Quote:
Originally Posted by landarts
Finally got the parts I needed for the cab corner repair. Began working on the cab corner a bit on Saturday afternoon. Had to finish making the final cut on the truck so I could start matching up parts and begin to make things fit the best I could. The rust in the cab corner was minimal compared to some I have seen, however that does not mean there is other damage or previous repairs to deal with. After tearing into the cab corner I noticed how the P.O. had replaced the outer rockers at sometime in the trucks life. From what I could tell the outer rocker was replaced by doing an overlap weld instead of a butt weld. Then the area was seam sealed and painted. It is not how I would have done the repair and it looks like they probably did not hang the door to see where the rocker laid in comparison to the body lines. So after looking at that I decided to go ahead and leave the rocker alone and just work with. I have to remember I am not doing a full blown restoration here, just trying to fix the rust areas and get here back on the road to live another day.
So I proceeded to cut out parts and and work my way out to the cab corner. First thing I did after getting the parts cut out was to treat the metal with a solution of Rustoleum Rust reformer a brush on solution that converts rust to a metal and seals it up. The areas are surface rust only, not flakey rust through the metal areas and usually areas that are hard to get a die grinder or sandpaper on. After that was cured up I tacked the rear floor section that does the turn down into the cab corner. Then tacked in the portion of the rear cab support and drilled a few holes from the support into the rear floor patch and spot welded them together to make it rigid. Then I made a few cuts on the cab corner part enough to get it fitted to the outside but overlapping the metal. Clamped it to the area and tried to get it as straight as possible then marked from the inside with a silver Sharpie on the cut line of the cab metal. Cut the part and clamped it to the body with body panel clamps.
After taking a break and coming back to this part of the project later in the afternoon I can see where I need to do some fine tune grinding to get a better fit for the weld. Also noticed that the bend on the repop part is not a match with that of the cab. So after getting the part to fit as best I can I will tack it in a few places then slice into the cab corner bend and work the metal to match. It seems that every repop part that I have touched on rust repair has had to be modified in order to make it work. Oh well like I said this is the first cab corner I have done and now I know what to expect what has to be reworked in order to do the job. Just like on the passenger front fender cup that is 1/2" inch to short vertically. Which added double the welding, grinding and prepping because the part is to short.
I have to admit it was probably not the best fitting cut I have ever done on a repair like this. But it is just metal and I will need to cut and patch in two small areas. I will tack in the large part first and rework the cab corner radius before I make a template for the two small areas that will need attention to complete the cab corner. On areas like this I will usually put a few strips of green masking tape over the area to be templated and out line the edge then pull off the tape and put back down on some flat sheet metal and cut it out following the lines. I used this method before and it worked out really good for getting the part cutout done right the first time without so much grinding.
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Help, me, first, (top) picture is complete rocker/cab corner assy, you decided to cut cab corner off it because of previous repairs?
I have not seen such a piece, in all the rust repairs here if it is as I described. Where did you purchase?