'64 rustbucket longbed former farm truck

[rusty76]

I like plan B personally. Then hopefully you'll find a cab in better shape and it won't have to cost you an arm and leg or two....

[Improbcat]

The edge of the firewall on the cab needed patching. As I did decide to go with "Option B" and keep the repairs to the cab "quick & dirty" I decided to cut this flange off and just weld a piece of metal across the gap.



This is where I ended up. In addition to being easier, this removes the lip that was trapping mud & water and encouraging rust. The lip is still in place above where the fender sits, so it'll look normal under the hood once it is re-assembled.



Some of the patching to the back of the right inner fender. I tried to be clever and remove the stepped lip at the back of the panel.


This turned out to be a problem as you see here. I had forgotten about this little flange on the back of the fender. I pondered cutting the flange off the fender but decided I was better off modifying the inner fender so any outer fender will fit without being cut up.


This was the solution, cut the corner out and weld the piece in reversed.


I needed to fix the lip of the inner fender, and was trying to figure out how to make all the bends accurately. I got a brain wave and measured a junk fender I had and realized the lip on the top of an outer fender is virtually identical. So I cut out a chunk and tested it.
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It is a perfect match.


Here is the piece trimmed & tacked in place. Please ignore the terrible welds due to me forgetting to turn the shielding gas on before I started tacking.


And this is the piece all welded up and ground down. I assume this would work in reverse so you can use outer fenders to patch inner fenders & vis versa.

[Improbcat]

Got the inner fenders ready for painting.



Inner fenders with Masterseries anti-rust paint.


Cut the rust off the driver's side of the firewall, welded in a couple patches and painted it black.



Covered the firewall in truck bed liner.



Painted the inner fenders with truck bed liner and started installing them.



I gave the engine a quick repaint just so it wouldn't look terrible in the redone engine compartment.


Next weekend is one of the big swap meets, and I'm hoping to find a less-rusty radiator support, so I'm going to try and get some of the smaller pieces(battery box, etc.) redone. But the big re-assembly will be on pause until I know if I can find one or if I will have to try and repair my rad support.

[Improbcat]

Went to the Mansfield swap meet this saturday. I was able to score the radiator support I needed along with a few other goodies. All of them were in the vendor lot furthest from where I parked of course.




One less rusty radiator support. While it has rot where the mounts are, the rest is intact & solid unlike mine. It also looks to have been dented & straightened poorly at some point. But it will work well enough, and I got it and the door parts below for only $80.


Lower door skins & inner door bottoms. These are repro parts that were never installed, but have surface rust form sitting. While I will need to do some serious de-rusting, I couldn't beat the savings. A new rad support & door patch panels would have been over $250.


Also picked up another GMC grill & grille panel. I didn't need these parts, but for $40 I couldn't pass it up. The grille is nicer than the one from AZ, but the grille panel is rotted like my original was. I'm now planning to use the AZ grille panel & this grille on the truck. The AZ grille will likely become garage art along with my chevy grille.


Rot to be fixed on the rad support. While it looks really nasty, it is confined to a fairly small area.


Rot cut out, I left the inner most layer both because it was solid and for reference to make sure everything still lined up for the mounts.


New patch panel bent into the U shape needed and the first welds in place.


Patch cut & bent to match the angle of the original. You can see a pie shaped gap where I mis-measured the patch.



Patch fully welded in & trimmed to match. You can see where I added a small filler to bridge the gap in the earlier pic.


Damaged metal next to mount area cut out. I don't have any good final pics, but I made a patch that fits not only here, but overlaps the other patch right up to where the bend is to build this back up to the OEM 3 layers.


Hole for radiator support mount drilled out.



Rot on passenger side cut out & patched.


I also drilled the bolt holes in the inner fenders now that I have a good radiator support to use for reference.



Once the welding was done, I rand a wire cup over the radiator support & associate parts and degreased them for paint.


Then the truck got moved out in the driveway so I could use the garage for painting(last time I painted parts outside the wind kicked up and I ended up with bumper braces that looked like 40 grit sandpaper). The tent over the back is because I'm storing most of the front end parts there.



Then the parts got laid out and painted. The silver paint is Masterseries anti-rust paint, the black paint is tractor paint from Tractor Supply. Since that pic I have gotten all the black parts done(baring touchup) and a second coat on some of the silver parts. With a bit of luck & dry weather I'll have everything painted and ready for re-assembly by this weekend.

[XtechX]

Cool build, I'm doing the same type of "quick and dirty" build on an old 66 right now. It's going to be a rat rod type/usable truck.

[Improbcat]

After spending the past week getting all the layers of paint & bedliner on it, this saturday I finally installed the redone radiator support & associate bits.







Cleaned up and reused the original hardware, and bought new support mount kits.



Just after these pics were taken I put on the upper radiator bracket and was able to start & run the truck for the first time in two months. I then installed a Pertronix kit in the distributor, now it starts with a quick flip of the key, unlike the fight it used to be.

Also installed one of the sun visors I got to replace the ruined wreck that was in the truck. The garage door opener came with the truck and was holding the whole mess together.





I also got the rest of the rust ground down on the AZ grille support, and stripped the paint on the swap meet grille. This week I'll be getting them coated in Masterseries, bedlined on the back & primed on the visible side so I can fit them to the truck.



Current plan is to fit the bad hood & fenders so I can use the truck while I do the rust repair to the better parts

[pdxhall]

I just caught up on your thread. Good work on the patching. I'm looking forward to more.

[Improbcat]

Originally Posted by pdxhall

I just caught up on your thread. Good work on the patching. I'm looking forward to more.

Thanks, work is still chugging along. I'm hoping to have enough of the front end together to be legally drivable by this weekend. The projects that I need the truck for have been slowly piling up.

[Improbcat]

Got the swap meet grille & grille bezels stripped of paint & got it and the grille support into Masterseries.





Also welded up the trim holes in the cowl panels, whatever badge was supposed to be here has been missing long enough the broken off studs were painted over at some point.

[truckswede]

You did great finds on the swap meet. And it looks like your fabrication skills are improving by the hour, you do nice work! It's nice to see your truck getting a new lease on life. You keep at it, we'll be here...

[Improbcat]

Originally Posted by truckswede

You did great finds on the swap meet. And it looks like your fabrication skills are improving by the hour, you do nice work! It's nice to see your truck getting a new lease on life. You keep at it, we'll be here...

Thanks. I appreciate the vote of support.

[Improbcat]

I test fitted the swap meet GMC grille to the AZ grille support and discovered that despite coming with a GMC grille, the AZ grille panel is for a Chevy.



The two holes for the top of the grille on each side match, but the two lower holes do not.

I marked out the location of the holes, but when I flipped the panel over to make sure I wasn't going to drill somewhere bad and discovered this:




That other hole in the brace next to the grille bolt hole? That is where the hole for the GMC grille is supposed to be. So if you're swapping from a Chevy grille to a GMC, just drill out that spot.

I used a spot weld cutter(exactly the right size, makes a clean hole) and made short work of drilling the holes.



Grille & Grille support then got painted black on the backsides.



I'd like to get these on the truck in primer this weekend, but the rain is slowing me down.

[aggie91]

Nice progress.

[Improbcat]

I put some of the junk parts on the truck so I can use it. I have to admit it looks pretty cool like this. I drove it up the Boston to drop of some shelving that has been sitting in the truck since the fall, and I got more thumbs up and compliments with the truck like this than in any other trip.







I put the bedliner on the back of the grille support, and for some reason it caused the rustoleum to lift off the masterseries paint and crinkle up. The scraped off spots too no effort to removed.




I gave it a day to cure, then powerwashed the panel, you can see how much of the paint came right off. Not entirely sure what to do now. I'm thinking maybe using a self-etching primer to get a bite on the masterseries then going directly to the bedliner.

[Improbcat]

Just found a better cab for the truck. It's a '66 and while it needs some work it is a fraction of what mine still needs.
Need to figure out how to get it into my truck and then into my garage...

[Improbcat]

Got my "new" '66 cab home this past saturday. I ended up paying only $400 for it, and the guy threw in a beat up aluminum grille for free.

Rounded up 3 of my friends to load it in the truck and unload it into my garage. The unloading was full on 3-stooges madness trying to get it out of the truck inside the garage without smacking it into the roof beams.









Since Saturday life has been insane, so it was only yesterday that I had a chance to really dig into the cab and what it has/needs.



It came with the full dash(less heater stuff), AM radio, steering column & wheel), and a set of nice blue sun-visors(the center mirror looks nice, but the ball & socket is rusted solid). I'll be keeping the wiper switch as it appears to have a washer switch built in, other than that everything else is getting sold to help put some money back in the truck fund.







The biggest selling point for me is that the roof is perfect inside & out. No dents or rust(the rust at the front edge of the inside roof in the sun visors pic is surface rust from where the scraped the paint getting the windshield out). All the roof should need is a quick sand & re-prime for some tiny surface rust spots, new sealant in the gutter and to be painted.

[Improbcat]

The bad now, there is rust in the floors at the outer edge, though not much.



The cab has also had cab corners and rockers done, but they put the new rocker on over any issues under there, and made the inner rocker out of scrap steel and barely welded it to anything. So the outer rocker is coming back off so I can re-do this area.







There is also this mystery patch, so that has to come off to find out what is going on there.



The only other rust I've found so far is in the driver's drip rail(but non in the passenger side, weirdly). Once I remove the rusty one, I'll either scavenge the one off my old cab, or cut the rusted section off the drip rail and weld on new metal.

[1963c-10]

Nice progress and looks like you've scored a good number of good parts!!!

[Improbcat]

I started in on the cab a tiny bit last night, decided to knock out the easy stuff first.
Cab was a deluxe, so I need to weld up the 4 sail panel screw holes, and the 4 larger side trim holes. I may put the side trim on this truck later but if I do I'm going to used double sided trim tape.






For the small sail trim holes I just removed the paint and filled the holes with the welder & ground them smooth.



For the bigger trim holes I'm making small circular filler pieces and welding those in. A skim coat of filler and these should be perfect.

[Improbcat]

Originally Posted by 1963c-10

Nice progress and looks like you've scored a good number of good parts!!!

Thanks. Yeah I've picked up quite a bit on this. The truck is turning into quite the mongrel.

[Bomp]

Wow, You've really come along ways.
Your welding/body skills have gotten way better too.

For welding tips I check out Jody. He has a gazillion videos but something may be useful.
https://www.youtube.com/user/welding...ricks/featured

Your truck is moving right along. Looking Good!

[Improbcat]

Originally Posted by Bomp

Wow, You've really come along ways.
Your welding/body skills have gotten way better too.

Your truck is moving right along. Looking Good!

Thanks for the compliments, this truck has been a real learning experience for welding/fabricating, which was exactly what I wanted when I bought it.

[Improbcat]

Got the new cab tilted on it's back, and started digging into the underside. Outer rockers are fine, but are going to be destroyed getting them off to fix the inner rockers and lower front pillars. Also found rust in all four cab braces, floors in front outer corners, cowl vents, & cowl panels below vents. Also found out the cab corners *were* replaced, but done very badly and covered with bondo. Those are coming out too, to be done right.












Its still better than my other cab. I have everything to fix it except 1 cab brace & the lower front pillars. I'm going to form the patches for the cowl vents as those are invisible under the fenders.

[TJ's Chevy]

Man you have done some serious work bud! Nice goin!

[Improbcat]

Finally made it back out into the garage. A combination of house/yard projects and hot temps have kept me away from the truck.

Decided to put off the cab for now so I can get some of the other stuff dealt with and make more room in the garage. First project was to turn a pile of bad fenders into two good ones.

On the driver's side I'm using the original fender, but it needs a new brace & lower patch panel, as well as a bunch of work up front. SO out came the bottom half of the old brace...




And in went the new piece.








Then in went the lower patch. I'm pretty sure I warped the hell out of this, so there is going to be some bondo in my future.




I also drilled out the remains of the front inner piece so I can take a pattern from the one rust-free fender I have and make a new one.




Then I started patching the various holes in the front. The metal here ended up being far thinner than expected, so even after cutting back a ways, I burned through a lot trying to weld the patch in.




Still needs a ton of metal work, then a ton of body work, but at least it looks like a complete fender again.