Roof skin questions

[WrongBedDave]

As some of you may be aware my truck has shaved drip rails. Which so far have caused some problems in their own. I am having issues with cracking I in the paint on both B pillars and on one A pillar. I currently do not know if the cracking is due to poor workmanship on the part of the body so or from can flex seeing as the cracks are not along the old seams.

Independent of the cracking I noticed today that the roof skin does not appear to be attached to or even in contact with the rib that spans the center of the roof. I figure that the two were never attached as there is padding that looks factory in between the two. What worries me is that someone put silicone in between the existing padding almost as if the gap was to large. How much of a gap if any should there be between the rub and the skin of the roof?

Sorry for the long winded post

[Toyz]

Dave,
The gap seems to vary from truck to truck and location to location.If the roof has in fact been re-skinned, it may have been lapped over existing panels.
These locations are prone to corrosion due to the factory lap-over. If done with plastic filler, the repair usually willl end up just as you described. Grinding out the filler, additional welding followed by rust inhibitor such as Ospho or POR 15, and final finishing with Belzona; is probably as solid a repair as practical.
Paul

[Uncle Skip]

What Paul said. There are at least 3 plies of metal in that roof seam. I'd take a wire wheel and dig out all the bondo and re-weld the entire seam, treat with Ospho or the like, and then use All-metal to finish it out*.
When you treat the metal with Ospho (a green water like liquid) use a kitchen sprayer inside the seam and outside too to make sure it penetrates everywhere water would get to and let it dry for several days. You can use a heat gun to speed things up. Then spray a good coat of self etching primer over the entire thing to seal it up as best you can.

*(Toyz, everybody can't get Belzona like you can. But if you can get it, its superior to anything else that you can use.)

And the cross bar used to have a fiber material stapled between it and the metal top to prevent oilcanning (rumbling from flexing). I used that expando foam to stiffen and insulate mine.

[Toyz]

[quote="Uncle Skip"]What Paul said. There are at least 3 plies of metal in that roof seam. I'd take a wire wheel and dig out all the bondo and re-weld the entire seam, treat with Ospho or the like, and then use All-metal to finish it

*(Toyz, everybody can't get Belzona like you can. But if you can get it, its superior to anything else that you can use.)


My Belzona comes from an eBay seller. Most industrial suppliers also sell it. There is definitely a reason it is so expensive. Properly applied; it is reasonably there forever. Just don't get the ceramic stuff unless you can be assured that the installed result is the final finish
Paul

[WrongBedDave]

Thanks for the input guys. I don't feel confident in my welding to take that in but the body shop guarantees his work for life against stuff like this so it'll go back to him Wednesday and he is gonna fix it for free.

I never saw the truck before they put filler over the work they did so I'm not sure either way if they welded it properly so I'm going to see if I can see those areas when he fixes them