Starting the Cab

A lot of play. The bottom hinge is similar.

I have finally started on repairing rust in the cab, and there's a lot of it.

A week ago Thursday I removed the drivers side door, removing the hinge bolts from the door, and then setting it out of the way. I held the door up with a block of wood and a jack during this process. Once the door was off, I confirmed my suspicion that the hinges had a lot pf play in them.  Thanks to some shiny new pins and bushings, I'll be able to take care of that!

Front/rear hinge adjustment.

Inside the door pillar there is a movable plate, which is free to slide back and forth. This is what the hinge bolts to (each hinge has its own plate), allowing for forward/rearward adjustment of the door. Upward/downward adjustment is made possible by the vertically slotted bolt holes in the hinge itself. On this door, the top plate is free to move (shown at right), but the bottom was welded in place during some previous owner's repair.

I removed the top hinge and proceeded to drive out the hinge pin, which was a challenge. No matter which way I clamped it in the vise, either the head of the pin was resting on something, or the whole hinge would just rotate in the vise when hammered. I ended up driving it out on the anvil of the vise, a process that really required three hands (one each for the hinge, punch, and hammer). For the bottom hinge, I'm going to try a different approach- I'm going to bolt it upside-down back on the truck. I'm also going to try beveling the end of the pin, so in case it gets mushroomed by a misdirected blow, it will still fit through the hole. But first I'm soaking the hinge in PB Blaster for a few days. Can't hurt.

Which brings us neatly to this past week's efforts. I removed the bottom hinge and removed the previously mentioned repair by cutting the added patch off. Then I could get a feel for the condition of the door pillar. I decided to try to remove the rocker panel to see if I could work out where one of my patch panels go, and it just went from there.





The only other effort I have to report is some sanding down through old paint layers. I really just wanted to see how much paint is on this thing. It turns out that the drivers door is not original (what a shocker), because it doesn't have any of the factory green paint.

The door's got black factory primer, brown, orange, grey primer, white (color at time of putchase), and blue.














The cab's got some factory primer (which I didn't bother to sand down to), factory light green, orange, grey primer, white, and blue. There's a lot less paint here than was on those '68 rear fenders that were on the truck before. (One of them still is, I guess.)










From here, I plan to do some repairs to the door pillar so I can re-hang the door. Then I can fit the other patch panels (floor panels, rocker panels, latch pillar, cab corner, etc) around the door, so it operates correctly. It would be pretty frustrating if the door didn't close.

Bigger picture, I'm keeping the truck in the garage until the back fence is built (should be done by next weekend) and I get the garage cleaned out and new cabinets installed (maybe a months project). Then the truck will have to be evicted to the driveway with plastic over it so I can do some much needed repairs to my daily driver. I hate to do it, but I need my car. Hopefully the repairs won't take more than a week- I'm going to hold off on a full restoration until after the truck is done. So maybe never.

Patch Panel Update

 I hope all of you had an excellent Christmas and New Year. Things have been pretty busy around here, so as you know, working on the truck takes a back burner. I was able to put in a little work in the past week, however:




Some of you have expressed concern that I was patching up my fender with old, rusted metal. I agree that this might be counterproductive, and have therefore removed the rust. I ground it off with the wire cup wheel attachment for the angle grinder, then treated it with an acetic acid solution to convert what remained (that's a 4:1 mix of water and white vinegar). The panel was then primed with the acid etch primer and painted with just a cheap spray paint to protect the primer. The cheap paint will be sanded off later when the welding and stuff is done.

For Christmas, I received a pair of footwells and the pillar posts for the drivers side. This gives me enough patch panels to repair the entire floor! Well, except the floor supports underneath, which I'll assess later and pick up more or less locally.

Here I have assembled all of the panels I have for the drivers side floor.

I also now have the factory assembly manual for the truck. I have been able to gain a little insight of how the truck fits together, but not really as much as I'd hoped. It seems that documentation of that sort was pretty sketchy at that point in history for our automakers. Sometimes changes would be made and not documented. Sometimes documents were included but not the documents that were referenced. What gave me the most trouble was that you can't always tell exactly what truck you're looking at, as the title of the drawing doesn't always say. So let this be a cautionary tale- yes the factory manual does contain some good info, but if you're looking for a guide for every nut, bolt, and weld, this may not be what you think it is.

In the tool department, I've now got a bigger engine stand, several more C-clamps, a set of welding butt clamps, welding magnets, and some wheel pullers. (Not all of these were Christmas gifts, mind you- I'm not that well liked.)

To my family and extended family that helped me out by buying me the patch panels, the manual, and the tools, I'd like to once again give a special thank you. You help make all this possible.