Ian's Tennessee Honey '64 Short Box Step-side - England

[Grizz1963]

Very cool Ian.

Great progress, you must be very pleased so far.

Been chatting with Paul in Ada, OK today and getting step by step reports and his repairs made me realise, I have soooo much to learn still.

[ibrown50]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Patch work is looking good.

Originally Posted by uber cool

Nice repair to the rocker and rear corner Ian

Originally Posted by 62stepside longbox

Metalwork looks good

Originally Posted by Grizz1963

Very cool Ian.

Great progress, you must be very pleased so far.

Been chatting with Paul in Ada, OK today and getting step by step reports and his repairs made me realise, I have soooo much to learn still.

Gentlemen, thank you for the positive comments, they are really appreciated


In between work and other commitments I have managed a little progress this week. I have finished welding the corner, unfortunatley my rust went beyond the repair panel, leaving me a gap to fill.



I folded up a repair section which after a bit of tweaking ended up fitting pretty well (if I do say so myself)





I got it (almost) tacked in place when I ran out of welding gas, I don't know why that should come as a surprise but it always does, I really should pay more attention to the gauge



But every cloud has a silver lining. I decided to use the spare time to tidy my garage and found this.



It's a Massey Fergusson (AGCO) tool box, a place I worked used to make them. It may come as no surprise but in the best Johnny Cash (One Piece at a Time) traditions these were at the top of everyones "take home" list. So much so that if we had to ship a batch of 100 we would make 125 just to make sure there was enough left over to ship

[65sub]

It's a Massey Fergusson (AGCO) tool box, a place I worked used to make them. It may come as no surprise but in the best Johnny Cash (One Piece at a Time) traditions these were at the top of everyones "take home" list. So much so that if we had to ship a batch of 100 we would make 125 just to make sure there was enough left over to ship[/QUOTE]

That's funny

Also nice work on the patch panels Ian.

[MacQuigley]

Looking good Ian. Have you to do the other side as well?

[ibrown50]

Originally Posted by MacQuigley

Looking good Ian. Have you to do the other side as well?

Thanks Bill, yes I have the other side to do, it's nowhere near as bad but I'll probably end up changing just as much metal.

Originally Posted by 65sub

Also nice work on the patch panels Ian.

Thanks Dale a long way off your standard, but atleast your thread gives me something to aim for

Another quick update, I finished welding the patch into the cab (the weld still needs dressing properly but I've a bit of panel beating to do first to square up what still remains of the damage)



Another job on the cab floor I have made some progress on is filling some holes. There are about a dozen 9/16" holes in the cab floor next to the bolts for the seat runners, my guess is a PO has had bucket seats fitted.

Luckily having worked in a stamping shop and being an absolute magpie, I still have some slugs of various sizes.



They are ideal for this kind of job, just hold them in place with a magnet until tacked then



Now you see me



Now you don't

[Grizz1963]

Never ends does it.

Looking good though Ian.

I look forward to getting the little jobs done and out the way before tackling what will be a challenge on my body panels.

[ibrown50]

Well it’s been a while (over 3 months) since I updated my build thread. Progress has been slow and time limited and I wanted to have something to report before doing the update (just didn't think it would be this long ).

The rust in the floor turned out to be a whole lot worse than I imagined and although there weren’t actually that many holes, the steel around the holes was generaly so pitted it was easier to replace sections than try to repair holes.



So there's been lots of this



And this



And this



But now it looks like this

[ibrown50]

I have also repaired the passenger side fender; you may recall from earlier in my thread the P/O’s wonderful repair. (the snot welded patch staight on top of the rust )



He had actually welded it so badly that the area around the repair was very badly warped. I have a repair section but decided not to use it,



The fender strengthener was really badly pitted on the inside (although it actually looked great from the outside so that was going to have to be looked at too)





Still a bit of hammer and dolly work required but I don't think I'll avoid some filler

[65sub]

Nice work Ian. It's a good idea to replace all the pitted sheetmetal.

[ibrown50]

Originally Posted by 65sub

Nice work Ian. It's a good idea to replace all the pitted sheetmetal.

Thanks Dale and you're absolutely right, some of the pitted steel was down to 20% of the original thickness

I've cut out the pitted and holed sections from the fender support and replaced them with new metal, it would have been quicker to replace the whole thing with a new one but a new one would take 2 or 3 weeks to arrive in the UK.






When the welding was done I had the fender and "new" door, kindly donated by Rian, (thanks mate ) media blasted. I used Rix Media and Soda blasting, it's a local company owned and ran by a local drag racer, petrol head, car enthusiast and all round good guy. He did a fantastic job, I would recommend him to anyone.



Once I got them back I coated the inside of the fender with stone guard. The fender still needs a lot of work but will straighten out OK.



The door has more holes than a beatles song (cryptic clue, answers on a postcard ). but is way more straight than the one that came with the truck and I have a repair section (courtesy of Ta2Don ) which will get rid of 95% of the holes.



I'm not having as much fun as Rian but Hey-Ho

[Chevy Apache]

That tin worm gets every we're don't know what I'm gonna find when I start mine.
Great progress

[ibrown50]

Originally Posted by Chevy Apache

That tin worm gets every we're don't know what I'm gonna find when I start mine.
Great progress

Thanks Pete, you're absolutely right, here are a couple of unexpected ones, I couldn't find anyone who did repops and my local breakers didn't have any either

This bracket bolts to the top of the fender and actually looked great until I hit it with a wire brush,



nothing else for it, I had to make one.



The tin worm in the L bracket that holds the fender seal was a little easier to spot



had to make one of these too

Thing is they're not flat, but luckily for me the one part that hadn't completely disintergrated was the shaped part, which gave me something to use as a pattern.



Came out Ok in the end

[Chevy Apache]

I had the same with my rear fenders along the bottom edges,
I did fix them but there is some filler in them so didn't strip them all the way back until I rebuild the old girl fab work looks good i am sure I will be doing
Some of that lol

[65sub]

Nice job fabricating those parts Ian. Probably fit better than repops and cost you less

[ibrown50]

Originally Posted by 65sub

Nice job fabricating those parts Ian. Probably fit better than repops and cost you less

Thanks Dale

Before I refit the fender I'll have to fit fresh seals. The original seals are stapled in place. I discovered that the factory staples have exactly the same pitch as T50 staples that you would use for upholstery DIT and the like. I don't have a staple gun man enough to punch through steel, but I had a cunning plan

I glued the new rubber seals to the steel mounting plates with a contact adhesive (I would not recomend this as it reacts with the paint ) Luckily it's hidden under the seal

Then using the original staple holes ran a 1/16" drill through the new rubber seal.



After that it was a simple job to push some new staples throught both steel and rubber and clench them over with a paralell punch.





Before and after

[ibrown50]

I could find a match for the original clips to mount the fender seal here in the UK so I used these "fir tree" clips.



Because they're a paralell clip you have to enlarge the holes on the seal bracket to the same size as the ones in the fender support (from 5/16" to 3/8")

They're a tight fit so you'll need a mallet to tap them in



And they're plastic so no rust issues

[ibrown50]

A quick progress update, (well probably about 4 updates back to back )

I have now finished the passenger side floor repairs so while painting the fender seal bracket I gave it a quick coat of body colour.



I trial fitted the fender which still fits well, before beginning the door repairs.



First job on the door was the rear corner, the blasting revealed a couple of holes but the door seams were good so I only removed the rusted area preserving as much of the original door (and door profile) as possible.

[ibrown50]

The front skin needed a small repair too





The front corner proved to be a little worse, with the rust extending into the hinge area and beyond the area covered by the repair panel.





I had a full door bottom but decided to only use a small section as the rest of the door bottom is in good shape.

[Ta2Don]

Great work mate! Glad I could be a contributor even in a roundabout way...

[Chevy Apache]

Looking good Ian lots of progress dreading what I will find when I pull mine apart got some holes in the same places

[MacQuigley]

Nice work Ian. Your getting there.

Beginning to wish id done what your doing rather than take the easy way and reksin and whole bottoms. May have needed less filling and sanding!!!

[ibrown50]

Originally Posted by uk54

Ian, I have to admire your skills and problem solving solutions when parts just are'nt available off the shelf

Thanks Michael, I still need to check out your new truck was planning a ride over with Paul sometime soon

Originally Posted by Grizz1963

Just taking my rear brakes apart. First time on the truck in a while.

That is a massive amount of time and progress Ian.

Well done.

I still have a hole to correct on my drivers door, and suspect I will find as much rust and damage to repair. I know my rear bed panel has up to 10mm of filler......

Really good to speak with you yesterday as well.

Thanks Rian

Originally Posted by Ta2Don

Great work mate! Glad I could be a contributor even in a roundabout way...

Thanks Don and I've still got the section of door skin to fit too, stay tuned.........

Originally Posted by Chevy Apache

Looking good Ian lots of progress dreading what I will find when I pull mine apart got some holes in the same places

Thanks Pete, hopefully you won't find as much as I have, you would not believe some of the "repairs" I have found

Originally Posted by MacQuigley

Nice work Ian. Your getting there.

Beginning to wish id done what your doing rather than take the easy way and reksin and whole bottoms. May have needed less filling and sanding!!!

Thanks Bill, I still have a fair bit of filling and sanding to look forward too, I've tried all different sorts of filler and tools but it's hard work no matter what you do

[mjh1965]

Nice job on the doors Ian . The floor looks great . You'll have it back on the road soon at this rate .

[ibrown50]

The following post is definitely the most pictures for the least amount of time spent on a job I have posted so far

I am still doing repairs to the passenger door, one of the little jobs that needed doing was to replace the captive nuts that hold the inner door panel in place. A common fault on our trucks, some of the screws had rusted in place and had to be drilled out to remove the panel.



Now your probably thinking 1/4" x 20 unc captive nuts.... no big deal, well in Europe they are a lot less easily available than you may think, we're all metric over here .....(I blame the French it's all their fault )

This whole job took 20 minutes start to finish and was done with stuff I had lying around so cost $0.00.

I started with a piece of 1" x 1/4" flat stock marked at 3/8" and centre punched,



Drilled out to 0.2"



I then ground a step on each side (using a 24 grit disc) leaving a 3/8 raised section down the centre



and then cut it into 3/8 "strips"

[ibrown50]

these were then tapped to 1/4" x 20





I was originally going to spot weld these in place but decided JB Weld would do the job



A little dab on each end and "presto"





So 20 minutes later another job ticked of the list