Rat repair.

[DD1]

Originally Posted by swamp rat

Yet another distraction, 10.5 weeks old and his body from his chest to his hips are easily as long as my shoulders are wide, couldn't pass this guy up. His name is Cooper.

Originally Posted by swamp rat

Thanks for checkin in!

My Rat weighs heavily on my mind daily and i know i got to get back to it soon, no progress yet this year but hope to change that soon, been a crazy winter. I refuse to be one of the guys that gives up mid project.

Cooper has about probably doubled in size too, growing fast!

Wow! He's a nice looking pup! I am sure you will be back at it soon. I still have some organizing and work to do in my garage, but it's been too damn cold.

Looking forward to updates!

[swamp rat]

Anyone still remember me?? LOL!

The new pup is now 7 months and 70 lbs, still growing..

And this winter/spring has been one of the wettest ever, the going joke is it only rained twice this winter, once for 63 days and once for 48 days.... Its been wet! so I admittedly had shifted some of my priority's and been doing some fishing, steelhead and salmon in the rivers, plus I bought a pontoon boat and have been spending some of this rainy time on a couple lakes as well, rain gear is a must.

I left off on the rocker showing the bottom of the rocker didn't curl under like the original cab corner, the rear rocker flange needed a couple pie slices to allow me to move the bottom into place, to weld the pie cuts I ended up wrapping a tie down strap around it to pull the pie cuts together for welding.

Once satisfied I moved on to the cab corner, cut out the rust and grabbed my two cab corners, one a Tabco and the other I believe is a Tri Plus, took some pic's to show the differences, decided to cut a 3.5" X 2'5" chunk out of the Tabco, cut, twisted, trimmed to fit, and reshaped the flange next to the outer rocker, welded into place without near the shrinkage problems I had on the driver side.

reinstalled the outer rocker and test fit the door, door fit is not perfect but its not a show truck, the window frame being the worst of it. decided to weld it up and covered the bare metal with a temporary coat of primer (not shown).

[DD1]

Originally Posted by swamp rat

Anyone still remember me?? LOL!

The new pup is now 7 months and 70 lbs, still growing..

And this winter/spring has been one of the wettest ever, the going joke is it only rained twice this winter, once for 63 days and once for 48 days.... Its been wet! so I admittedly had shifted some of my priority's and been doing some fishing, steelhead and salmon in the rivers, plus I bought a pontoon boat and have been spending some of this rainy time on a couple lakes as well, rain gear is a must.

I left off on the rocker showing the bottom of the rocker didn't curl under like the original cab corner, the rear rocker flange needed a couple pie slices to allow me to move the bottom into place, to weld the pie cuts I ended up wrapping a tie down strap around it to pull the pie cuts together for welding.

Once satisfied I moved on to the cab corner, cut out the rust and grabbed my two cab corners, one a Tabco and the other I believe is a Tri Plus, took some pic's to show the differences, decided to cut a 3.5" X 2'5" chunk out of the Tabco, cut, twisted, trimmed to fit, and reshaped the flange next to the outer rocker, welded into place without near the shrinkage problems I had on the driver side.

reinstalled the outer rocker and test fit the door, door fit is not perfect but its not a show truck, the window frame being the worst of it. decided to weld it up and covered the bare metal with a temporary coat of primer (not shown).

Looks good!

I am not a fan of the Tabco cab corner. Wish I had gone with a different brand. Of course if I had used a different brand and had the same problem, I'd be saying "Wish I had gotten a Tabco part."

The top left pic is the rocker lined up to the cab corner? just trying to get the right perspective. I am going to have to do the same thing. Would not be surprised if I had the same problem.

So you made adjustments to the rocker, not the cab corner, right?

Your pic of the rocker installed is helpful. I now see exactly where I need to weld it.

Glad to see you back at it!

[rgunlock]

Looks like the rocker & corner turned out well Mike. Glad to see you're spending time on the truck again.

[mcbassin]

Nice progress, glad to see you back on the project. You bring back fond memories of rust repair on my truck.

[7dee2]

Nice work, sounds like you been having some fun!

[DWilbur]

Good to see your back at it. I got lucky with my cab corners. I did have to replace both rockers.

[Vic1947]

Hey Mike,
I know all about the weather up there. Years ago when we moved up there and lived on the East Side, there was an article in the paper gushing about the great summer they'd just had... 53 whole days of sunshine.

Looks like the rat made it thru the winter without any new tinworm, so hopefully you can pick right back up where you left off.

[swamp rat]

You know I have been on second shift for the last 10 years until about last February, I gotta admit the sun and the summer heat is taking a toll on me, I burn way to easy!

Got back at it a bit, the passenger fender naturally is a bit worse for wear than the driver side thanks to battery acid, but the cup is still good so decided to repair it. found some cracking and thinning spots and a couple holes needing filling along with the 3 main patches

[swamp rat]

The back of the fender needed some repair too but being as i'm terrible at fitting with tight gaps i decided to lay out a bit of a grid so I could keep track of where to bend the patch at to hopefully maintain the gap fitment, it worked out pretty good.

Will be chasing any remaining rust with the GEM rust converter.

[swamp rat]

I got a friend at work that told me he uses twisted wire cups to remove paint from body parts, he says it removes paint and does not remove the metal at all, can anyone give me an idea of what stiffness of wire I should use? he said it should be soft but I also know if its too soft I might just generate heat and not remove any paint. ??

[swamp rat]

Oh Cooper is now the same size as Max, A bit taller but not quite as thick, both at around 95 lbs, I may have said Max was 75 lbs a while back but I was mistaken.

[Vic1947]

Good work, Mike, keep plugging away and it'll be done before you know it.

[swamp rat]

Thanks Vic! I gotta admit this stuff does seem to grind along forever!

Sunday I hung my fender upright and started the application of the GEM rust converter along the back seam, oh and I did use the converter under the front upper patch before welding it in too. Then I cut out the cab bracing and took the time to vacuum and blow out the cab a bit, its still pretty dirty and will need a good wipe down later. Then I masked off the inside cab floor for paint, at which point I was reminded I never mudded the inner kick panel so about 6 applications of mud, some high build primer and much sanding dust later I'm now ready to K2 prime the inner part of the cab after scuffing the area with scotchbrite and wiping down with wax and grease remover.

[7dee2]

Very nice Mike, you are doing a great job!

[NONHOG]

Nice to see progress! Keep up the good work.

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by NONHOG

Nice to see progress! Keep up the good work.

Yea I need to get my butt in gear again. Aside from cleaning out the work area so I can bring out the paint and supplies without contaminating everything I haven't got anything done since Sunday, I think I can lay a little primer tomorrow.

[swamp rat]

So Wednesday was a productive day, I got the passenger floor and inner kick panel both primed and painted, no pic again, keep forgetting to take one.

Got an early start today, had a friend come over and welded a bumper on his tent trailer for him.

The other day I bought a 4" twisted wire cup and used it to strip the paint off the outside of the fender, worked great but you had to be carful and not press too hard, it definitely was not getting the metal too hot, after the cup I finished it with both 2" and 3" dotco pads to clean up the remainder of the primer and tighter areas, one small area just forward of the marker light had some bondo on it, I'm debating on just spreading my bondo over the top of it? or removing it all.

About the time I was done stripping off the paint I had to grab the welder and fill in a hole on the well area, the metal was pretty thin right there but I eventually got it filled. I then remembered i had a rusted in broke off bolt that needs removed, got it drilled to.125 but the size 2 Extractor would not budge it, I drilled it up to about .250, now I got to go buy a bigger Extractor as I never replaced it when it was broke way back when, and it was pretty hot by then so called it a day.

[Vic1947]

Looks great, Mike. If it were me, I'd probably remove the filler unless you know for sure what's under it. It could be perfectly fine, but for a patch that small, I'd grind it out, maybe dolly it a little better, then spray the area with self etch and redo the filler as needed.

I know what you're saying about too hot to work. The guy doing my paint work has slowed to a crawl. Went by there Friday to pick up a piece I wanted to work on this weekend and the place was dark. I figure everyone took off, what with the temps near 100 these last few days. Although I'll admit I prefer sweating over freezing.

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by Vic1947

Looks great, Mike. If it were me, I'd probably remove the filler unless you know for sure what's under it. It could be perfectly fine, but for a patch that small, I'd grind it out, maybe dolly it a little better, then spray the area with self etch and redo the filler as needed.

I know what you're saying about too hot to work. The guy doing my paint work has slowed to a crawl. Went by there Friday to pick up a piece I wanted to work on this weekend and the place was dark. I figure everyone took off, what with the temps near 100 these last few days. Although I'll admit I prefer sweating over freezing.

The filler is under the paint but I didn't see any holes on the back side, its pretty thin though so I'll take it out, I assume the factory may fill slight imperfections? Kinda thinking it was just a little imperfection in the stamping. Your in the school of using self etch before mud, have you had any bad experiences using mud direct to bare metal?

Yea I was so trashed yesterday that I still hurt so much today I canceled my fishing trip to the lake LOO! I gotta admit I'm not used to heat or cold anymore

[Vic1947]

Over the years I've come around to the "primer first, bondo second" mindset. Truth is, though, I've never had any issues going direct to metal as long as it's roughed up good using a DA sander with 80 grit or coarser paper. I think a layer of primer (self etch or epoxy) adds some extra insurance under plastic filler. But the best medicine is a sturdy topcoat... either a quality single stage urethane or BC/CC.

[DWilbur]

How did the rust converter work for you. I tried some on my car seats and it was kinda gummy after 2 days. I ended up media blasting them in the end. the brand I used was from Home Depot.

[swamp rat]

You probably used Ospho or something like that, the stuff I use GEM stays thin because it's a liquid instead of a product that has the consistency of maple syrup so it drys out pretty nice.

[DWilbur]

ya the stuff I used is thick.

[7dee2]

Sorry to hear the truck work was kicking your butt, it's been really hot the Rat needs you Mike..