Time to fix up the truck.

[Flyinfool]

The cleaning and rust work is done and painted. The new wheel well is also done and painted. I just need to punch the 5/16 holes for the spot welds into the wheel well. Once I punch the holes I will sand off the paint around the holes and on the truck box and then repaint those spots with with a copper based weld through paint. Wes some of the paint will burn off around the weld but there will as little unpainted metal as possible. I also plan to lay a small bead of seam sealer onto the mating surfaces to try to keep water and air from ever getting to the welds. Once the well is all welded in and the sealer dried I will then put more paint over everything everywhere I can get to it.

The Rust bullet is a 2 part system, First coat is silver in color, and second coat is gloss black (comes in other colors to) I did not get a pic of the wheel well in the silver coat, just the black final coat. I measured the thickness and I am right on the recommended 6 mils for each coat. Since this will all be internal I did not bother setting up to spray it, it is all brushed on and no one will ever see the brush strokes when it is done unless they crawl under and stick their head up inside the space between the box and the fender.

I actually painted the truck last weekend so it is fully cured. The wheel well I just finished today and it is setting up pretty slow due to it being pretty cold out (Still above the recommended min temp of 40°F for the coatings) so it is drying slow. I am hoping it is dry enough for me to pick up and carry into the basement so that it will be dry enough to weld in tomorrow. The weather is calling for scattered showers possible and I will not play with the welder in the rain. Just 9 plug welds total hold that wheel well to the box and 10 more to the outer fender for now, There will be 7 more plug welds between the well and the fender patch panel when that goes in plus the joint between the patch and the fender will be a fully welded seam with hundreds of tiny tack welds.

First silver coat.


Second Black coat. Not pretty but once all the new parts are welded in no one will ever see it.



Next 2 views are the new wheel well all painted ready to go in.

 

[Flyinfool]

Well I am done for this year. the weather will not be suitable to finish until next spring.

I got the inner wheel well welded in and fully "rust proofed" with seam sealer on all seams and a final coat of paint.



I put on a temporary patch of 4 inch wide Gorilla Tape and a spritz of red Rustolium just to keep the snow and crud out over the winter.
From a distance it does not look to bad, Even up close it looks better than the rust holes.

 

[Flyinfool]

Its a bit late but the weather has finally started to cooperate a bit.
Last weekend was the first weekend with no rain since March. Record rain so far this year.
I have started tearing into the tail light area. Pics coming soon.

 

[Flyinfool]

This is the beginning of the tail light area repair. It was very rusted out and took a lot to figure out how to rebuild it.

These 2 pics are of the rusted out area. You can see how much is totally gone. what is there a lot of it is paper thin.




This is after I have cut away all of the totally unusable "metal"

 

[Flyinfool]

Now to reassemble.

I thought I took more progress pics but sometimes I forget about the camera when I am on a roll.

This is the first piece of metal welded in. It is a Z bend part that covers the missing wall that is behind the part with the 3 big holes in it. ( those 3 big holes are supposed to be there, they are clearance for the bulb sockets on the back of the tail light).



This is with the second piece of metal welded in to cover the missing parts of the piece with the 3 big holes and also tie into the first piece that went in. Everything is also painted with the rust prevention system. The copper colored stuff is a weld through primer in the area that will be getting welded. The black is the rust preventer.



This does not look like much but it is 2 weeks of work all weekends and evenings.

Next will be to weld in the big patch over the wheel well. It is all cut out and the patch is cut to size. The cutting came out really good, most of the seam is well under .010 gap. with the worst spot, about an inch long that drifted open to around .030. Still should be no issue welding.

 

[Flyinfool]

Over the weekend I some more progress. I did use some new tricks this time. I used a bunch of rare earth magnet to hold the 2 panels even while I was getting it tacked in. Worked great. I also did the same trick as I used on the other side where I used a big flat blade screwdriver to press in on the joint while welding so that the joint would be slightly depressed along the entire length. This let me only have to grind the weld to where it is still sticking up by 1/16 to 1/32 above the surface so that I am not grinding off almost the whole weld, yet it is still slightly below where the painted surface will be.


Here is where I started with all the rust removed and the complete inner wheel well replaced earlier in this thread.



5 hours of making hundreds of little tack welds and it looks like this.



A closer looks at the welds.



Managed to get the first layer of filler on over the bare metal of the welds to protect them. Just was able to beat the rain. I did not sand the filler at all so that it would still have a skin to help resist the rain. I also got the interior of the weld all finish painted that was a PITA trying to squeeze my fat old body up into the fender to get up above the wheel well. Just not a lot of room in there.



There is rain in the horrorcast for every day in the next week. So this may have to wait for a while before I continue.

 

[Flyinfool]

Well I have been doing a lot of filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and and and and..........

Of course it looks no different with each iteration of filling and sanding so I have not been posting pics.

If I had any artistic talent it would have been done a long time ago, It seems that I apply filler, then sand and check, still to high and sand and check and repeat until it is to low. Repeat process of fill and sand. At least with each iteration it is getting closer to being straight. I am close enough now to be using guide coats to find the high and low spots. as I can neither see or feel the regularities on the multi colored surface. I will get to a point where I just say close enough and live with the result. The other side is not perfect but then I really do not know what I am doing, from 5 feet away it looks good.

Now the issue is that the city has removed the alley and the street in front of the house, so I can not even get my truck onto my property to be able to work on it. Even if I did everything is a major dust bowel.

 

[Flyinfool]

Still filling and sanding. But at least I am now down to high build primer and guide coats. I think it is just about ready for paint.
I am hoping that this is the final coat of primer, with guide coat applied. It just got to hot out there for me to do anymore sanding. My heart said real clearly "YOU ARE DONE FOR TODAY". This coat will get to dry real good for about a week before I can get to sanding it. I am down to sanding with 320 grit. Once this is all done I will scuff sand the entire panel with 400, Spray the red with no masking to let it feather out for best possible color match, and then clear the whole panel. Still debating if I should lift the the topper and the black bed rail covers to clear coat under them or just mask and call it close enough. The dealer claims the topper is almost 600 lbs of fiberglass. I will also be priming and making red the repaired tail light areas and the entire inner wheel well. Those areas do not need any cosmetic work they are good as is, just need the color and clear for protection and to not look out of place. The factory painted the wheel wells red so the other side is red.

 

[Flyinfool]

Well I am don filling and sanding and filling and sanding................ then priming and sanding and priming and sanding.........
I just finished scuff sanding the rest of the panel , I also scuff sanded the whole other side of the box and I will clear them both at the same time.

Now to find a day with little to no wind and the wind has to be somewhat out of the east so that my over spray goes out in a field and not on the neighbors car.

 

[Flyinfool]

This weekend will be it. Planning to spray the red and clear this weekend. Weather looks perfect.