Absolutely beautiful work. Wish I had that sort of talent. I generally just cut up other bodies for repair parts.

Thank you for the comments. I am pleased with how it is looking. The bed panel was the cats meow. I'll post more pictures when I can. I started uncovering my 69 1414x next to this 1970. I am starting to get reinterested in the old girl. It has been down for 8+ years now. I know no excuses.:p

Stay tuned...

:eek: NICE METAL WORK!!!!!!!! TUNING IN :thumbsup:

Nice work, glad I found this post. I welded in my first ever body panel yesterday. Welds were pretty ugly, nothing the grinder took care of that. I didnt burn any holes so Im happy. Nice to see what its supposed to look like. Any chance you could make up a few extra of those pieces for under the rear tail lamps?? If you do I'll take 2.

Wow that is insanely cool... can you do my 86 when it finally rusts away? :D Subscribing to this thread...

If you knew how long that tiny little piece took. :D I probably put it back 150 times fitting it up. And the cursing...;)
I can honestly say I hope I don't have to make some for my personal rig. There was more than a day involved.
I used a few different post dolly's. But the only special tool I needed was a shrinker stretcher unit. Harbor freight sells them. But I would recommend a Lancaster.

I have been pretty busy. I lost a couple family members a month apart at the start of this year. It's been a hand full trying to liquidate a home and carry on a life as it was. I am lucky to have a very understanding owner.

I spent some time terminating the stampings back into the floor. I ended up grafting in some special shaped stampings from a couple of scraps. It took some time but looked a bit better when set in place.



Now to fill all the gaps and make it flat.















I need to use the hat channel under the floor to duplicate the completely rusted one under the rear seat well. It will be a bit before I can secure the floor in. I'll keep posting when I have something to show.

Got a few more things done. I have finished the GMC bed patch panel. The rest of the body is sagging and the tops of the shocks are hitting the new floor. I will set the body on new metal and mounts and that should do it.

Talk about using a bunch of filler rod.












Using 303 protectant long term to rehydrate the rubber filler necks. A buddy of mine treated several dried M715 gaskets and brought them back to near new soft condition. We are talking about months of near daily sprays. It's an amazing product.




I have moved to the front floor pans. I'll try to get some more up soon.

I would just about give a limb to acquire the skill (and time) to do that level of sheet metal fab/repair/weld/etc... looking fantastic!

Incredible work bud and incredible skills!:thumbsup:

:eek: WOW!! that is amazing work

Wow, this looks like heaps of fun. Very impressive. :thumbsup: I wish I had the time/skill/space/tools to do metal work like this.

Interesting that you use the jig saw here - I too have used the jig saw to cut out panels and found it a very effective method.

Keep it coming! I'm subscribed :fsj:

Geez, you guys are gonna give me a big head.:D I am seriously new to this. I got some cool training at a extreme high end shop, but the work went away with the economy. I was bummed and would have worked for free if I could.
I figure it's only metal right? It can be moved.:)

And yes the skil saw works great for sheet metal.

Thanks for the words. There is something to be said about following your bliss. Unseen doors will open. And they have.

Thank you.

I hate to be a broken record here, but wow...that is some outstanding metal work there!

You can never have too many Vise-grips and C-clamps. They just make life more easy. Looks great man!

And I need more visegrips!:D

I got a little more done. The floor was toast. A good reason for carpet instead of the original rubber or vinyl mat. Fortunately the hat channels and the rocker were excellent. I needed a new toe piece in front of the patch panel.
And new floor between the patch panels.:)









Everything is rough cut. Lots of fitting left.



More to follow.

I've been collecting links to rust repair projects for a while. This thread was added. Here are a couple that you guys might like:

http://spi.forumup.org/viewtopic.php?t=1939&mforum=spi

http://www.autobody101.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8047

Good attitude. I'd work for a metal masher for free to learn. I'm no mechanic by any means but due to the enviroment outside the house I grew up with the wrench in hand rather than a hammer. Looking back it's odd cause my old man was a tool-n-die maker by trade and one year the shop he worked for was contracted to build an Indy race car body. Old man made the model and hammer formed the entire body for a 60 something Indy car. Made me take notice of how much skill/eye is required to do nice work rather than just standard bang it, weld it, grind it, paint it, cash the check.
If you ever go commercial and can provide tent or bag space email me I'd give you some serious time mucking the shop, cleaning heads or whatever to learn from you.

Nice work sir!

Well here is some more. I started on the rear seat surround after finishing the front passenger floor pan. I was going to build forward and join with the new panel. Then I found a X model wagoneer in the desert here in southern OR. The floors in it are ten times better than this one. The rest of it is way to rusty to deal with. I will be cut and pasting big parts in now. I won't have to hand make each piece. The rig is 5 hours away and my tow rig is down. So time to sweet talk a friend who has been known to volunteer for a jeep recovery or two in the past. I did score the whole interior of the X model for spares for me. Sweet!

The brittle gas filler necks are starting to soften from the daily sprays of 303 protectant. Looks like they will be able to be saved.

When I get the cab here I will post up more. Grafting in factory components is the best way to go here. Stay tuned...


My pictures won't load.:mad:

Thanks Joe. I am trying to move to a bigger shop, smaller home. I would expand if it happened. I also want to go back to school on this stuff.
Or afford the wheel and bigger tools and learn by trying hands on.
I was working on a 150K copy of the graffitti coupe for a while at a great job a couple years ago. Now that was intimidating. Every move watched by the owner in Tacoma via camera along with all day updates. Rivit's in the frame would get moved 2 inches to be correct. Nutso.

I like the old waggie sitting here. Low key and she is going to be a cream puff with SS hubcaps in the end.
Cheers!