Drip rail fixable?

[brandster]

I've been looking at a truck im interested in buying, but worried about the drip rail area. The inside above visors looks good and the pillars look good. I only have a few pics as im not local to the truck. Just wanted to get some opinions on if its fairly easily fixed or if I need to be looking at other trucks instead. Thanks.

[HO455]

Welcome aboard. Everything is fixable it just depends on your skill level, patience and pocket book. I wouldn't recommend this for your first body work repair but there are others who have started out with repairs like this. There are other folks who would grind the rust off and slather bondo on it and paint.
The rest of the truck's condition certainly comes in to play in these decisions. If this is your first vintage vehicle and the rest of the truck is solid and in good condition then it may well be worth replacing the damaged area.
Posting more photos will help folks help you.

[57taskforce]

Someone used body filler in the seams it looks like to me. The correct thing to use is seam sealer. The only way to know what you’ve got there is to wire wheel or otherwise strip the paint and surface rust back from the seam to see what you’ve got under it all. You may get lucky and it all be surface rust underneath. If that’s the case a little surface prep and a good quality drip rail appropriate seam sealer from 3M, or lord fusor etc. Not all seam sealers cure at the same rate and with the same consistency/flexibility. I prefer one that is still a little flexible and self leveling for drip rails.

[brandster]

Originally Posted by HO455

Welcome aboard. Everything is fixable it just depends on your skill level, patience and pocket book. I wouldn't recommend this for your first body work repair but there are others who have started out with repairs like this. There are other folks who would grind the rust off and slather bondo on it and paint.
The rest of the truck's condition certainly comes in to play in these decisions. If this is your first vintage vehicle and the rest of the truck is solid and in good condition then it may well be worth replacing the damaged area.
Posting more photos will help folks help you.

Thanks for the reply. I've had a few older trucks, but none have had issues in the drip rail area. I just wanted to get others opinion about how bad the rust/rot looked. Im not one to want to cut on a roof or anything major along those lines. If it only required some grinding and minor welding in a few spots Id feel better about it but I can't really tell how bad it is by the pictures I have. Id rather stay away from bondo if metal repair is the answer, and I don't want to sink in a lot of money getting the drip rail area repaired if others think its in that bad of shape from what they can tell in the pictures.

[Ol Blue K20]

The true test is to strip it. Need to have eyes one the damage under there....

[HO455]

Like others have said you won't know for sure until you strip it down. I did a bunch of cleaning up of rust on the drip rails on my Burban. It is slow work but if you don't find any serious rust it doesn't cost much to repair. There are a bunch of photos of what I did to my drip rail scattered across the first 3 pages in the link below.

Since the truck isn't local to you try posting a thread asking if some could go look at the truck for you.

https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/...d.php?t=698377

[maynardogle]

When its that dried out and cracking, the likelihood of rust underneath skyrockets. Just dig out all the old putty and then sand the gutter to bare metal all the way around. Then take it off and put rust converter down as a primer, then seal sealer, and then paint. Hope there are no rust holes underneath.

[franken]

I'd look closely at the joints in the gutter that can be seen in the bottom of the pic. From the look of the gutter where there's no sealer, things look pretty good.
I would suggest digging out all the sealer and blasting things--no rust converter or encapsulator.