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Mint Chip - Floors, Front Cab Mounts, Inner and Outer Rockers
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I know you guys have all been waiting to here about the progress and see the photos so here are a few. All has gone pretty much as expected except the first which is an obvious, more rust, the A-pillar was rusted behind the dog leg and some rust on the tranny tunnel and my goof on Saturday which was me grinding through my brake line... OK have some fun with that Mitch, Ted, Lance, and who ever else. At least I didn't JB weld it. It took me a while to find out that you can't get a 3/16 tube with the correct fitting on the end so we just re-used the old fitting and flaring the tube. Much thanks to Ted, Lance, and Mark for the help on this project. We have spent about 3 days and a total of about 18 hours working to get as far as we did and were stinking close to have the drivers side done, should be done this week! The darn brake line probably stole a good 2.5 hours tracking down parts and getting the flaring tool to work. Well more to come! 
So, one thing to point out is how poor the patch panels have fit. The only parts that that has been close to correct has been the floors and front cab mount, but not really. Nothing has had the correct angle or size. Just something to realize is that it may be easier to make your own based upon the cost and time associated with making them fit and welding in extra metal in spots. One of the pictures shows the difference in angles of the wedge piece, this must have been a bad day for the sheet metal guy. I know there is probably a lot of variation in bodies, but not this much! I'll stop complaining. We used, well Lance used, a 220 wire feed MIG and a plasma cutter. Thanks again to Ted and Lance and Mark, you guys are the bomb! 
Here's an update. Lance and I were at Ted's shop until almost midnight last night. We got about 90% of the driverside done. I need to drill holes for the seat base, seat belt, a bit more welding, put in the patch panel on the fender, and grinding. Ted's the man, he epoxy primed the patch panels for me over the weekend. I owe you Ted!!! Some more complaining. The floors didn't fit either and the outer rocker didn't fit well (see pic). We used a jack to push the floors down before we welded them. I swear someone could make some serious money making something that fit. 
I've been making progress. I drilled all of the holes for the seats, welded on a plate for the seat belt and drilled the hole. Did some more grinding. I hung the fender and door and then took it off again, wanted to make sure everything lined up. This past weekend I battled the thunder storms, but I did sand blast the inner fenders and POR-15 and primed everything. I repaired my seat bases and also sand blasted and painted them, too. So I am making some progress. I figured since I wasn't in a huge hurry to do the passenger side I'm going to replace the inner fender on the drivers side since everything is apart.I'd say next week take apart the front clip, paint and reassemble the week after and get it out of Ted's shop for a few weeks before Lance can get back up here to help me finish. Hopefully everything will go faster on the passanger side. I also have the dog bones too! Thanks Dan! Well, I finally started working on the good ole' mint chip. Today's goals were to get the passenger side of the truck prep'ed for surgery, which entailed removing the fender and door, unbolting the body and removing the bushings, removing the gas line and vapor line, and moving the wire from the fuel sender unit out of harms way. All was actually achieved, couldn't believe it! Even got the replacement inner fender ready to go. Thanks to Ted for letting me squat at his shop!! Ted already shot the patch panels with epoxy primer so those are ready to be installed. I'm heading down to my old job in Anderson, SC to borrow a plasma gun so Lance and I can make quick work of getting the cancerous metal out this weekend. I'm going to get the inner and outer rockers and floor done this weekend. I know far fetched, but it needs to get done this weekend, big time! I can save putting in the new dog legs, fender patches, inner fender, and what ever else to a later date. I'll definitely need to scab in some metal in random spots and hit a few areas with POR-15 as expected. See the images below.. Check out how much stuff was behind the front fender, no wonder it rusts. On trucks without A/C you can easily get into this area by taking the foot vent outs, but damn, there was even a cockroach in there! 
Body Bushings Out 
Scabbing and POR15 area..Man, I hate those vinyl mats; they were so good at trapping moisture! 
Freshly painted inner fender, thanks Nate!! 
Thanks for the support Mark, your tall boy definitely added a lot Well, thanks to Lance and Ted for their help this weekend We managed to get the whole passenger side done, including new floor, floor supports, wedge, body mount, inner rocker and a few other random areas. This side of truck was bad in some interesting areas, such as right in front of the rear wheel, but the inner and outer rocker weren't all that bad so I decided to keep the outer rocker but replace the top of it with fresh metal. A few things left to do are drill some holes for the seat and seat belt and then remove and reinstall the front inner fender, outer fender, gas lines, and door... I'm sure there more, buts thats all I can think of.. The trucked prepped for the plasma gun, let me tell you, this is what made the weekend go so fast. Lance did 99% of the plasma cutting, but thats me, guess Lance shot that when I wasn't looking. 
Well, today I managed to get a few holes drilled for the seat belt and seat bases and started cutting a bit more cancer out. I hope to fab up a few pieces tomorrow so they can be welded in.. Next will be in the inner fender.. Pictures to follow tomorrow! No pictures yet, I know, I'm a slacker, but I'm waiting until I make some signifacant advances. I worked yesterday finishing patch panels and grinding away some rust in the areas I'm about to weld to. Next up will be a little bit of welding and then a coat of POR15. Then once the paints dry all the patch panels will be welded in. After that remove and reinstall my new front inner fender and I'll be ready to reassemble. My next decision is to what I should do about the A/C. To get the front inner fender off I need to crack the coolant lines. Right now it works great but has R-12 refrigerant. So do I convert to R-134? I may just convert to R-134, but I need to weigh my options. R-12 is harder to find and more expensive to fill, but R-134 requires a conversion kit and from what I've been told supposedly was thought to cause leaks do to smaller molecular structure, which may be crap. What you guys think? Still no pictures Hopefully this weekend. I welded up the rusted rockers last night, took me a while to weld and blend, but they look good as new. Fit the fender patches as well and POR-15ed everything I could find. I think I'm going to go R-134A on the A/C but at a later date. I'm just going to crack the system so I can install the new inner fender, then reassemble. My plan is to have it out of Ted's shop hopefully by next weekend, and at the latest, the week before Christmas. Well I forgot my camera last night, but today I remembered. Last night I got about 75% done with welding in the scab metal. Did the whole passenger side. Just need to weld in two pieces on the drivers side. The fender patch and the area in the corner by the rear ledge. All is looking good so far for the most part. Hope to have the welding done today and part of the inner fender unbolted. That leaves me to basic reassembling plus new gas line. Hope to have her out this weekend! Well I took some pictures, but the last three nights I've worked on my truck from 4:30-9pm, which doesn't leave me anytime to upload the photos so they're going to have to wait. Last night I put the front and rear dog legs, fender patch, and patch panel on the inside behind the fender patch on the driver side. Since my rockers didn't line up perfectly I had to manipulate the reproduction dog legs a bit to get them to work, but when all was said and done she looks great. All in all, the welding is done, but I'm sure there will be little things left to do. Today after work I'm going to crack the A/C system and remove the inner fender and hopefully start putting the new one back on. That will leave me putting the door and fender back on and then putting in a new gas line. Thats where I'm at... Well last night I removed the inner fender, which was absolutely toast. Cracking the A/C took me a few minutes (well more like 30) to figure out the best way to do it. I removed one line from the dryer and the other line from the compressor. That was the easiest. The ones on the condensor wouldn't even budge. Getting off the passenger inner fender turned out to be tougher than the drivers side plus I had a suprise (well not really). I had to take off the heater box which was a total PITA. You have to unbolt it from the fire wall, unhook the control cable, unbolt if from the fender and than wiggle like crazy to break the sealant. Well it finally came loose, and it was rusted like crazy. Sweet, what a nice suprise. I started to repair it, but I decided I'm just going to find a a good used one. So now I'm on the search for one of those. The good thing is that it can be replaced at a later date no problem. The fender is off and today I'm hoping to get the new one back on and the outer fender. So here's a question. On the heater box there is three electrical connectors that connect to the box that have a small coil on the inside. For the life of me I can't figure out what its used for. Its not like it has climate control or anything like that. Anybody have a clue whats thats for? Well amazingly enough I hit my goals for the week. I put the inner fender on, outer fender, grill and all other related stuff on the inner fender. Saturday I'm going to put on the door, hood and new gas lines and she's done... For now I need to take a little break and get a few small things painted and installed. The next thing I want to do is get the interior squared away before I take on the huge task of painting. Here are the pictures I've been putting off uploading.. This is an image of the dog leg that I welded. Came out pretty well other than the lip, but that will be covered by the door gasket 
This image shows my patched corner. I've since ground down the welds in the corner. I'm planning on lining the floors so this will all look pretty covered 
Front dog leg repaired 
Front inner area 
Passenger side Patch 
Driver side front dog leg. This is the reproduction part I got. It was a nice part except the outer rocker wasn't bent well so had to improvise to make it fit well 
Rear driver side dog leg 
Rear inner, driver side. 
Driver side fender patch 
Here are a few more of the fender... Fender bye-bye, total PITA to get it off with the A/C and a stuck heater box 
New fender, thanks Nate!! 
You can see how the A/C lines pass throught the fender. 
Back together! 
Thats about 16 hours this week trying to get her out of Ted's shop before Christmas vacation. Thanks Ted for everything!! Well the weekend was good. I got everything done on schedule. I put the hood and door back on, which wasn't a problem at all. Put in the new gas lines and started her up. I actually had to slot the fan shroud since the new body bushings pushed the fan shroud higher than before. Ted hooked me up by doing a little bondo work for me on the quarter patches. I feel like John Godfrey, because Ted and I went to Harbor Freight and picked up one of these. 
There was a small dent in the fender which may have been there before I started, but I think the welding caused the fender to bend a little bit. With a little help of this and Ted's magic this is what the fenders looked like. Ted even shot it with a little epoxy primer. 
Didn't shoot any pictures after the paint though. Well the Mint Chip is sitting in my backyard with a tarp over her taking a little rest. Or is that me! Next is painting. Should take me a while to take the stripes off and prep her but I'm pumped to her her shot with some fresh paint. I think I'm going to buy some vinyl stripes. Not 100% sure yet. Got a pretty good deal on the stud welder I got, definitely not $5. I couldn't figure out what the difference was between this one and the higher model, this one has higher output.. She worked well though! I hope to do all the prep work myself for the most part and if Ted is gracious enough to shoot it thats what I'll do. Its going to take a fair bit of prep work, but it'll be worth it in the end. I'm going to do the top next, and then the windshield frame, fenders, and rear fenders (I think I'm going to need to patch a few area's where I know there is bondo). Taking the stripes off will be the biggest party. Kelly said she'll help, but I'll see how long that'll last. So I decided my next effort will be putting the interior back together. This way I can clean up my guest bedroom a bit and get all the interior stuff out of there. My dilemma is how do seal the floors. I have decided I'm going to put a carpet kit in the front and reuse the vinyl mat in the rear since it is still in very good condition and want to keep it fairly orginal. I'm going to clean up the floor quite a bit, but I'm not sure if I should just POR-15 or rustoleum it, and then use truck bed liner over that for sound deadening. I like how POR-15 is hard and seals the metal really really well, but I'm not sure how well the truck bed stuff will lay over it. Some of the areas of the bed have fresh epoxy paint on them as you've probably seen in the pictures, other still have the original paint and rust. I think I'm going to POR-15 most of the bed and either do a durabak or commericial spray in bedliner. Prepping for the spray in is a little more timely, but quality is higher. I also have to decide if I'm going to do the inside of the tailgate and the inner fenders. I'm leaning towards tailgate floors, kickpanels, and firewall. Well I finally have my pictures uploaded. I ended up going with wire wheeling the floor (thanks Ted for letting me use that monster ) and then used POR-15 to coat the floor. I did two coats and it came out mighty nice, but I forgot to take pictures after that step. I purchased 60ft^2 of eDead sound deadener on eBay and even had a bit left over to do the hard top once its painted. I read some real good reports on the stuff and I have no complaints. It went on very easy and will definitely make a hell of a difference. I purchased a carpet kit just for the front and am reusing the original vinyl mat in the rear. I started to install the front carpet kit, but realized that I needed to paint the transmission tunnel cover plate. So now she's waiting until I get some more time. Hopefully during the week this week or next I can start reinstalling the seats. 
Well last night I put in my driver seat and seat belts, kick panel vent, e-brake assembly, kick panel cover, and center console and took her for a ride! So quiet!! I also ordered 45' of door seals from McMaster-Carr as suggested on the BB.. Its was $1.65 a foot and was enough for the doors and rear hatch, cost about $80 shipped. That will really quite things a good bit. Its amazing how nice she is now! Pictures to follow in the near future. Next is rear seat and seat belts, then A/C and possibly a water pump. The fan has been hitting the fan shroud ever since I put the truck back together. I notched the fan shroud a bit which stopped it, so I thought at the time, but it continued to rub when I turned left. While searching for a solution I realized that the left side engine mount was shot from what appears to be oil contamination. Needless to say I ordered a set of RPT mounts from IHOnly North and a tranny mount to swap in hopefully this weekend. I also found a shop to work on the tranny to swap out the front seal. I need to work on diagnosing it one more time to make sure thats the culrpit, but I did find a good shop to work on it. I also put in the door gaskets. It makes such a difference! |