Build thread for the 72 GMC, finally. Thanks John!

I'm gonna start eating Oatmeal again for the brain factor, and motivation. The rope clamp is a stroke of brilliance,

Thanks for the encouragement folks, I really appreciate it. Just because of it I was talking myself into something more than just the fender tonight. Troglodyte, I appreciate the nod to the rope. That come-along was perfect for squeezing the cab back in the right place before welding the rocker in.

So let's get down to business. It was warm in the garage tonight, so I grabbed some ice cream and put on some music that wouldn't play when it was icy cold.

Now I examined the fender while munching away at some vanilla with candy in it. I was not pleased with what I saw. Apparently my three-years-ago self decided to only replace a section of the fender on the back and leave the mounting for the inner fender. Not sure why. He also did a E36 M3ty welding job on the lower portion of this patch. I'll have some work to do to fix this, but not tonight.

So I put on the fender and then realized that the door bolts were impossible to reach, so I took it back off and wrestled with the door. I pried against the rocker panel and broke my spot weld. Then I had to re-spot-weld it and then re wrestle the door. UGH.

BAM

Then I attached the hood hinge. I wanted to do this even though it made very little sense. I had to dig around to find the bolts, but I did find them...

Then I found my replacement used radiator support. I didn't bolt it in, but I wanted badly to get it in there.

Is it me or is this thing starting to look like a truck again?

Tomorrow is a good line-up of the rocker/cab corner/fender/door and a good hammer/dolly/finish weld. It won't look much different, but it will be very much farther along. Good thing it probably won't take too long as tomorrow is a church night again. That means at least an hour less in the garage.

Man, it is starting to look like a truck! Congrats!

I hate my 3-years-ago-self sometimes, too. And don't evenget me started on the 15-years-ago-self, who thought Scotch Locks were a perfectly acceptable electrical connector. shudder

You're going to have to start thinking about paint color soon at this rate ;)

Well done.

Preparing to dive back into YFH which I built 8 or 9 years ago I'm wondering what sins of my former self I'm going to be cursing.

JThw8 wrote: You're going to have to start thinking about paint color soon at this rate ;) Well done. Preparing to dive back into YFH which I built 8 or 9 years ago I'm wondering what sins of my former self I'm going to be cursing.

Either the original light blue or a red on the bottom with a white top.

Glad I am helping you get back into it! You'll probably find, much like I did, that your former work was idiotic. With mine, stuff is sanded wrong, welded wrong, bolts are missing, etc...

man thats starting to really come together. Its crazy to see it now knowing that a just a few weeks ago you were thinking of walking away from it. Very glad you changed your mind!

Excellent.

sins of our former selver are harder to accept than sins of previous owners.

the first wiring harness i built was for my duster. right now im debating between fixing it, or ripping it out, spending 450+ on a new wiring kit, and starting over.

truck is looking good. dont paint it. just clear it. drive it. that way, you wont have to worry about block sanding or picking a color. bonus points if you sand it all down to bare metal with a 220 finish on a da before clearing it. that would just look really cool. especially with all the trim back on. and the paint color would be easy to match!

michael

Now THAT is a good looking truck! Good job man!

Dusterbd13 wrote: truck is looking good. dont paint it. just clear it. drive it. that way, you wont have to worry about block sanding or picking a color. bonus points if you sand it all down to bare metal with a 220 finish on a da before clearing it. that would just look really cool. especially with all the trim back on. and the paint color would be easy to match! michael

The heavy use of filler on his truck would make for a very ...eclectic... aesthetic should he follow that route.

But I do like that look on good steel.

4cylndrfury wrote:

Dusterbd13 wrote: truck is looking good. dont paint it. just clear it. drive it. that way, you wont have to worry about block sanding or picking a color. bonus points if you sand it all down to bare metal with a 220 finish on a da before clearing it. that would just look really cool. especially with all the trim back on. and the paint color would be easy to match! michael

The heavy use of filler on his truck would make for a very ...eclectic... aesthetic should he follow that route. But I do like that look on good steel.

Hey now... heavy?

Other than the leading edge of the door, which will get removed, all of the filler you see if paper thin to cover seams and such.

looking back, youre right...I was referring to what you found stuffed into the corners at the beginning.

I retract my previous statment....

4cylndrfury wrote: looking back, youre right...I was referring to what you found stuffed into the corners at the beginning. I retract my previous statment....

Whew!

I am new at this. Seriously insecure about my bodywork ability. I am glad to read that, I was worried I had done something terribly wrong.

Now then, there are spots of filler over seams, so it's still gonna look uggo if I clear over everything.

Thanks!

Don't worry, when I get "done" I'll be asking you guys tons of paint type opinion questions. Stay tuned...

Short night in the garage since I brought the two older kids to Tractor Supply to get some hardware and some water line parts for our new surprise fridge. Then I stayed out too late getting much less done than anticipated. We have a fancy new fridge that we can't afford, though:

I forgot to weld in the nuts in the interior of the rocker panel, so it had to come off. Ugh.

So tunes for tonight by Mr. Brooks:

See? No holes in the inner rocker!

Have to remove the fender to grind off the tack welds:

and some otehr stuff happened that I forgot to take pictures of. I put in nuts and bolts and welded the nuts onto the inner rocker, painted everything black and welded the rocker back on after aligning it VERY carefully with the door. It was too high before by 1/16", so it's a good thing I had to cut it off again anyway.... le sigh.

Tomorrow will likely be a non-update to gather tax return information.

Update on the sanding question I posted a bit earlier...

After my cheap-ass Ryobi 1/4 sheet sander died (or rather, I euthanized it) I had a $50 gift card burning a hole in my pocket so I went out and plunked down for a Milwaukee 1/4 sheet unit...which was 49.99 (+tax). Interestingly, the Diablo paper I had thought was "crap" works pretty well with this new sander. I can't wait to try some of the Lowes 3M paper that actually worked OK with the cheap Ryobi!

I also took tuna's advice and got a 3M foam pad. It's the same width as half a sheet of sandpaper, so you cut a full sheet in half and wrap it around the pad. Man, did that work great for all the compound curves and tight spots. 1/4 sheet sander for the big flat areas (hood, trunklid, roof, doors) and foam pad for around the lights, windows, gutters, etc.

Just a few small spots of filler left to sand out (just a skim coat around some minor dings that I found last night when I thought I was done with the filler!) and then it'll be ready for primer.

Out of curiosity, about how much filler would you say is acceptable for general skim-coat and minor surface imperfection repair on a compact (~14') 4 door sedan? I ended up using about 1.5 quarts. (I've also burned through almost a gallon of mineral spirits keeping everything clean and grease-free, and for general tool cleanup)

I took a simple cut off piece of 2x4...maybe 8" long, and cut a green scotch brite pad down to fit on one side, and glued it onto the 2x4. I took a half sheet of sandpaper, and wrapped it around the pad so the ends were on the opposite side, and used some steel strapping and wood screws to make simple clamps that hold the ends down, securing the sandpaper tightly to the block. Voila, a simple sanding block with juuust a hint of flex in the sanding face that wraps around corners, but also can cover large flat surfaces evenly.

Taxes are mostly handled

$13K from job #2 = $4500 in taxes. Nice.

Taxes suck. Having to re-do a job sucks. Getting the last 1/16th of an inch right = priceless.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Out of curiosity, about how much filler would you say is acceptable for general skim-coat and minor surface imperfection repair on a compact (~14') 4 door sedan? I ended up using about 1.5 quarts.

Hard to judge by what is used because you sand a great deal of it back off. The general rule of thumb is ideally it will be no more than 1/4 inch thick in any spot with 1/8 inch greatly preferred. Even 1/4 is really pushing it on thickness if you want longevity, better to spend a little more time getting the metal straight.

4cylndrfury wrote: I took a simple cut off piece of 2x4...maybe 8" long, and cut a green scotch brite pad down to fit on one side, and glued it onto the 2x4. I took a half sheet of sandpaper, and wrapped it around the pad so the ends were on the opposite side, and used some steel strapping and wood screws to make simple clamps that hold the ends down, securing the sandpaper tightly to the block. Voila, a simple sanding block with juuust a hint of flex in the sanding face that wraps around corners, but also can cover large flat surfaces evenly.

I'd appreciate a photo or two of this if/when you get a chance. I'm having a hard time visualizing the clamping scheme. Sounds useful!

And Tuna55...man...this is looking good!

Thanks,
Clem

JThw8 wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Out of curiosity, about how much filler would you say is acceptable for general skim-coat and minor surface imperfection repair on a compact (~14') 4 door sedan? I ended up using about 1.5 quarts.

Hard to judge by what is used because you sand a great deal of it back off. The general rule of thumb is ideally it will be no more than 1/4 inch thick in any spot with 1/8 inch greatly preferred. Even 1/4 is really pushing it on thickness if you want longevity, better to spend a little more time getting the metal straight.

True, patch panels are better than bondo logs.

I did get out there tonight, but briefly. I wanted to make the cab corner patch match the cab better. Take a look. Tools:

The problem

looks fine, right?

but, looking at a different angle

but it's okay on the back plane

but now it's better

it's WAY out of focus, but you can see how the weld bead was cut in half tonight and that the bottom piece is shifted about 1/8" over to the right.

Then I attacked the front edge with the hammer/dolly and I got to this point:

That'll work.

I'll finish weld it up tomorrow and grind it all flat.

Not going out there tonight. It's right at freezing and I feel dizzy and weird. I'll post up something I forgot to last night. I had to put a vertical cut in the cab corner to make it fit properly, and I never showed it. Here it is.

Tunakid #1 (4 years) and #2 (3 years) were out in the yard on this 40 degree, 20 mph wind day to build a new garden box. When I got back in at dinnertime, the roast I had made at lunch was done, and so was the tired and sick wife.

Once I got all of the kids to bed, I only had enough energy for about an hour. No real pics.

I did a lot more welding. Nothing more is stuck on the truck yet, but the stuff stuck to the truck is stuck better. I was under it, trying to stitch weld the inner rocker to the outer rocker, and my head was having a lot of trouble holding the welding helmet up sideways, so I decided to call it a night.

We'll do some more tomorrow.

ClemSparks wrote:

4cylndrfury wrote: I took a simple cut off piece of 2x4...maybe 8" long, and cut a green scotch brite pad down to fit on one side, and glued it onto the 2x4. I took a half sheet of sandpaper, and wrapped it around the pad so the ends were on the opposite side, and used some steel strapping and wood screws to make simple clamps that hold the ends down, securing the sandpaper tightly to the block. Voila, a simple sanding block with juuust a hint of flex in the sanding face that wraps around corners, but also can cover large flat surfaces evenly.

I'd appreciate a photo or two of this if/when you get a chance. I'm having a hard time visualizing the clamping scheme. Sounds useful! And Tuna55...man...this is looking good! Thanks, Clem

sorry, I dont have any pics off hand, but here is a pretty clear sketch...

tan block is the 2x4, the green layer is the scotchbrite pad. Opposite the pad are 2 bits of steel strapping held down with drywall screws:

you could use any flat pieces of steel, but I happened to have some offcuts of that strapping laying around

paper wraps up and around the block, and the straps are screwed down to hold it on. the straps are placed so that a sheet of sandpaper cut in half lengthwise wraps around it and is clamped down with no additional trimming...

edit:
Glad you were able to get that patch alignment settled...it always seems that its little things that you say youll get to later, and for whatever reason, you dont, that always get under your skin later when its too late to get back to it.