This truck lived a hard life, and had a cabover camper for a good part of it's life that caused a lot of issues. The rear cab mounts are broken, and there are areas all over the truck where the metal is torn because of the forward camper support struts and the spare tire that was mounted in front of the grille. I grabbed the driver's side cowl extension to show you some of the damage:
The metal is torn badly, and the previous owner drilled numerous holes. The paint on the truck is original, and I want to save what's there because I like the patina. This repair is going to be tricky because I have to hammer and dolly the metal back into place, shrink the stretched areas, make a few patches, and at the same time save as much of the original paint as I can. I saw a link on this site about a guy in Texas who used CLR and a Scotchbrite on his '59 ElCamino with AMAZING results, so I just had to try it for myself:
CLR is amazing! I used very little with some hot water and just light hand pressure on the Scotchbrite.
As soon as it warms up I'm doing the entire truck!!! I'm still working on the repair of the cowl extension, and I'll post more pics soon.