The rust is bad…. really really bad….
Well, my home remodel project is done for a few weeks, I still have a kitchen backsplash to do, but it can wait. Metal work is more fun than housework. I did do some work on the frame, but that can wait until another update. For now, I was sick of only cutting things and wanted to actually put stuff back together. The rust is so bad, in fact, I'm willing to bet a beer no one has attempted to “restore” a 60 this rusty. if so, we should talk, I put the restoration in quotes as this won't be perfect, it will look good, but it's not going to be a high end restoration, take that for what it's worth. A body in better shape is not in the budget, so here we are. I wish I would have taken a few more photos to document before I started cutting but next thing you know, large chunks of the truck were gone. I was only able to save about a 10 inch section of the inside rocker. Most of the floor next to the rocker was bad, it's just bad… really bad, the wheel well(s) had to come out as well. Here are a few photos of what we are up against. lots of spot weld drilling
rear seat mount has seen better days... i did not realize how bad it was.
Already did some work on the inner wheel well as you can see in the upper right, lots of spot welds to drill out, both wheel wells will need a lot of new metal.
You can see the inner rear door area here, mostly gone, this will be a pain to recreate later on.
This is about the best photo I have of the extent of the rust that we are tackling so far, as you can see the rockers are mostly gone, as is the small flat part of the floor next to it. This was a good reason to buy a sheet metal brake, as I needed to re-create the inside rocker.
Now to start putting things back together. The driver's side is in better shape than the passenger side, so i was able to make cardboard patterns, then flip them over and use them to make parts for the other side.
Ill need to continue to cutting rust out the left on this one but focusing on the rockers and wheel wells for now. Trying to stay stockish looking here, so I re-created the panels as best I could with limited tools.
Now for the rockers, i used a break to recreate the inner rocker, yes, I realize I didn't put the indents in, this will be close enough. the dent in the front is actually a joggle that is there, if you look close on the front of yours, the way it all ties together is goofy, but its how it looks,
I put both doors back on to check the fit, these are the Wolf Steel rockers, they fit up pretty well, only minor modifications needed, the top was not quite at a 90 degree angle, I bought these 6ish years ago, about time I get to install them. Lots of work still on either end for the wheel well area and the front, where the font quarter interacts, that I will show in a later post.
Next up was the inner rear door seal area, in my previous post, it showed what was left, which was not much. I had to re-create some panels from the other side. Hard to explain how this worked, but it was a lot of cutting, welding, grinding, and repeating at least 8 times. The result looks pretty darn good I think, after some bondo and paint, no one will know, unless you read this post.
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Next up is to get the wheel wells back in, and then continue to the back of the vehicle, should be fun. If there are any questions, or feedback let me know.
Thank you,
Chris