Part 10 - Body Rust Repair
Oh boy, here comes the fun part! The body is not that bad, compared to some. Some floorboard work, new rockers, door repair (probably will use a NOS door on the drivers side since it’s just gathering dust in the garage), that weird rust-out on the firewall, and the rear cab corners. Was putting this off until Classic comes out with Champ cab corners, but have just about given up on that - the cab corners worry me the most. (That’s why those can wait until the end……..
!)
After that, a good sandblasting and epoxy primer, and it’s off to the painters.
The cab looks worse than it really is, since it has a lot of surface rust from sitting outside disassembled after the paint flaked off. A good sandblasting will take that off.
First order of business was to get the cab “portable”. A body stand that was originally built for a Lark was modified to serve this purpose. Actually, the only pieces from the Lark body stand that were used were the two end pieces. Here’s the modified stand……….
(Reminder - click on the small pictures to bring up BIG versions)
One of the previous owners took a lot of time to ‘reinforce’ the floorboards after the rust was cut out. The plate is 3/16″ and is bolted and riveted in - a lot of time here……
…….including tying the floor piece into the cowl post. This is the passenger side, but the driver’s side was done the same way. Note the odd rust-out on the firewall just above the toeboard. Won’t be hard to fix, just cutting out and welding in; this will be done after the floors are fixed.
Original plan was to use the cab with the previous owner’s repairs intact, but Ray F. talked me out of it. So off came the driver’s side metal, and this is what was left after trimming the edges some:
The cowl post had some rust at the bottom, so this was trimmed:
………and a new piece formed to match the original shape:
This is how it will look once it is welded in:
Oh boy, here comes the fun part! The body is not that bad, compared to some. Some floorboard work, new rockers, door repair (probably will use a NOS door on the drivers side since it’s just gathering dust in the garage), that weird rust-out on the firewall, and the rear cab corners. Was putting this off until Classic comes out with Champ cab corners, but have just about given up on that - the cab corners worry me the most. (That’s why those can wait until the end……..
!)After that, a good sandblasting and epoxy primer, and it’s off to the painters.
The cab looks worse than it really is, since it has a lot of surface rust from sitting outside disassembled after the paint flaked off. A good sandblasting will take that off.
First order of business was to get the cab “portable”. A body stand that was originally built for a Lark was modified to serve this purpose. Actually, the only pieces from the Lark body stand that were used were the two end pieces. Here’s the modified stand……….
(Reminder - click on the small pictures to bring up BIG versions)
One of the previous owners took a lot of time to ‘reinforce’ the floorboards after the rust was cut out. The plate is 3/16″ and is bolted and riveted in - a lot of time here……
…….including tying the floor piece into the cowl post. This is the passenger side, but the driver’s side was done the same way. Note the odd rust-out on the firewall just above the toeboard. Won’t be hard to fix, just cutting out and welding in; this will be done after the floors are fixed.
Original plan was to use the cab with the previous owner’s repairs intact, but Ray F. talked me out of it. So off came the driver’s side metal, and this is what was left after trimming the edges some:
The cowl post had some rust at the bottom, so this was trimmed:
………and a new piece formed to match the original shape:
This is how it will look once it is welded in:
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