first time welder, what u think?

[watahyahknow]

you might be able to place the doorhandles over the solenoid or hook the solenoid to the doorhandles .

a neat little trick i've seen here for the doorcovers was to use speakercloth its stretches around compound curves and give a nice finish , the guy ive seen do that used it for the headliner too glued it straight to the metal

[jrsmith_2010]

hey guys, today i decided to man up the the 20 degree weather (like 5 degree wind chill) and weld in the filler for the cargo light. i was gonna try to fix it to work, but i just decided to shave it. should start on the caddy lights on tuesday, so look forward to that here are the pics

before


welded


grinded


filled


i think i might be gettin the hang of it

[dubdeuce80]

did you fill that entire indention with filler? you've got the idea down and i give you props on that, but you want to use as little filler as possible, so get the filler panel to be as flush with the body as you can, that way you use one, maybe 2 thin coats of filler. also, make sure you get all the paint off first, filler will stick better to bare metal

[jrsmith_2010]

yea i did that because i had to hit the filler panel with a hammer to make it fit right, and it dented it a little, im gonna sand it all down and skim it with bondo. its just to fill the spots the welder didnt, its harder than bondo.

[jrsmith_2010]

i cant wait to get the caddy lights in, as soon as i get them in, im gonna weld the tailgate in place. and then do some kind of bedliner, i was thinkin about doing a 3M undercoating all inside the bed, give it the look of a spray in bedliner, but alot cheaper. i would do a normal one, but im not gonna drive it ever day, so im not sure what im gonna do yet..

[jrsmith_2010]

well i got the caddy lights in today, but it snowed here so i couldnt do much with them. but what i did do was make a templete of them and taped it on to see what it would look like, im really lookin forward to this!

[watahyahknow]

www.***************** sells complete sheetmetal kits to mount those lights in there

[jrsmith_2010]

yea i seen them. but i think im gonna try to do it myself and if it dont work out like i want it to, then ill buy them. i cant wait to start on them

anyone have any options on how i should start on them?

[watahyahknow]

you might want to make a buck out of 2 layers of thick plywood (use the cardboard template draw it on the plywood and take a saw and file to it ) to bent the metal around and intoo shape and hold it with some clambs when you weld the backpart on
my guess is you need only one if youre able to use the front and back of the buck for left and right

[jrsmith_2010]

well im just gonna cut it to fit, then weld in brackets where it will bolt to to hold it in place and have the desired form i want it to have, then fill in the rest of the tail light hole with metal

[watahyahknow]

yes you need to cut the holes for the lights but you need to make the lightbuckets away from the car , then you can slide those in the hole and measure them up untill they sit right give a tack on a couple of places and dress the edge of it with a grinder until its level with the sheetmetal around it and then tack it in allround , after that you should be able to fill in the open spots left with other pieces , or fit those in first and then cut the hole for the lights out and fit the buckets in there watever works best for you

[jrsmith_2010]

yea i have some spare metal pieces where i can make some sort of bucket once i get the holes cut so its eaiser to put in and take out

[jrsmith_2010]

hey guys, i started on the rough make of some custom caddy lights where they should work, i got one almost done, it looks ok, need some work tho, but it looks like it will work for what i need it to do.

[spr85gmc]

looks like a cetiped(sp?)

[jrsmith_2010]

yea kinda now that i look at it, i did one every other seam on the main row, i think it will work, i might start on them tomorrow

[jrsmith_2010]

lowdown over a FSC forum photoshoped this for me, i really like it, but im not sure it i want to do them like this, or start at the body line and down into the rollpan, what do u think?