[hgs_notes]

I took the truck with the new cab and fenders in the back over to the first body shop. He estimated the cost to repair the cab and get it painted inside and out around $1500. At first he said $2000. Sounds like a big chunk of money, but I can understand the time involved. He estimated the work for the whole truck around $5000, painted. It was too late in the day, especially friday of a holiday weekend to haul it to the other two shops I have in mind. Really makes me wish I had a knack for body work.

On a lark, I pulled a rusty fender off the wall of the garage and tried my hand at welding. A little history, I was a nuclear certified welder back in the navy, and also passed a test pipe in the 6G position for an ASME code shop. Top of my class and I can do TIG on pipe like buttering bread. Sheetmetal with a little Craftsman 120 volt wire feed with flux core wire is not anything like that. It's like learning to weld all over again. Any kind of gap and it wanted to burn through. The welder was not set up properly, wire feed tension was way too high, speed is hard to figure. This is just a hi/lo setting for power and then adjustable wire speed. I've got it close though. I tried to get a gas bottle, but the local guy that leases them had left early also. I have a regulator set up for it.

I looked at my floor patches and they will cover all the floor rust easily. I can trim some off to use on the bottoms of the kick panels. I think I'm going to practice some more on my crappy fender, get the gas bottle hooked up and see if I can get enough confidence to try my hand at the floor repair. It will be hidden by carpet, so if it gets a little ugly in spots, it's not really a big deal. The more I can do myself, the better I'll feel about the whole project. That is unless I screw it up completely, that would be very bad.