Recently we used all butt welds on my ½ ton project and I’m really pleased with the results (we were able to hide all the many cab repairs that project required, lots of time invested but worth it to me) this truck is planned to be the looker of the current three. My K30 project is being built for another purpose more of a working, camping, parts hauling, fun type truck. Built with extra/saved parts to help keep the ½ ton cherry and to replace my sweet C30 flatbed with a heavier duty BB 4x4 version!
Decision is made we are moving forward with the flange type repair for this project. I believe it is going to make a stronger repair. The flanges will be internally hidden inside the inner and outer roof skin for the upper repair. The lower will also be hidden internally between the inner and outer back panel. The nice thing is the only place the flange repair will show is behind the seat/gas tank and this area will have a gas tank, sub box or carpet haven’t gotten that far yet. I know the misses wants a bench seat for sure, dang I already have an extra set of blazer bucket seat frames and a console we bought from board member bluek5 that I was going to use. One more thing the exterior will be hidden by the headache rack from the flatbed so it will mostly hide any body work. To help deal with rust issues we will use a weld thru primer between the flanges and a coating of rust converter/encapsulator in the internal cavity between skins.
Many years ago I drove a rollback truck hauling forklifts around the area in an old C60 that had had the back of the cab bashed in. It had been poorly repaired and used to leak, vibrate and rattle as I went about my job driving me nuts. That is not going to happen to this truck and I’ll make it look right because I’m a bit of a fuss bucket when it comes to my projects.
