diving into rot repair,tools/tips

[dmartin1]

My 67 k10 has rotted rockers,lower kick panels,edge of floor boards.

No rot on cab brace or the bolt hole cup thing that bolts to bottom of fender,but well see once its opened up.

Anyhow, I have no experience with this kind of body work,my dad does and has done a lot but that was 15-20 years ago.he will be doing most of it with me.

I have a local harbor freight, any tools you would suggest I get?
I have body magnets,flat end vice grips,lots of angle grinders and air cut off tools with a huge compressor. And a large older miller 35 welder with huge bottles.

Imma grab some tin snips and cutoff wheels,any other handy to that would ease the process?

I've read a lot on the board on the subject so far. Just need the little guidance on the tools and any nifty advice cutting and working with sheet metal on these trucks. Thanks guys.hope this goes well lol

[hugger6933]

Angle grinder and a die grinder will get done about all you need, make sure to have safety glasses or a full face shield to use. Plenty of cut off blades . I have a ton of vice grips all different kinds a couple pairs of those with the C clamp looking thing and swivel pads on them are handy. Gloves to protect your hands while grinding[I use welding gloves] Good luck to you .Jim

[kingNothing]

Since you mentioned Harbor Freight.There spot weld cutter is a good one for the money.Some extra wire brushes you can never have to many.There copper spoon works good when welding up emblem holes.

[Lanman1972]

X2 on the spot weld cutter, and center punch to mark the welds. If you end up going deep, weld a brace across the door opening to keep things in place. Oh yeah, patience is also needed. Fit the door before final welding. Good Luck!

[briank]

Dont get your cutoff wheels at harbor freight. Buy good ones or you may regret it when one flies apart at high rpms!!

[snipescastle2]

One thing I learned while doing the cab rust repairs on mine, was to make a cardboard template of the door opening (pinch weld areas) I was fortunate to get one that was already made, Thanks to Vic Cook and Scott Duckworth! once all my repairs were finished, I used the card board template to verify my alignment, and it was spot on!
I braced up my door openings front to back, side to side and proceeded to start cutting away the rot. I ended up buying the entire rear cab brace that goes right to left, because the rot went way beyond the area the patch panels attach to. I had to level the cab to the floor, then brace up the roof, so the floor didn't sag or end up higher than it should have been. I had to cut out all the spot welds that attach the rear cab wall to the rear support, what a job! there is one tool I would recommend buying, a "RotoBroach" basically, a hole saw, but with interchangeable bits/cutters. and I always center punched the spot welds, then drilled them for a small pilot hole, to keep the spotweld cutter/rotobroach from walking around the metal as you drill. I bought lots of small vise grip weld c clamps and the panel "Butt weld clamps" at harbor freight, I think I bought close to 20-25 of them and sometimes, that wasn't enough! with regards to wire feed welders and wire choice, the simplest Hobart 110 volt Mig welder with .024 wire/shielding gas will work excellent, I used my cousin's Miller matic 110 volt welder with .030 wire for the most of the repair work, but changed the wire size late in the game, and I wished I had run .024 the whole time! much less grinding!!!!! stay away from the flux core wire, it spatters way too much and I wasn't happy with the beads either. it gets old after a while, but if you cut the ends off the welding wire (At the nozzle tip) before each weld, you'll have a better arc at the start of your welds. there is a anti spatter gel you can buy that will help keep your nozzle clean too, a wise investment! I also used some sheet metal self tapping screws to hold sheet metal patchs in place where the clamps wouldn't reach, good rare earth magnets are an awesome helper in keeping panels still while tacking them in place. I had a stack of these rare earth magnets from some old computer hard drives I disassembled (sp?) any way, these magnets are tough!!! you almost can't pry them apart! also, the single most important thing I can suggest to you when doing the rockers and cab corners, is to have the doors mounted to the cab, you need to establish the proper gaps and position with the door on, if not, you might be doing this all over again......
well, I hope this helps, I'm no pro at sheet metal, but if you take your time, and "measure twice, cut once" you can handle this easy, it takes patience, but do-able! Good luck!
Ben Smith

[57taskforce]

X3 on the harbor freight spot weld cutter. It's less than 5 bucks and works pretty good if you center punch the weld first.