[Roostre]

A friend came over last night and we glued the new roof skin on. Because it is an aftermarket panel, it didn't fit perfectly, but that was expected. I also suspect that the rear panel of my cab has been tweeked in the 50+ years of the truck's existance. It went together well enough in the end for my driver quality truck. Here's an overview of what I did.

I used 3M 08115 structural adhesive. It comes in 200mL tubes, and one tube was enough to do 1/4" bead all around the skin with enough left over to kind of fill the rear gap. It has a 90 minute work time, a 4 hour clamp time, and a 24 hour cure time. The instructions say to scuff down to bare metal with 50 grit sandpaper. I could only find 60 grit, so I went to town to remove the e-coat on the panel and the surface rust on the truck. I then wiped everything down with some 3M surface prep that I had. We then test fitted the panel and got our clamps set up. After that, we applied a 1/4" bead of adhesive to the truck and carefully set the outer skin in place, front first. We clamped down the front and sides, then squeezed the rest of the adhesive tube into the gap at the back. We rachet strapped a 4x4 to the back of the roof to press that joint down a little bit. We then walked away and it currently is sitting with the clamps still on it.

I will have to put a little more filler in the rear seam, but I think it will be good enough. I could probably have worked with the replacement panel and gotten the back to fit better, but with the twist it had, I'm definitely time ahead just getting it to bond to the cab and then filling in the seam wherever there is a little more of a gap. This is definitely not going to be a show truck.

Here are the pictures!