Roostre's 1967 C20

[Roostre]

I spent last night cutting the driver's side rocker and bad patch job off my cab. It was the same story as the passenger's side, so I won't retype it. I need to get ahold of Bowtie Truck Stop and get a patch panel for the lower A pillar on the driver's side. I was talking to Kevin yesterday to order the passenger's side, and he asked me about the driver's side. I told him I didn't need the driver's side yet. Well, I guess I should have just gotten one. Oh well, the driver's side isn't nearly as bad as the passenger's side, so I should be able to get by with the older, less complex version of the patch.

Here's some pictures of the progress. Not very exciting, but it makes a good scrapbook for me.

[Roostre]

While I was changing the oil in my daily driver, I decided to do some more rust removal today. I cut the driver's side lower A pillar off. Only the lower part that sticks into the rocker needs replacement. While I'm in there, I will be replacing the bottom of the kick panel that is rusted through. For those of you, like me, who have never been this deep into these and have a lot of sheet metal missing due to rust, the bottom of the kick panel is sandwiched between the floor and the A pillar using the top 2 bolts of the 4 bolt pattern. Figuring this out took me finally just cutting the A pillar off, I couldn't tell how the kick panel was captured there until the bottom of the A pillar was completely gone.

Anyway, the plan now is to replace both passenger's and driver's side lower kick panels and lower A pillars, then replace the floor.

Her are some pictures

[raggedjim]

The dark before the dawn. I remember cutting into my jimmy and seeing the same thing, I felt like I'd been kicked in the groin. Stick with it, you will get there.

Good luck, Rg

[Roostre]

Originally Posted by raggedjim

The dark before the dawn. I remember cutting into my jimmy and seeing the same thing, I felt like I'd been kicked in the groin. Stick with it, you will get there.

Good luck, Rg

Thanks for the encouragement, it actually feels like I'm getting somewhere, so that feels pretty good. The rot I'm seeing wasn't unexpected, I just didn't pick up all of the patch panels right away because I wasn't sure what I could get by with making. I need to pick up a couple of kick panel patches and the lower A pillar patches, and I should be good to re-assemble.

[Roostre]

More progress tonight. I finished cutting out the kick panel on the driver's side of my cab. I cut out the patch panel and welded it back in. I then welded in the firewall patch I made a couple of weeks ago. They aren't the prettiest patches, but once the sound deadening mat and the floormat are inside and the fenders are installed, no one will see these patches, and the cab is solid through here again. Now I need to do the same on the passenger's side and weld in the lower A pillar patch panels. I think I'm going to wait for the bottom of the pillars until I have the cab sitting on the new floor to help locate them correctly.

Here are some pictures!

[Roostre]

Very small progress today. I went and picked up an old farmall B, and my buddy rode along. After we unloaded the tractor, I was showing him the progress on my cab. He has had a few square bodies over the years, and we started talking about radios and how we, as stupid kids, cut the dashes apart to get aftermarket radios to fit. The radio in my cab was an early 90's model that didn't fit and didn't work anyway. I always assumed that my dash was cut to make it fit. As we were standing around, I grabbed a pliers and pulled that radio out. Amazingly, my dash is in great shape and not cut at all! Small miracles and wins today!

[Roostre]

I started on the passenger's side today. Same story as the driver's side, I cut off the lower A pillar to access the kick panel then marked and cut the kick panel. Unfortunately, the kick panel patch isn't large enough to fix all of the rust, so I'll have to make a second smaller patch panel. I just got going when I ran out of welding wire and was forced to call it a day.

The lower A pillar will be cut again above the lower hinge mounting points, the patch panel I ordered has the captured nuts in it already, but hasn't come in yet.

Here are a few pictures.

[Roostre]

I bought a new spool of welding wire, so I was able to finish patching my passenger's side kick panel and firewall. As I said in the last post, the patch for the kick panel wasn't large enough to replace all the rusty parts, so I had to make a small patch out of some left over pieces of the driver's side kick panel. I need to grind down all of the welds yet, but I think it turned out ok, especially for a guy who had never done this before and has no idea what he's doing.

Unfortunately, I've fallen back into my habit of working away and not getting any pictures while I do. I need to get better about that. Here are a few after pictures and one of some of the rust I removed.

Up next I will be removing the floor. I'll fit the new floor so I can put in lower A and B pillar patches on both sides. Then I'll do final installation on the floor. I'm waiting on final floor installation for a couple of reasons. First, I ordered a patch panel for the passenger's side lower A pillar and that hasn't arrived yet. I want to have the lower pillars patched before I install the floor permanently. Second, I'm waiting for the weather to warm up a little because I think I'm going to use structural adhesive on the floor where it attaches to the fire wall and the rear of the cab. I'm leaning towards 3M 7333. It is an impact resistant structural adhesive, and it looks like a better product for this area than the panel adhesive I used on the roof skin. If course, this all depends on how well the aftermarket replacement floor fits my old cab. If it doesn't fit well, I'll have to scrap the adhesive idea and go back to spot welding to be able to better pull it into place.