a couple of bumps.

[mcbassin]

Excellent work on the cab! keep the pictures coming.

[19GMC66]

My buddy with a CTSV met you recently and told me about your build, your build is awesome! Keep up the good work.

[Low68]

Thanks 19GMC66. He showed me a picture of your truck as well and that is a fantastic looking truck! You don't have a build thread do you? Did you use Porterbuilt's parts on yours?


Spent several hours grinding down welds tonight. Grinding the inside of the roof is a pain. Even using the little 3 inch disc it is hard to get in there.




I ground down the outside edge of the firewall.




Lastly, I cut the footboards off even with the floor and rounded them over some. Here is one side. The other side is too blurry.

[Brannon yazell]

Like the fab work...firewall looks great.

[19GMC66]

Low68 thanks! I did a Porterbuilt extreme front drop member and my brother (builtbybrooks) did my rear set up. I have somewhat of a build thread that my brother started before i was a member here but it started off with another truck so it's kind of all over the place.

[darkhorse970]

Very coo build you've got going! I'm along for the ride.

[mechanic350]

Great build, got a lot of the same plans. Subscribed

[mikeleeshields]

That firewall is just plain sick. I like the roof mod too.

[Low68]

Got the rear cab seam finished up today. It will need some filler to get it smooth, but I am pretty happy with the way it came out. Here are the photos.

[Bomp]

Some slick work there. Dig It!

[Dunenutt]

Awesome! Sick tin skills!

[Low68]

I decided to shave the drip rail next. Here are some before pictures. The pieces that go around the doors I had already removed prior to sandblasting so that all the metal underneath that portion would be bare metal.








I started in the middle of the drip rail above the windshield. I cut out a sections of the drip rail, pulled the sheet metal down, and tack welded it over the part below it.




Once I had that tack welded, I did some more on each side. I had it overlapping and tacked for about a foot. Then I took a cut off disk from the inside and cut the roof skin right at the edge of the lower piece. This made it line up pretty well with no gaps. I left the two outer most tack welds so things didn't shift. The two photos below are where I cut on either side of the drip rail.






Here is the inside of the roof skin. In this photo you can see how the roof skin overlaps the metal around the windshield. I cut with the cutoff disk right at the top of the lower metal so that I was just cutting the roof skin.




I kept doing this and worked my way out toward the edges.






This is the best profile picture I have. I will attempt to get a better one this weekend.




I got pretty close to the corners and then started working on the sides over the doors. I started on the driver side and put the door on. I got it line up relatively well to see how it fit.




I cut the drip rail flush along the outside. I tack welded as I went to keep things from shifting or coming apart.






Once I got all the way up to the front corner I finished welding and ground it all smooth along the outside.






Last photo for now is the corner of the driver side. I still need to cut out the last portion of drip rail on that side and work on getting the corner smoothed out and lined up with everything.

[69CST-V]

I'm a little late to the party, but holy cow. Nice work. Following along.

[Stickman]

Awesome fab work. The truck is looking great.