my shipwrecked '63

[SteveCanup]

"Shoobie"....too funny...I will have to remember that. But I do know the frustration of not having enough discs (or anything else for that matter) to finish a job. You're moving that along quite nicely...and in the right way. I can't wait to see your truck when it is finished.

[shipwrecked]

So today i didn't get around to cutting the support as planned. I ended up doing a million other things.

I did drill some holes in my floor 7/8" on line with the aft cab brace. I had thought that they may be dust/dirt in there too, but turns out I had old bee hives clogging the drain holes. Took a little time with a pick to clean them out, but now they are clear. I will put a body plug in the floor later.



Artifacts I found in the truck's ash tray (BTW- I have no idea how to remove the ash tray!- little help please).


The quarter is a 1980- which happen to be same year I was born, and Mt. St. Helens blew (I was a month old but in Boston)- thought I am from Oregon now.

I scraped the crap off the rear bulkhead


Got curious why I was getting so much surface rust but bubbles too- Turns out the PO painted grey primer over the top of the old paint. Here is some damage to the roof I just happen to see.



I also spent time clearing out the dash. Removed the windshield wiper motor (stamped Dec-1962) and also took time to take all the nobs off. Spent hours picking the seam sealer out of all the seems inside the cab. It was a rubbery-oily mess.


Last for the day I flipped the cab up on its back to take a look at the rest of the bottom. It has a lot of caked on stuff- I assume it is old mud. It scrapes off easily enough. I will do that tomorrow and will see about maybe getting the whole cab blasted asap. I really need to see how bad the through rust is.

[unibody madness]

push down the tab on the front inside of the ashtray and rock it forward (towards you) and out

[Truckrat]

Wow April those cab mounts looks good! Not sure where
your truck came from but the bottom looks great. TR

[shipwrecked]

drove up to Vineland area and went to Chinafreight... Had to return a stud welder that never worked.. The manager gave me a new one even thought they technically didn't have to. I bought the one, and never used it. I went to use it this morning and it didn't work. I was a bit mad, but nice to the store employees and they were nice to me.

I also drove over and picked up my Intake/Exhaust manifolds i had ceramic coated.


I had the battery tray powder coated too (red!)



I went to the shop at work and blasted some pieces after I finished three hours of administrative stuff at work (on my vacation!).



I've got parts hanging all over my garage porch with primer drying.


Tomorrow, going to practice with the stud welder before I put it to the roof of my cab.

I did buy new cab mounts..... I did that before I really had a chance to dig into the ones I had. I bought them on a quick "shit I need those too before I drop the cab off to blaster" and bought them. Not sure if I will replace these or just sell the ones I bought.

I scheduled the cab to be media blasted/epoxy primer'd Wednesday next week. So I have about a week to work on the floors, the roof somewhat repaired.

Oh yea, yesterday I welded up a few holes in the dash. This whole time I thought my dash was never cut for a radio, but wondered why I had the antenna hole. Well, I finally was under the dash and found the holes where the nobs were. I welded them, and a cut line I found at the lip of the dash. That was a pain! it kept burning through more and I set fire to my hoodie at one point. I also welded up the antenna hole in the cowl. i am not perfect at welding, but when I put a little short strand fiberglass over it, then body filler then paint,,, I don't think anyone will ever know.


Filled some holes in the driver kick panel area that were probably from a fire extinguisher.


And filled a random hole in the back.

[shipwrecked]

yesterday I spent a busy day out in the garage- I didn't accomplish much but I did do some cleaning up.

I drove up to Atlantic City to get some welding gas. I went by the hospital as well to see my neighbor Bill. I haven't seen him in 3 weeks cause I was sick and with his heart surgery I didn't dare go near him and get him sicker. He appears to have had a stroke while at the hospital. They put a Traq in so he could breath when he went down hill a week or so ago. He can't talk, and can't eat- so they are doing feeding tube sustenance. He's lost a lot of weight! I wish I knew morse code cause thats what I think he is using to communicate- the problem is no one knows it. He is tapping his fingers. So frustrating to see such a huge strong man so frail.

I did some cleaning inside the passenger cab support. I don't think I want to replace it. It didn't have any holes and it was pretty solid still. BTW Truckrat- the truck came from Oregon of all places. When you think of Oregon, you think rain rain rain... Well, thats only 1/3 of the state. The rest is desert dry. It was in Eastern Oregon (the dry side) for a long time. I bought it in 2012 in the wet side (where Im from). It really start to rust when I bought it.

Put chassis saver inside the support. Will clean off the areas where I am going to plug weld the pan to it.



test fitting the floor pan. Yes I have a chunk missing in the upper right corner. That was swiss cheese so I cut a part out that I can patch as well. The kick panel wasn't horrible, just a small section that will need a patch.




Yesterday while I had the cab on it's back, I followed the support on the driver side with a drill. I cut holes in the floor so when It is being cut out, I know to connect the dots and not cut through any supports. It will be easier for me to find the plug welds cause it's so rusted I can't find them currently.



I also finished scraping the undercoating off. I thought it was mud, but when it stopped scraping off easy, I got a small torch and just heated it to scrape off. Came off in minutes. I didn't even have to work a sweat up.

[shipwrecked]

look at all the dents I need to pull



Some are pretty heavy. and it is only in the rear section. The rest of the roof seems pretty good.

[shipwrecked]

Spent my entire day welding in the passenger floorboard. My back is killing me! I started at 0900 and got inside this evening at 2030.

I started by working on a kick panel patch. It was rusted through into the air plenum and door post so I had to trim away the rotten stuff and put in a new patch.


clamps, self tapping screws, a big hammer... yeah, it took forever!



Strongest thing on this whole truck I think.




Got a few pinholes I will need to fix, but overall I am pleased with it.

[shipwrecked]

decided to cut out the driver floor and put in the new pan, but in my typical luck, it was worse then it could have been. got the new cab mounts from Carolina Classics.



started to fit the pan as well. It got too late for me to keep going, I thought my neighbors would come over and kick my butt! tomorrow is another day.

[shipwrecked]

I welded in that driver floor pan about 3/4 of the way before I stopped to do a few other things. I had to take the bark box (little puppy Hilda) to the groomers for a hair/nail do.

Had the idea of blasting the cab myself instead of paying 600+ to someone else to do it. I spent forever trying to get the blaster to work. Did a few test spots and it worked.

I remember why I would pay someone else to do this! What the hell was i thinking?



I will finish the floor tomorrow and see if I can throw some epoxy primer on it.

I am on the fence about getting someone to do this blasting for me, or I can take a few weeks to do it bit by bit.

[shipwrecked]

yesterday was my last day off before going back to the daily grind.

I went to tractor supply and got some blast media and set off on the journey to blast the cab. I got about 85% done before the sky decided to get dark and dump big fat rain on me. I am a bit pissed but what can you do. Its jersey and this happens all the time.

I did get flash rust i will need to deal with. If I get off work early enough I will go blast the rest of the cab. I still need to do the back panel and floor. The floor is coated in a thick coating and some of it is not coming off easily.


The flash rust could just come off with a scotch brite pad or a light sanding. I will work on that later.

Right now my hands feel like I have arthritis. Holding that deadman stick trigger all afternoon certainly wore my muscles out.
I went through about 600 pounds of media.

The roof has some deep rust, but not much rust thru. I am not sure if I should treat with ospho or just put chassis saver on it.
What you think?

[shipwrecked]

Im done blasting the cab. I reblasted the flash rust and the remaining areas i didn't get to yesterday. I have a 1 foot square area that i didn't get the por15/bedliner material off of the seat portion of the cab floor. I did not reblast the cab roof- i will do dent repair and treat for rust.

Tomorrow i will do some cleaning and hopefully get into epoxy! I don't have to go to work till 5pm. Thats a full work day in the shop before I got to be at work.

[ThinLizzy13]

Nice work! looks like you're making good progress!

[shipwrecked]

yesterday morning I wasn't satisfied with the 1x1 section of floor coating on the cab floor that I hadn't blasted out. I took the cab back out to the back yard and blasted again. I also blasted the outside of the roof again.


as of this morning, my right hand does not comply when i try to move my three fingers (middle to little). It;s all to do with my spinal accessory nerve damage and the fact I spent so many days holding that dead man stick for the blaster.

I spent a few hours cleaning the cab of all grit, and dust. I cleaned the garage as much as I could.

I put down two coats of TRANSTAR 2k epoxy primer. I coated everything but the underside of the cab floor. We have off and on rain coming due to the tropical storms I wanted to be sure to seal up the cab before I get too much flash rust again.




An up close of the dash. I have debris/dust in the epoxy. Its a garage, its in the air, its gonna happen. I can sand that down and spray some more. That sprayed so easy. It was the first time I have ever done this.

[SteveCanup]

That cab looks sooooo good. After spraying paint for the first time....you will find something addictive about it. I have painted about 6 to 8 vehicles in my lifetime and I love to shot paint.....but, I hate body work...lol.... and yes, the 'nibs' will sand out. I let my 7 year old grandson shoot one of my valve covers. I figured that if he messed it up, we could re-sand it and do it over. He did a great job with the gun. Start them young....

[shipwrecked]

I had a nice sunshine hot day today but a rain cell is supposed to move in tonight. I can always weld when it rains, but I can't blast when it is raining.

I blasted the passenger door today. The interior side of the door blasted just fine, but the exterior skin was impossible! There appears to be a skim coat of bondo across the whole thing and the blasting grit didn't do Sh*T.







cab corners from dennis carpenter came in.

[shipwrecked]

It was stupid hot out today (90* with humidity). I don't know what possessed me to sand blast in that crap but I did. I modified my blaster handle so I can actually continue holding the nozzle instead of developing arthritis.

I removed the spring loaded handle (which is required by osha) and added a 1/4 turn ball valve to turn on/off. it cost me about 13.00 total to fix this. I should have done it weeks ago.


Now I am going to add a pipe to the base where the hose attaches. I have blown out sections of the hose every few uses cause it gets kinked, pulled, overextended.

I blasted both doors.








cleaned and in one coat of epoxy primer. I had a problem with my elcheapo chinafreight spray gun. The vent at the top of the paint cup got clocked with paint. It would pressurize the cup then starve the spray gun of paint. So when I would open the cap, it would vent and then shoot a shit load of primer out. I have some runs to fix on the passenger door.



Tomorrow I will fix a second coat of epoxy for the it all. I want to get started on finishing that floor weld. Maybe tomorrow!

[bruceandersson]

Try using a propane or map torch to remove bondo. It doesn't take much heat and it comes off easily with a putty knife. Heat the bondo, not the metal around it. Softer materials do not blast off well.

[shipwrecked]

still plugging away at the passenger side cab support. I hurt my back last week and I could barely walk or breath on Monday. I am upright now but not doing a whole lot. I pretty much spent the week doing little things.

I removed the old cab support. Found a tiny hole of rust. Cut that out, and patched in a new piece.



spent some time fitting the new cab support in place. I need to get the floor to meet up with the top of the support now.



And also started filling the gap where there was too much rust at the floor board, but the floor board didn't come up to.


Hope to get back in the groove when my back stops hurting. I can't sit for very long right now. And if I stand, I had better not try to bend over. hurts when you start getting old Im finding out.

[therealjoeshmoe]

wow IVE REALLY GOT TO GET BUSY...

THAT'S LOOKING GREAT!