Thanks for the kind words! Paintman, those windshield regulators are horribly expensive, so go right ahead and snap one up if you can find a deal! I suspect I will try to make a cheap alternative, or opt for a windshield that does not lift up (easier to make it leak-proof as well!).
Using my shop press and some homemade dies is actually kinda fun, as well as practical for me. When my son Brian and I worked on builds together, it was pretty quick & easy to clamp stuff onto a table and make bends with 4 hands available. Now that Brian is an hour and a half away, I’m finding a lot of things a little tricky to do alone. A prime example of this is the header panel that runs across the top of the windshield and encloses the wiper motors. I knew I had some rust, but once I started to poke it with an awl I found many spots where the metal was razor thin due to rust hidden inside. This panel is both rounded, and “V” shaped. With 2 people, it would have been easy to form the curves on a bench. Doing this alone I decided to use the shop press & die method. Here’s how things went:
Here you can see the header (not sure what this panel’s official name is). It’s got bad spots across most of its lower face:
First thing I did was to use a contour gauge to get the required curve off the header, and then compare it to materials I had kicking around the shop. I got lucky and found a section of fence post with a very similar curve (moral of the story: NEVER throw anything out!!!). By cutting off the 17 inches I needed and then making a couple of cuts lengthwise, I had the male and female halves I needed.
The bad section is 34 inches wide, but because of the “V” shape its far simpler to make 2 pieces and weld them together once they are in place. I pressed the patch between the 2 forms (the big metal tube in the pic is just there to spread the load evenly across the top form).
The first test fit showed that the radius of the curve in the original header actually tightened up a bit in one area, so back to the shop press I went. By simply using a smaller diameter piece of solid round bar as the top die, I could sharpen up the curve without leaving an obvious bend line. A few gentle squeezes of the press and I had a replacement patch that matched very nicely.
I did this again for the 2nd patch piece, and here they are, held together by a magnet. I was going to weld them in, but it occurred to me that I will be installing wipers at some point and this will be a whole lot easier with most of that header panel cut away. I will weld the new panel pieces in after the wipers are finished (I haven’t decided what to do about wipers yet).
Prior to making the above patch panels, I had removed the rearview mirror & mount. I have no idea how this was assembled originally, as it was all rotted together, and it did not come out peacefully:
After I removed all the rusted crap, I discovered that the arm is actually threaded, and since this mounts into my new patches I can reinstall it by simply drilling a hole and bolting it back in place.
The rust and damage repairs were now done on the cab, except in spots that may have to be modified once the S10 frame and drivetrain was installed. There are quite a few firewall holes to be plugged as well, but until I know what firewall modifications will be needed there’s no point spending time on it. With this in mind, I started on the front fenders, hood and grill. The entire assembly can be removed in one piece, but I decided to just do a panel at a time. First to come off was the driver front fender, which came off easily and had no serious rust. The headlight bucket was removed, and a rusted out area was found on the underside. I got out the mallet & sandbag and started to pound out a replacement patch. I had forgotten how much work goes into pounding compound curves into metal, but eventually had a decent patch. I was about to start some light metal bumping to smooth the patch out perfectly when the lightbulb went off in my head. The whole point of this build is to NOT spend all kinds of time on bodywork, and instead imitate the farmer fixes that give the truck its character. With this in mind, I stopped working on the patch and just welded it in. I knocked the tops off the weld so that it will sit flat, but no further work went into this patch. I was however very curious to see if I could use the rust accelerator to age the new steel to blend in better with the rest of the truck so I gave it a test. The new patch is on the base of the headlight bucket, so it can’t be seen anyway. Here’s how it turned out. This is the bad area and the shiny new patch prior to trimming and welding:
And here is the piece after a “farmer fix” weld and application of the rust accelerator:
I’m quite pleased with the result. Its not perfect, but I suspect very few people will be able to tell that this is not a patch that was done decades ago on the farm. Actually, nobody will be able to tell as this patch gets sandwiched onto the fender and can hardly be seen at all. But for more visible patches I will continue to use donour metal from old farm equipment as I can match the patina perfectly and will just have to treat the weld lines to make it all blend.
The 2nd fender came off easily with only one small hitch. At some time in the past, that headlight bucket must have been a bit loose, so the fix was to weld it to the fender. Of course the weld was in the deep crevasse where the bucket and fender meet. It’s an easy spot to reach in with an arc welding stick and deposit a nice blob of molten steel, but it’s a bugger to remove that blob down the road!
Once that fender and bucket were fixed I cleaned up the shop and took a good look at the front end sheet metal, where I discovered some real horrors that will entertain me for the next week.
More to follow!
Stephan