How to strip/clean bed seam?

[MAK]

I've seen several posts about welding and sealing the bed seam above the bump, and Keith's pages on welding and grinding on his, but I can't find any info on how to clean it out first...
I got after mine this afternoon with no success. The wire wheel on my grinder only took off the paint just above and below the actual seam and I can't get it in deep enough to get all the paint, caulk, and surface rust. I tried my sandblaster again and as always that turned in to a frustrating exercise is dealing with a clog every 3 seconds. Is a sandblaster going to be the best way to get in that seam or what did you fellows find works best?
Thanks for the help.
Mark

[fordman]

i ahvent done htis. but on som ebeds ive seen the putty is so loose you could probably use just a scraper to scrape it clean. on more stubbord spots i thought a more stiffer scrapper would be the best thing to use. or maybe. maybe a grinding disc that is real thin and would go into the seam and not damage the body. i know that hard to do but if a person was careful they might be able to do it.

[foghorn]

Ya might try a small hand held propane torch and a small flat blade screw driver. Heat the sealer then scrape it out with the screw driver. Another idea would be to use a roll lok tool with the larger size disk on the backing plate. This might take a few disk to do but would be the easiest way to do this if you have the die grinder to do it with.
Here is a link to the disk that you would choose from.

http://www.3mestore.com/surface-conditi ... discs.html

Here is a link to the tool to use them with

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/C ... pricetype=




Foggy

[jor]

I scraped mine out with a putty knife, various sharp picks and a thin wire wheel. Then I sanded and sanded using various grits with the paper folded to fit in this seam crack. Media blasting would be great as long as your media isn't too aggressive.
jor

[MAK]

I'm going to have to do some hunting and see if I can find some narrower wire wheels for my grinder. Maybe could do some trimming on one... Thanks for the replies.

[jzjames]

I use a hacksaw blade often when Im trying to rip out heavy corrosion and get it cleaned down. Its good on the "pull" when the teeth are aimed right.

[Georgia71]

My Uncle had a 68 F100 he cleaned the seams on several years ago. He told me he took a file and ground it down to fit in the seam. He cleaned it out real good and applied zinc cromate on it. Then applied the seam putty. I guess that's what it is called.

Larry

[1971ford]

anyone have a close up picture of what it looks like welded, sanded and maybe painted?

[foghorn]

Look in the how to do's Keith had a tutorial on doing this. Just make sure you weld in small segments and jump around a lot to avoid warping the metal any more than its gonna be doing. I would say 1/2 - 1" at a time and jump from one end to the other then in between maybe 1.5-2' apart. If all your weld areas are staying hot its time for a break. Its also best to use a mig for doing this.




Foggy

[MAK]

I use a hacksaw blade often when Im trying to rip out heavy corrosion and get it cleaned down. Its good on the "pull" when the teeth are aimed right.

That's an innovative approach. Will have to give that a try too. Thanks