Drilling spot welds and swapping panels (more)

[69rangerf100]

how did you seperate the panel from the cab after all the spot welds were drilled out.

CabPanels001.jpg

[flyboy71]

A good majority of the seam along the welds popped off since there was no metal holding them together. In areas where you still have a sliver around the weld (and youll have them because they double hit in some places) I used an old putty knife to slice into the seam. Youll most likely need the putty knife to get in the seam around the rear window and if youre careful you wont bend it up too bad. I assume your talking about this panel in particular. Other areas like the cowl are tricky becuase at the seam one panel is usally rolled over and it makes it tougher to drive anything in the seam. Hope that helps.

[69rangerf100]

yes you are correct after alot of debating i have decided to cut the one in my 70 cab out and transplant the one from the original 69 cab and cut out the bolts in the back of the cab so that the 70 cab will look as close to a 69 as possible.

[67nukeford]

Flyboy, made any more progress on the cab? I'm bringing my cab home this weekend. I'm going to do the cab corners and front mounts first, then pull the cowl. My plan is to istall a dash from a 78-79, with the AC vents in the dash.

[flyboy71]

I havent made much progress this summer. Im working on the frame and suspension then Ill move back to the cab.

[67nukeford]

What size spot weld cutter bit did you use on those welds?

[67nukeford]

I actually bought one of those from HF the other day! I know eastwood has 3/8 and 1/2, maybe I'll order a 1/2 from them.

[flyboy71]

Just bumping this up since I saw a few spot weld drilling folks on here as of late.

[bbyrnes1]

Well the dash came out rather nicely so that made it much easier to get to the cowl to start taking it off. Its slow and tedious but so far its working quite well. You do need to bend the firewall flange to pry the joint but shaping it back wont be a real issue. Lotsa spot welds.

Jeff,
In my book you have achieved the level of beast. This thread is absolutely perfect. I'm definitely a bigger fan of removing panels rather than cutting and patching if possible.

I have a similar problem with my truck in the cowl area. The firewall side of the front of the cowl is rusted out. Also both bottom corners of the firewall where they meet the kick panels and floorpans are rotten, so I think a firewall removal and repair is in order for me. I'm basically looking at drilling all the spot welds around the perimeter and it should pop out to be able to do repair on the edges?

[bbyrnes1]

Some pics of my firewall rot.

[bbyrnes1]

Two more pics.

[flyboy71]

The area thats rusted out is a hard one to fix even if you panel swap. You essentially need the firewall itself but the seams might not be suitable to patch in. There are a few areas where they spotted three panels together and when they rust and flake out it leaves little to reweld to.

[e6ug]

Nice work Flyboy. i plan on using 2 beds to make 1 good bed. what size spotweld cutters did you use? and how many did you go through?

[bbyrnes1]

You must be talking about the bottom corners were the firewall meets the kick panel and toe boards. What options do I have?

[flyboy71]

Nice work Flyboy. i plan on using 2 beds to make 1 good bed. what size spotweld cutters did you use? and how many did you go through?

Thanks. I used the 3/8 cutter from Harbor Freight. Cost me like $3 and you can flip the cutter around. I drilled most of whats in the pics before I had to retire it and shell out another $3. Better of the tools Ive bought there.

You must be talking about the bottom corners were the firewall meets the kick panel and toe boards. What options do I have?

Yeah that intersection is a tough one. Its nasty usually because there are three panels welded together. I had a cab that was bad there and I didnt bother with it I found a better cab. You could cut out the metal and weld in new. Ive seen a few others on here do just that and the results were really good.