Curious how I made out? Read on. But before you do, please note that significant rust, amateur welds and copious grinding exist herein.<\/p>\n
Fabricators discretion is advised.<\/p>\n
Before getting out the cutting discs, I took a trip to Bill’s Truck Shop<\/a> in Courtice Ontario. Bill is two exits up the highway from my house and trips to the shop became quite frequent during the summer.<\/p>\n Pictured above are the panels I originally thought I needed. In reality I needed all of the above along with a cab support, lower hinge pocket, inner fender and outer cowl.<\/p>\n Thinking ahead I’ve bought the same for the driver’s side because there’s little worse than running out of material mid job.<\/p>\n As a starting point I chose the bottom of the hinge pocket on the passenger side. The metal in that area was pretty thick which meant I’d have a hard time blowing through while I learned the intricisices of patching panels.<\/p>\n There were also plenty of body lines to aid in panel line up.<\/p>\n A grinding wheel made short work of the affected area, though the tight quarters made it a little hard to cut cleanly.<\/p>\n An air powered cut off wheel, with a small disc attached would have worked better. Unfortunately my current compressor is far to small to run air tools for any length of time.<\/p>\n This is an issue I hope to resolve in the near future, but for now a grinder does the trick. I even used my Dremel a few times, equipped with the quick cut, thicker, discs.<\/p>\n Lower hinge pocket tossed in the scrap pile I continued into the cowl. As I worked I made mental note of how bad the floor, kick panel and inner fender were and tried not to get discouraged.<\/p>\n While I was in the area I cut out the lower outer cowl as well. Compared to the new panel you can see just how much was missing.<\/p>\n I’ve since learned this area is known for poor drainage and nearly all Advanced Design trucks are rotted out here. The driver’s side shows similar damage though not quite as significant.<\/p>\n I masked up the new piece, traced what I could, and transferred it to the new panel. I did the same with the lower hinge pocket.<\/p>\n A bit finessing, and I manged to get both pieces in reasonably well.<\/p>\n In the photo above you’ve probably noticed a multitude of sins but one stands out; the double weld line.<\/p>\n I made the mistake of being too conservative with my cuts resulting in not enough solid metal to weld to. I’d love to say that was the only time this happened.<\/p>\n For this panel I tried connecting small tacks instead of running beads. It looked horror show before the grinder came out, but cleaned up reasonably well.<\/p>\n Later I adopted a half-inch pass method alternating from spot to spot while using an air blower to cool the panel down.<\/p>\n I preferred the later method because it was easier to get into a groove.<\/p>\n Gassed up on my success I turned my attention to the bulk of the metal repair for the passenger side. The toe board and floor area.<\/p>\n This area had been patched before and I knew some manner of tragedy lay beneath, but I was a little taken aback by just how bad things had become.<\/p>\n If you look at the work above (this photo is after I removed a kick patch) you can see that the patch panel was little more than scabbed into place.<\/p>\n Considering what was left underneath I’m surprised the cab didn’t collapse or buckle inter its own weight.<\/p>\n I cut all of it back leaving as much good metal as possible, even if it made the cuts a little unorthodox.<\/p>\n Cancer removed the rest of the floor looked good save for the fact I could see right through the cab support. Crap.<\/p>\n Another run to Bill’s later and I had a new cab support. I think took the OEM one out only to have some of the rocker come with it.<\/p>\n Bamboozled again.<\/p>\n This happened early in a garage session on a Saturday night before a fairly busy week.<\/p>\n Not wanting to give up I rummaged through my cut offs hoping to find something suitable for a patch.<\/p>\n In a rare stroke of luck the previous floor patches were surprisingly thick gauge. Slightly overkill for the floor but perfect for a new rocker, and part of a floor support.<\/p>\n Satisfied with the way everything was fitting up, I saved final welding for later that same week, before hitting the new panels with some primer and the armatures best friend, Rocker Guard.<\/p>\n With not a lot of space to work on my back it was penetration before beauty got this work.<\/p>\n The next step was to mark the replacement floor panel. As mentioned I chose to retain as much factory metal as possible. Particularly I wanted to retain as many corners of the battery cover as possible as the oem cover didn’t fit the new floor.<\/p>\n As good as replacement panels might be, nothing fits quite like the factory metal. If it survived a hammer and punch test it stayed.<\/p>\n To line up where my spot welds needed to be I did a little artwork on underside of the replacement panel.<\/p>\n I tacked the floor to the cab support first to keep things from shifting while I did the rest.<\/p>\n Before closing in the kick panel area for good, I gave all the original metal a coat of rust primer and more rocker guard. I couldn’t just leave it as it was, even though the bulk of the rust here was just surface.<\/p>\n I’ll also be spraying some rust proof in the panels once everything is complete.<\/p>\n I ended up putting the inner fender in, before the kick panel, and it made fit up a little challenging.<\/p>\n To make my life easier I made a cardboard template I could cut up and manipulate at will to figure out how to get the kick installed.<\/p>\n Eventually I ended up cutting it into three pieces so that it met up with the floor properly.<\/p>\n Not the end of the world, but, it did eat a few hours.<\/p>\n Out came the grinder once more and things were complete enough to remove my cab bracing and reposition then cab for side two.<\/p>\n Putting the door back on and having it close was one hell of a relief. Even though I had braced the cab while doing my work a large part of the front corner of the truck was missing for months.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/eliicpower.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/sie-gmc-51-chevy-truck-rust-repair-13.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>There’s plenty of mud work ahead but a grinder knocked down everything fairly well.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Grind, cut, hammer, smash and I was able to make the patch panels I needed. I finished them early into the next morning leaving just enough time to tack them into place before calling it quits for the night.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>No lie (this is a safe space right?) I was really relieved that the cab support didn’t separate from the rocker the minute I let it down on my jack stands.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
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\n<\/a>Weld, grind, weld –you’ve seen me do this before–and the floor was in. Yep, the double weld line appears again. I got a little over zealous removing the factory floor. Luckily I kept what I cut out.
\nRookie.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n