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Bed Front Panel - Rust and Dent Repairs

You can buy a Bed Front Panel reproduction for about $250 to $280 delivered, but I thought I would try to repair the rust and dents on mine to salvage the original panel.

At some point in the past, someone installed a steel tread plate floor on the bed and welded the fenders/panels to that. I had to drill or grind welds that were attaching the bedside to the tread plate floor and remove the bolts securing the bedside panel to the fender well, but I was then able to maneuver the front end of the bedside sufficiently to remove the Bed Front Panel.

It appears that a critter may have established a residence in the top "tube" of the Bed Front Panel a long time ago, and there was corrosion in this area on both the cab-side and bed-side of the panel. Plus, there were also 1/4 to 3/8 deep dents on both sides of the top tube that had been filled with body filler.

I started by cutting out a 2”x18” rusted section from the cab-side, and tacked in a patch. I then tried to straighten the dented portion next to it but wasn't having much success because this is 16 gauge material. So, I cut out the 2 1/4” x 15” dented section, did what straightening I could for the adjoining areas, and then tacked in a straight patch to replace most of this dented section.

Once I had these patches tacked in place to strengthen this cab-side area, I flipped the Front Panel over to start addressing the rust on the bed-side of the panel.

The last picture shows the first cut out on the bed-side of the panel. I plan to make two patch panels about 22" wide for this rusted/dented area, based on the size of the scrap pieces of 16 gauge steel that I have, and what will fit in my bench top metal brake for bending. While the patch areas are cut out, I'll have some more access for trying to work the remaining dents in the top "tube" and work the backside of the patch panels already installed on the cab-side of the panel.

Stay tuned......
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Following

Re: Wampus Cat
 

Bed Front Panel

I've been watching a series of YouTube videos by Fitzee's Fabrications and used some of his techniques from a video called "How to Grind welds on sheet metal" to finish these patches. I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out, but the metal on this bed front panel is 16 gauge so there is plenty of metal thickness to practice on.

Still working on the other side of this panel.

Re: Wampus Cat
 

Bed Front Panel

On the side of the Bed Front Panel that faces the bed, I needed to fabricate two patch panels with bends to replace dented and rusted areas.
The 16 Ga steel is too thick to bend in my bench top brake so I clamped it in a vise and hammer formed it over a section of 1/2 inch schedule 40 pipe, plus had to use a little torch heat for persuasion.
I made two panels about 24 inches long due to the size of the stock that I was able to buy.
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Bed Trim Holes

On each side of the bed, there are about 22 holes for mounting trim. The upper holes are about 3/8 inch and the lower holes are about 1/4 inch diameter. A previous owner filled in all of the holes with bondo, and apparently dented each hole with a ball peen hammer to add some thickness to the bondo patch.

I've decided I want to purchase and install the side trim eventually, so I cleaned out all of the bondo and re-formed the dented holes. This is a job for more than two hands, so my brother was working with me.

We made a tool with two ends, one for the upper 3/8 holes and one end for the lower 1/4 inch holes. The ends were made from 1/4 inch steel which we formed and ground to match the inner contour of the bed side, and welded a nut of the correct size to the back side of each end. The two ends are attached with a bar long enough to be able to position the threaded end behind the hole up inside the fender, and also hold the end from rotating.

For holes with relatively small indentations, we tightened a bolt and washer from the outside so that the contoured plate on the inside basically re-formed the curve of the fender around the trim hole by clamping force.

For holes with larger indentations, we clamped the plate using an eyebolt and nut, and used a slide hammer to work out the indentations.

The first picture shows a typical indented trim hole, and the last picture shows the re-formed trim hole. The pictures in between are the tool.
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Bed Side - Tops

The tops of the Bed Sides were kind of wavy...... In the middle, they were bent up in about a 1/4 to 3/8 inch curve which I think may have been done when someone tried to lift the bed without a proper support frame, and this bed is heavy due to its steel tread-plate floor. In other areas, the tops were bent down 1/8 to 1/4 inch apparently due to just damage from use as a truck.

We made up a jig with a 4x4, a couple of 2x4's, and a large c-clamp and worked it around on the tops of the side panel clamping it up or down slightly beyond yield to straighten it. I still need to weld and grind about a dozen holes in these areas that may have been used to mount a ladder rack (or something), but overall I think we got these pretty straight.
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Tailgate Dents

The tailgate has seen a rough life and has a number of large dents. The ones in the double wall areas at the top and bottom are particularly hard to repair due to the 16 ga thickness.

In the first picture, the bondo in the upper part of the panel is hiding a gash about 1/2 to 5/8 inch deep. After cleaning off the bondo, I tack welded on a "pull plate" and then pulled on this area with a slide hammer and hook attachment that I had previously made. After initial pulls, I also tack welded on a nail that I could then pull on with a pair of vise grips and the slide hammer. (I forgot to take a "before" picture; this just shows "after" pulling.)

Using this process, we were able to reduce this gash to about 1/16 inch deep at the top and 1/8 inch deep at the bottom. I'll probably work this area a little more, and then move on to the other dozen tailgate dents since the process seems to be working.
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Re: Wampus Cat
 

Tailgate Dents (cont'd)

Generous layers of Bondo covered some pretty deep gouges, dents, and rust holes along the lower, double-walled area of the tailgate.

That 16 gauge metal is proving to be very tough to metal work especially with no access from the backside, so I just cut out and replaced the damaged areas.
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Re: Wampus Cat
 

Wow. Some nice work there, very ingenious problem solving.

Re: Wampus Cat
 

Killing it!

Re: Wampus Cat
 

The Rocknrod, Android 04,

Thanks for the encouraging words!


Tailgate Straightening

So, the dents that I had repaired along the boxed section at the bottom of the tailgate apparently also caused a significant curve inward on that area.

The first two pictures show the bottom section of the tailgate compared to a 4 foot long straight edge.

The third picture shows the jig that I used for straightening (similar to what I used for straightening the top of the bedsides). The boxed tailgate is pretty stiff in bending and even with a couple of pieces of steel angle clamped along the bottom of the double 2x4's, the wood bent even more than the tail gate.

However, I was able to use the large c-clamp in the middle to bend the tailgate past yield and straighten it. After several incremental clampings and checking, the result is very straight as shown in the fourth and fifth picture.
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Re: Wampus Cat
 

Very nice work on your tailgate.

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Shop Improvements

I've been doing all of my metal cutting for patches or fabrication with just a hand held grinder and cutoff discs. I've been thinking that it would be nice to have a metal cutting bandsaw for doing some of this work; the cuts would be more accurate and it would make less of a dusty mess than the grinder cutoff wheel. Metal bandsaws are pretty expensive for my limited use, but I started seeing online examples where handheld portable bandsaws were adapted to mount on a small stand with a table.

I found a much-used Dewalt bandsaw locally, took it apart, cleaned it up, and added new drive "tires" and a new blade to get it working well. Then I looked at about a dozen designs for stands on YouTube and picked the features that I liked the best. The stand that I made mounts the saw hanging it from its primary handle, and secures it in place with a single pin that also depresses the saw trigger. Pulling this single pin allows the saw to be removed from the stand and used in a conventional manner when needed.

The first picture below shows the frame in process. The parts on the floor next to the stand are the 1/4" thick scrap aluminum plate that I used for the table, and the electrical components that I mounted to provide an on/off switched receptacle. The frame is made of steel angle from old bed frames that I picked up on garbage/recycle days in the neighborhood.

The second and third picture shows the frame after I added a couple of 45 degree braces to resolve some torsional flex in the vertical part of the frame. Then some sand blasting and primer.

The fourth and fifth picture show the final assembly. The Dewalt saw itself weighs 17 lbs. Mounted on the frame, the total weight is probably between 25 and 30 lbs so it is easy to move to a workbench, or the floor, or a storage shelf.
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Re: Wampus Cat
 

Yup, I need to build something like that for myself. I like your frame design better than some of the stuff I've seen out on the market. Thanks for sharing!

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These two cowl pieces are the last two body panels to strip and prepare for primer.

I think these are the only two panels on the whole truck that were not slathered in layers of Bondo covering dents, holes, and rust. :lol:
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Re: Wampus Cat
 

I'm thrilled, great solutions to the problems, your saw is great.

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Thank you for your kind words.

By the way, my great-great-grandfather Peter Seiler (born 1828) and his wife Katherina Seiler (born Koehler 1829) emigrated from Ingenheim, Palatinate, Bavaria in the late 1840's and settled in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA which is where I was born.
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Re: Wampus Cat
 

A few hundred kilometers away from me. There were bad times in Europe, famine and economic hardship forced Germans, French, Irish and Scots to leave their countries and start anew. I think the ancestors made a good new home.

Re: Wampus Cat
 

When I was installing the stock S10 upper mounts for the tailgate cables in Post #135 above, I just used a nut on the backside that was accessed through the taillight opening (long, slim fingers are helpful for this).

However, I’m trying to finish prep work for primer and decided these nuts were a pain to take on and off. So, I replaced these with some M8-1.25 rivet nuts.
I don’t have the $50+ installation tool so used a couple nuts and washers to fashion a tool.
Only had to work twice, but worked great.
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Good idea, if it works it works right?

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Well, at least I finished one project truck.......

The two grand-daughters aged 5 and 2 were outgrowing their little 6-volt red truck, and with only one under powered driven wheel it would never go well in the grass anyway.

Someone gave my daughter-in-law an old Power Wheels 12-volt, two drive-motor truck that had been sitting out in the weather for quite some time and was very dirty and faded. I took it apart, cleaned it, "restored" the sun-faded plastic by rubbing it with a 60/40 mixture of paint thinner and boiled linseed oil, cleaned up all of the electrical wiring/contacts, and added a decal kit.

Also found a junkyard GMC emblem for the tailgate so it matches their Daddy's truck.

The girls have a lot more room, and the truck got lots of use this past weekend in our one acre yard.
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Oh how nice, the ladies are sure to be proud of that

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More Bed Work

I had been delayed for a little while in finishing the paint stripping because I couldn’t find more of the abrasive fiber discs that I was using for that. I recently found some more discs, and started up again on stripping paint from the inside of the side panels and the fender wells.

I also drilled the ¼” tread plate floor for some lifting eyes which can eventually be used for tie downs. I’ve welded nuts to the underside of the treadplate so that the eyes can be unscrewed and removed from the top.

While doing the paint stripping, I noticed that the metal panel below the tailgate was bent inwards about 3/8”. Not sure why I didn’t see that before, but I’m guessing that the damage was done when the tailgate was bent (see tailgate straightening in post #161 above). In any case, I rigged up a fixture with a few blocks of wood and a couple pieces of angle stacked on top of each other for stiffness. With this, I could use a large C-clamp to pull on this lower panel and its supports to straighten it. After working my way back and forth across the panel, pulling with the C-clamp, I was able to get the panel straight within about a 1/32” compared to a 4 ft straight edge.
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Work Shop Art

My sister recently gave me a birthday card on which she had water-color painted my truck modeled from a picture taken before I disassembled the truck for rust/body repairs.

The picture on the card is 4"x6", but I made a copy printed at 11"x14" and added it to the work shop art.
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Power Steering

I found a 1984 C10 power steering gearbox and a steering column collapsible lower section at a local Wrench-A-Part.

The gearbox seems in pretty good shape, smooth operation and no substantial backlash. However, it was apparently leaking, so I installed a pitman arm shaft seal kit and an input shaft seal kit. Big thanks to Tx Firefighter for his excellent instructions on seal replacement! http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=619634

I also bought a Captain Fab power steering gearbox mounting bracket which is supplied with a very useful mounting template. I punched holes in the template at the old/existing bolt holes, then using three of the old bolts, aligned the template to the existing bolt pattern in the frame and matched punched the locations for drilling the new holes. A test fit of the new gearbox appears to show everything in alignment, so I’ll weld the new bracket to the frame (optional) and then clean/paint/install the gearbox.

For attaching the collapsible steering column section to my existing steering column (which is a three on the tree standard shifter), I intend to cut the existing steering column at the right length and then grind/file the double D flats on the end so that it matches the collapsible shaft. I bought a Unisteer 8050300 ¾” DD x ¾” DD U-joint to attach the two shafts. I particularly like this Unisteer item because it clamps on to each of the shafts rather than having through bolts or some other means of attachment. Plus the clamping bolt requires a slight cross groove cut in the shaft for the clamp bolt to pass; this feature also prevents the shaft from pulling out of the u-joint. Seems like a pretty sturdy attachment configuration.