[landarts]

The last one for the evening was attacking the CB radio hole on the top of the roof near the back edge. First I had to remove a rubber stopper with caulking in the hole. Then clean up the area with 60 grit on an air sander. The hole was in worse shape than I thought. After cleaning it up the area it looks to me that someone hammered down the area around the hole to get it closer to the inside metal liner so they could get the nut on the CB radio antenna to tighten down. When I say hammered down, I mean they messed it up good.

Anyway I played around with the metal for a few minutes and I could see there was no way to straighten it up. So the plan I came up with was to cut out as little as possible. This would first allow me to fix the inside layer hole from inside the roof, then cut a patch for the outside roof.

I took a roll of masking tape and the bad metal area fit inside so I traced a circle on the roof and started to cut it out with a grinder. By the time I got all the cuts done, I had a stop sign shape instead of a circle. I grabbed another air tool with a carbide bit on it to finish grinding away metal to get to the circle I traced. Before I started to grind I thought what the heck I can just make a piece to fit and not have to grind more off. So I placed a few pieces of tape over the hole and did a pencil rubbing of the outline of cuts and marked it with an arrow and the word top. Cut it out and then do a little fine-tuning with air sander on the templated part. Put it on the roof with two strong magnets and began spot welding slowly, skipping around the shape and from time to time cooling off with an air hose. Only had one small area that I had to put a stud on the out side of roof and pull that metal up the to piece I was welding.

Super happy that it turned out good and will need just a small skim coat of filler to finish it off. I have warped a roof before when I was working the Idaho Edition truck. Did not want to go down that road again, especially on a cab-light roof. Win Win.

Pic 1 -Hole in roof with cork removed
Pic 2 -Area cleaned up, a metal straight edge to show how far down it is
Pic 3 -Patch for the inside
Pic 4 -Area to be patched with odd shaped metal
Pic 5 -After welding and knocking down with 60 grit on air grinder