1967 Custom Sport Shop Truck

[67ChevyRedneck]

But I needed something to build the bed on. So I built a set of bad ass saw horses yesterday. I wanted them to be strong so they could hold a complete bed for a year or two?

[67ChevyRedneck]

You forget how heavy some of this crap is until you have to drag it halfway across the yard, stand it up, lift it 2' up the back door step, somehow get it in the garage, then somehow get it on saw horses. Still not quite sure how I managed it.

Didn't take any pics, but I have an absolute garbage shortbed floor I saved to double check all my measurements. It's completely barrel rolled and all the braces are rusty as crap, I wouldn't even use it on a rusty shop truck.

Basically, they're exactly the same, except there is an extra brace "in the middle" of each section you need to cut out, 12" in the front, 8" in the back. When you remove the "middle" all the braces line up exactly like they should on a shorty.

I measured SOOOOO many times!

[67ChevyRedneck]

This was my biggest "oops" of the day. Not bad... but it took some time to bridge the gap... Must have slipped with the cut off wheel.

[67ChevyRedneck]

The back went quicker, but the rear cross member is too "tall" for my saw horses to sit level, so I set it on the two half moon mounts at the back. Even so, they're shorter than the cross members so I had to shim them with some washers to get the bed to sit level at the back. Not a big deal, but it was nice that the front was all flat and level.

When the back was done I couldn't help but tack weld it all together and throw a bedside on... freakin' cool!!!

[67ChevyRedneck]

So, I think my welding skills have greatly improved, I need to work on consistency. I go from "great" to "crap" in seconds sometimes

I also didn't warp anything today, but the bed floors are thick as crap. Great practice for speed, etc.

The best thing I did was toss the flux wire and buy a gas tank. There was no way I was ever going to get warp free welds with it.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I ended the day playing with my new fender, figuring out where to cut it for the patch. Also have to work this little dent booger out or cut it out. So far, even with my stud gun and puller it's being stubborn. Not a good spot for hammer/dolly either. Might be cutting it out... The patch has this area, but the lip doesn't look like it matches to me, I was trying to avoid using the patch's lip. I have a good fender to cut up for patches, but I have another fender I was saving that area for...

[67ChevyRedneck]

...and I'll end my posts with the day's carnage...

Isn't it amazing what the difference is between "cool" and "old man dorky" (wait... I'm starting to get "up there" myself..)

Just kidding, I still love the longbeds, just don't want to own one :p

[GR8-68]

Hey if you do not have room for that bird I will glady get it out of your way for you

[GR8-68]

And yes flux wire sucks for panel patches, what size wire are you running now with the gas ?

[67ChevyRedneck]

Pfffft, I can't even afford a basket case first gen nowadays, she's not going anywhere . It's one of my dream cars.

I'm bad with remembering stuff but I think flux was .03? I had to swap tips for wire and gas and it's .023?

Huge difference in welds. Huge.

[flashed]

Wow ,you have been busy ,the shop looks great ,love the signs too. How did you hang that Race tire on your wall ,I may do that with one of mine ?

[rusty76]

Cool work dude. My neighbor had a firebird. Maybe 68 or so. Was 400 and probably an auto. I'm too old to remember now. It was so cool. When he died I tried and tried to get it. I never saw it running. It just sat in the shed for atleast thirty plus years. I lusted after it but it would never be mine. Now I have a rusty old truck. Lol.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by flashed

Wow ,you have been busy ,the shop looks great ,love the signs too. How did you hang that Race tire on your wall ,I may do that with one of mine ?

Thanks! It was a long time coming. I built the bench & added the shelves a few years ago and painted about half of it. It was only last month I pulled everything out and "finished" it. My new truck should be paid for in a couple months, then I'll pay to get the electrical permitted and done.

Pretty easy. 4" or so lag bolt. Drilled a hole through the tire. Drilled a pilot hole into a stud and screwed it down. The Pennzoil sign is held in the middle with picture wire. I used little bolts and drilled through the tire.

I did the same thing with the trunk lid. It was the original from the 'bird but the bottom was too rusty to reuse, so I sanded it down, painted like it was when the car was nice, and hung it up with lag bolts in studs.

Originally Posted by rusty76

Cool work dude. My neighbor had a firebird. Maybe 68 or so. Was 400 and probably an auto. I'm too old to remember now. It was so cool. When he died I tried and tried to get it. I never saw it running. It just sat in the shed for atleast thirty plus years. I lusted after it but it would never be mine. Now I have a rusty old truck. Lol.

It's my someday car. My dad bought it in 83/84, "restored" it, drove it until around 1990, motor blew. Hasn't moved on it's own since. I have all rust free OEM parts I've picked up for it. Original rust free 67 firebird fenders (not Camaro, that was a major score), rust free 67 doors, deck lid, AND I scored an original OEM 68 firebird 400 Hood.

I will start on the car when I am done with the C10.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I have the front section of the bed fully welded! Damn that's a lot of work!

This stupid fender pissed me off. I couldn't get any of my tools in there good enough to get the dent out so I cut it out. I took it over to the bench and straightened the little booger out in a few minutes, go figure, right?

Welded it back in, gone. It will still need a bit of filler, but at least it's "flat" now.

I also got rid of the emblem holes and the giant antennae hole someone drilled in it. My body hammers and welder are getting a work out today. I will reuse the factory emblems, but I move them back towards the door and up some to line up better with the cowl lines. I like to use 3M double sided trim tape.

Pretty proud of the last pic, getting better. Pretty much zero warpage.

[67ChevyRedneck]

The back of the fender was next. It actually wasn't bad. If it wasn't so heavily pitted (thin) I would drill out the bad spots, plug 'em up and weld it back on.

The 69-72 fender I bought for patches years ago too., cause I mean, who wants to save a 69-72 clip, right? I got them as a pair stupid cheap. Pretty decent overall. You can see why the previous owner of them let them go... someone used the plastic stuff for roof eaves as a filler material

I thought the back half was more solid, but found too much filler, so I moved the patch in a bit.

I stood the fender up to take the last pic and I knocked it over... the sharp part where the hood latch mounts sliced my extension cord and popped my fuse, I decided it was break time!

[GR8-68]

Looking good !! You may have to come show me how to weld these panels in Yes 23 wire is the ticket..

[flashed]

Jesse ,you inspired me to clean the back half of my shop today ,moved the Elky and Chevelle out and went to work ,boy what a bunch of junk I cleaned out .Now to get the front half done .

[67ChevyRedneck]

That's awesome John! Glad to hear you found some motivation Sometimes it's just great to "do stuff." My mind goes absolutely blank except for what's in front of me. One of the few times I can turn my mind off.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I finished the front half of the bed. Good God that is a lot of welding!!! The back is about 20% done, got sick of welding on it.

It looks crooked in the pic, but my camera likes to do that... just look at the doorway...

[67ChevyRedneck]

Back to the fender saga!

What was supposed to only take a couple hours took a lot longer... I've read before that people have had to split the front of the patch to make it fit, but never both sides??? I measured a couple times, even compared it to the fender I have and all good. The contours lined up right... it just didn't "fit." Maybe it's because I wanted to use the smallest amount of it, maybe if I had used the whole thing it would have fit better (glad I didn't though).

This is why I like to use cut up longbed trucks for patch panels

So I got the main part welded up and left the PIA part for another day.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Wohoo! I won this round!

Some of the shiney areas make it look weird, but it came out really well.

I used the needle tool thing to make a template of my good fender and laid it on top of the fixed fender and it matched, and the overall length matched... so I don't know wtf the patch was so far off.

[67ChevyRedneck]

The crate engines are probably sprayed on some kind of assembly line and they do an OK job, but they missed some areas and had some runs (mostly concerned with the bare metal areas) so I spent some time with red scuff pads and degreaser and laid a couple coats of VHT satin black on it. I can't help but post pics of the valve covers sitting on it, they're so freakin' cool.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Also kept playing with the fender. I decided the brace looked a little rough, so I cut it out. My biggest concern was with how corroded and stripped the bolt threads looked, this is the only place to bolt the fender securely on the bottom of the truck. Then I cut out the donor which looked really good, but then I ended up having to patch a bad area on the "good" brace from the "bad" one...shesh. This is the last item and this fender is done.

Last pic shows how rust just creeps in behind these panels... it's actually my donor fender, which goes to show, even if it looks good on the outside... it might not be.

[67ChevyRedneck]

So busy weekend. If I was a "shop" my customer would have paid $1,000 for fender repairs... for one fender

Had a fun learning curve weekend... rule #1, never cut two things apart at the same time that shouldn't be... like the fender skin AND the brace, or vice versa.

So when I decided to replace the rear brace (something I wasn't planning on) I was tacking stuff together when I thought... maybe I should check this against the door. I mean I measured, stuff looked OK, but I thought the fender was pulling in too much, which is when I went out to the shed to grab my door.

That's when I had an "oh ****" moment. It didn't match. I was off by like 1/4". The fender was "sucked in" at the bottom. I used a set of pliers and kept pushing it out until it matched the door. That left me with one hell of an ugly gap to fill...

It's a little hard to tell in the pics, but the door and fender were like they were made for each other.

So let that be a lesson to you kiddies, measure 15 times, cut once, screw up, cut again, repeat.

Also, I didn't put that rusty mess back in, everything got thoroughly wire wheeled, rust killer, epoxy or weld through primer depending on location, and I'll go back and wire wheel the whole inner fender area, rust kill, and coat with rust encapsulator.

As you can see in the last pic, I also had to remake the fender roll...

[67ChevyRedneck]

On a positive note, I got the fender cup welded back together (was waiting on the weld through primer to coat the backsides) and cut out the huge booger looking hole someone made for an antenna and replaced it.