Rusto f250

[Andre69f250]

Just bought a 69 F-250, running and driving, drove her home for $2,100. So for the price I was willing to make some sacrifices..

So the truck is unfortunately kind of a rust bucket, -ish. Truck bed bottom is pretty much way to rusted, not salvageable IMO, the wheel wells in the rear are fine and the sides of bed is salvage-able, not to musch rest there, the underside of bed (bed brackets?) i believe most are okay but 1 is rusted bad. there seems to be tiny little pinholes here and there, so im gonna take a sander to it and see whats up with the spot and probably do some minor rust repair. now the spot that i feel is gonna be an issue, unfortunately i didnt notice this until i got home. the top of the roof has some rust along the entire front (by the top of windshield), pretty much the whole top of roof as some rust, kinda bad. who am i kidding, its bad haha

good news is, for the price im willing to put some time into it, seeing most of my projects arent even running, i was stoked to drive one home hahah

my question is, what is the cheapest way to go about this? I have a mig and can weld so thats not a problem. for the bottom of the bed I was thinnking maybe fabricate that metal rail or bracket for the bed. cut out bottom of truck bed and maybe install diamond plate sheets? or use wood? any ideas?

Also for the roof... is it cheaper to find a donor car and just cut the roof of? or do they sell patch panels?

does anyone know how to remove the front windshield? i would have to remove it to fix the rust right there?

any ideas anyone? thanks!

[chicof100]

You live in San Diego, you spent $2100.00 on a truck that has that much rust, good luck. There are so many of these trucks with no rust for the same price or less.
Ok getting back to your issue. Search craigslist or classifieds for a donor truck. you can probably find one with no motor no trans for a few hundred.
By patching what you have, you'll be in way to much money in just time alone. You'll probably never get it to look right by patching for a donor.

[Ranchero50]

Ditto, you're in Cali, find a rust free donar for parts and swap the best parts to the best truck.

[Mancar1]

Calif truck $2,250. Took some looking and a 300 mile round trip
I took on a truck such as u have described. It took some $$$ and a lot of work and time, but I was sure proud of her when I got it all done. Hang in there and the end result will be enjoyable to u.
There is a lot of good info on this site. I am 65 and have had a bunch of trucks/cars in my life that I worked on. I am still learning things on this site.
Have fun with the Bump, and keep on Trucking...John

[Andre69f250]

Thanks for all the replies! Exactly I know I can fix it, will it suck, probably, but I will be a heck of a lot better at metal fab and rust repair when I'm done. I went to the junkyard today and every single older truck I saw had rust on it there in that spot, and bad. I called around to other junkyards and they said the same thing. I'm going to go through the torture of repair. I'm going to try and get it as close as possible with at home sheet metal fabrication then just use body filler to smooth it out/finishing touches. And I think I'm just gonna do patch panels where I have to on the bed and then lay diamond plate sheet metal over it.

[67mann]

Here's some incentive(bottom of page&next) http://fordification.com/forum/viewtopi ... a&start=30
I live in NY...impossible to find un rotted parts here That bed is now on a 67 that sits outside all the time...still holding up. I used 2 coats of Herculiner to finish off the inside of the bed and undercoated the bottom all the way up in to the bed rail. I let the Herculiner fill a lot of the pin hole and only patched out the worst

[chicof100]

Thanks for all the replies! Exactly I know I can fix it, will it suck, probably, but I will be a heck of a lot better at metal fab and rust repair when I'm done. I went to the junkyard today and every single older truck I saw had rust on it there in that spot, and bad. I called around to other junkyards and they said the same thing. I'm going to go through the torture of repair. I'm going to try and get it as close as possible with at home sheet metal fabrication then just use body filler to smooth it out/finishing touches. And I think I'm just gonna do patch panels where I have to on the bed and then lay diamond plate sheet metal over it.

Please give me a call 9513067805 I might be able to help you more than you'll know.