1966 F100 Short Bed Styleside Metal/Body/Paint Work

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by theastronaut

Thanks!!


The next step was to finish the dash- shaving the glovebox/ashtray/radio and making vent bumps.


Decided to use the centerline of the defrost vents to locate the two A/C vents in the middle of the dash panel. I messed up and didn't consider that there would be A/C vents added when I originally cut the blank dash panel so part of the vent bump was off the edge of the new panel.






Reference on how much the bumps needed to be raised.




Roughed out with a mallet and sand bag.




The table on the new bandsaw had the same radius as the dash panel so I used it and a chisel end hammer to sharpen up the edge of the bump.










Corner vent bump.. lots of shape to fit a bump around.




I cheated and cut a few reliefs in what would end up as the vent opening to help the surrounding metal flatten out easier.




The finished dash.

Too cool! That dash looks bad @$$!

[theastronaut]

The cab corners didn't have much rust but I wanted to cut them out anyway to make sure the hidden rust was taken care of. The left corner was also crunched and would be easier to straighten off the truck.










Making a patch for the rusty spot.




After blasting- bottom edge is wavy and doesn't match up well with the corner section.




After straightening the flanges.






Brushed with SPI epoxy to seal up the cavity.




Same process on the other side.




Another thing I did was remove the inner roof brace, mainly for access to straighten the roof skin, but also so I can widen it so it can be welded back in on the outside of the roof rail edge instead of the inside. That will let the headliner to fit flush along the roof rail.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Too cool! That dash looks bad @$$!

Thanks!!

[theastronaut]

The rockers are in great shape but I cut them up anyway...

Stock rocker profile-








I made a cut in the 90* corner, hammer/dollied the edges flat, then flipped the cut off piece down to make a flat face but keep the inner stiffening edge.






After welding and grinding the welds flat.





Passenger side.




These panels are galvanized and it's cold enough to not be able to weld with the shop doors open so I pulled out the ghetto welding fume extractor I rigged up awhile back.




Reason for cutting the rockers- the thin rocker lip shows under the door, and since the doors are rusty I'll have to make new door bottoms. After talking with the owner we decided to eliminate the visible rocker edge and lengthen the doors instead. This will clean up the lines down the side of the truck and make for less work since there will be two less gaps to set.

[mongocanfly]

Nice... as usual...Great idea on the door bottoms..!!

[67ChevyRedneck]

That's going to be so cool! And very few people will ever notice but F100 nuts. I definitely wouldn't have known.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Nice... as usual...Great idea on the door bottoms..!!

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

That's going to be so cool! And very few people will ever notice but F100 nuts. I definitely wouldn't have known.

Thanks! We didn't want to go overboard on metal mods, just make some improvements to clean up the lines. Might mean that some of them will go overlooked, but overall the effect will be noticeable even if you're not an F100 geek.



Got both cab corners cut off, blasted, primed, repaired, and welded back in. I could've bought repro cab corners but I wanted to cut these out higher up to make access to the back of the welds easier, plus all the body lines are already in the right place on the original panel so going back in everything lined up exactly.








I made a new lower section to weld in.




I used a steel block and a chisel shaped hammer to make the drains.




New panel welded in.




Found a spot with filler...




Minor damage underneath.




Straightened.




Welded back in.




The last detail on the cab corners- The inner panel flange stuck out past the outer panel, so I ground the edge of the inner down flush with the outer.

[theastronaut]

I pulled the doors out and went ahead and cut the door bottoms off to prepare for fixing the rust and lengthening the inner flange/outer skin. They turned out to be in pretty good shape with only the easy flat areas needing to be replaced.

My next step will be getting the cab back on the frame, along with repro fenders so I can shrink/stretch the door skin and fender into one constant shape front to rear, then I can base the shape of the lower inner door frame flange off that shape. I'll also need the door and fender on the cab to set the length of the inner flange so the bottom of the door matches the bottom of the corner and fender.

[MP&C]

Nice job on those drains!!

[Ol Blue K20]

Amazing as usual. I love watching.

[Russell Ashley]

I think that pic where you said the inner panel stuck out slightly farther than the outer and you ground it off helps explain why your restorations are so perfect. Speaking for myself, I probably would not have paid any attention to that since it won't show when it's done.

[youngrodder]

Man your metal work is sooooo good. I really enjoy looking at all of your various repairs/solutions.

Keep sharing please...

Thanks
Marc

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by MP&C

Nice job on those drains!!

Thanks Robert!!

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Amazing as usual. I love watching.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Russell Ashley

I think that pic where you said the inner panel stuck out slightly farther than the outer and you ground it off helps explain why your restorations are so perfect. Speaking for myself, I probably would not have paid any attention to that since it won't show when it's done.

Those kind of things really bother my OCD lol. Plus it makes it easier to mask later on when I'll do Raptor Liner underneath- the tape will lay flat on the outside edge without the inner layer creating a gap and possible overspray. And it only takes a minute to trim down while the grinder is out.

Originally Posted by youngrodder

Man your metal work is sooooo good. I really enjoy looking at all of your various repairs/solutions.

Keep sharing please...

Thanks
Marc

Thanks for following the project Marc!!

[theastronaut]

Does anyone near the upstate South Carolina area have a junk cab with a good roof skin? This one had something fall across the roof and do a lot of damage which I was planning on straightening but after looking over it closer Friday there is rust coming from the inside out near the driprail seam on both sides. A few areas have already rusted all the way through and poking it with a carbide scribe finds more weak spots along the edge, so it will be best to take the skin off and replace it. I have found a cab locally but it's too nice to cut up. PM me if you have a cab/roof or know of one nearby!


















Started making a patch for the door bottom.

[mongocanfly]

John, have you checked with this guy?...
http://flashbackf100s.com/usa_made_s..._repair_panels

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

John, have you checked with this guy?...
http://flashbackf100s.com/usa_made_s..._repair_panels

No, wasn't aware of that place. I'll look into them if we can't find anything locally!

[theastronaut]

More door work.

The driver side inner door skin was cracked around the window felt area so I realigned the panel and welded it back together.








To keep it from cracking again I bent shaped a 3/16" rod to fit inside in the corner out of the way of the felt clips. I only welded it to the inner flange so there won't be any "ghosting" of the welds showing through the paint later on.






Corner finished.

[theastronaut]

Digging deeper into the roof rust. This is looking from the inside over the door top.




I cut out a section over the door to see inside better...




Not good, so I started cutting the roof off. I trimmed right above the seam across the back of the cab to make easy access to the inner spot welds.






I cut higher up on the sides, this shows the layers as they are when the roof is assembled- nowhere for condensation to escape between the inner and outer layers, and once the seam sealer degrades water comes in and gets between the layers.




After cutting the spot welds loose from the driprail. This wasn't far away from coming through.




The driprail flange was also in rough shape so I drilled out those spot welds and removed the drip rails down the sides.







Driprails removed, ready for blasting and epoxy.




I never liked the crimped on joint cover connecting the front and side pieces, so I cut though it when I separated the side driprails from the front. There was rust under the outer corners of the front driprail so I cut those out too. I'm going to check out a free parts truck tomorrow about 45 min away, hopefully the roof skin is straight enough to use. I'm not too worried about rust in the seams like this one had, it'll be easy to replace the flat sides since they're easy to fab, and it needs to come apart like this one to get at all the inner rust between layers.

[Russell Ashley]

Wow. This has be to running the bill up, How's the owner taking the news? I wish I had the money to buy a truck and take it to you and just say restore it. Then I'd watch on Facebook as it came together and enjoy seeing it get done so beautifully.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by Russell Ashley

Wow. This has be to running the bill up, How's the owner taking the news? I wish I had the money to buy a truck and take it to you and just say restore it. Then I'd watch on Facebook as it came together and enjoy seeing it get done so beautifully.

These setbacks do add to the cost, but are worth the cost for the peace of mind knowing there won't be any problems later on!


I posted a wanted ad for a roof or cab last week and had someone contact me about a '66 that they just wanted hauled off. It ended up having a usable roof and was only 45 min away. Got the roof cut off and separated the roof skin and drip rails from the inner bracing yesterday.








We decided to eliminate the seam across the back of the roof for a couple reasons; it's in the middle of the wing shaped body line in the b-pillar and takes away from that shape, and it'll save time compared to separating the flanges on both roofs, blasting, shaping the flanges so they both match up 100%, and then the time of evenly shaping the seam sealer during bodywork. I was able to trim the roof skin along that seam to take the minimal amount off, and I'll do the same on the cab, but that still means the roof skin will either need a filler strip or the roof skin needed to drop down about 3/16". A filler strip would mean double the distortion from warping so that's not a good idea. From cutting the old roof skin off, there was no way to cleanly separate the roof skin from the drip rail by drilling spot welds; there just wasn't enough flange material left after all the drilling and chiseling and prying. So I thought it would be best to trim the flange in the corner of the 90* bend and move up about 3/16" and tip the edge of the roof to make a new flange.






Roof cut off, flange still on the drip rail.




Removing the flange by grinding through the spot welds without disturbing the drip rail underneath.






Drilling the spot welds out, being extra careful to not bend or warp the flange when chiseling the two layers apart. I sacrificed the inner brace by hammering it away from the drip rail flange instead of pulling the flange away from the inner brace. I'm pretty happy with the way these came apart, they'll fit the cab nicely since they're not warped up from the separation process. I struggled to get the old drip rails off so I really took my time with the replacements.






Front section- the first pic is with the spot welds 99% separated so it's sitting there with it's own weight holding it in place- zero distortion on the flange. Again, really happy with these results after the driprails on the first cab didn't separate well at all.






All off, ready for blasting and epoxy.

[mongocanfly]

glad you found a good donor...

[ajgriffin]

Sorry for the dumb question, but why go through so much trouble to save the drip rails?

[SCOTI]

Awesome work on ALL of the sheet metal repair & re-engineered areas.

[jhrusk]

Looking great John.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

glad you found a good donor...

We were lucky to find one nearby and for free too!

Originally Posted by ajgriffin

Sorry for the dumb question, but why go through so much trouble to save the drip rails?

It's not going to be a full custom build so we're not shaving everything. I'll be adding the holes for factory side trim and it's looking like it will probably be painted factory two tone colors. So I had to be careful removing them from the donor cab so they could be reused.

Originally Posted by SCOTI

Awesome work on ALL of the sheet metal repair & re-engineered areas.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by jhrusk

Looking great John.

Appreciate it Jay! Looking forward to hanging out at shows once they're started back.