Page 3

Finding out that I'm not a body man

Well, as promised I thought I would share my story on cab corners and floor.This to date is by far the hardest thing I have done. Not because it was so hard, just because I never welded or did any body work before. You be the judge. Here is what I started with.

As you can see the floor was just about gone. In this next picture, I don't know if you can tell how bad the corners were, but I could shake pieces from the corners.

The first thing I did was take measurements and have the local machine shop cut me some 16 guage metal for the floor and then I ordered my cab corners from Chevy Duty . I spent about three nights practicing with my new Lincoln 175 welder before I even had the courage to start. Here I go....

I used a cutting wheel and cutting torch to cut out the bad spots.

The machine shop did a pretty nice job cutting this out.

Nice fit. Will weld in later!

Now the fun part..Cab corners. I think I did this the hard way, but I like to try to do most of the work myself. I think this gives me a better feel for the truck and if such a thing doesn't sound to corny, it helps with bonding. Here is where I started.

As you can tell, I had the cab blasted and in primer. I took measurements and crossed fingers, took a deep breath and started cutting with the wheel. I had to trim alot to make it look decent and cut down on body work.

I then tacked the corner into place skipping about 2 inches between tacks. I then went back and made the best bead I could. Then it was time for this.

I smoothed the rough edges with a grinder, as you can tell from other corner that I needed to smooth alot.

Then it was time for the filler. This was my first time with bondo also..Learned alot..The less you use, the less sanding. I sanded alot. But in the end I think the corners came out great for a rookie.

By now I had bleed, cussed once and increased arm size from all the sanding and body work and had not even made a small dent in things that needed to be done. So here I went again.

I found out that the hours spent sanding and redoing is long, but well worth it.

I think that is about all for this page. I do want to share this with you.

I was proud of the cab corners, not because they where the best professional job in the world, but because I did them. If you are reading this and thinking about doing something, I recommend thinking hard about it, then jump in. Have fun.

Check out page 4.

More body work and I finally got my motor..