Project Big Red

[laserjock]

I've went round and round on this stuff with myself and what I keep coming back to is time is my biggest enemy right now. I just don't have enough time (or for that matter the skills... it would be completely a learning process making it even slower) to fab all the stuff and patch all the stuff that needs patched. It seems like it's either time or money. Right now, I feel like I'm running short on time so I guess I've got to spend some money. Not that I like it.

I have worked up a contigency plan of the miniumn I think I can get away with if I have to get road legal but I hope to not have to go down that road.

I just spent a little time reading up on epoxy primers and finish coats and compatibilities with different things and I now feel like I know less than I did. It seems like there are a few do's and don'ts but there is a lot of gray area when it comes to the best options for things like rust repair. It seems like the answer is seal it up as best you can and call it good enough. It will rust eventually.

 

[Greg5OH]

yup, thgats damn time will get ya!
sometimes spending the money is worth your time in $$. Whiuch led me to purchase the 06 frame.

I too am in the same baot with my cab, I replaced the entires lower part of the crewcab 2 years ago, but i could not weld underneath it due to being dirty, rusty and oily so i had to rivet everything. Its rusty under there now. Pretty much gotta cut that out, but at least i can take the cab off now. Weld new metal in, and just go crazy with paint and undercoating.
it will rus tin 5 years anyway...

maybe we should just move to texas? save some time AND moeny?

 

[laserjock]

Greg, having spent some time in Texas, my take on it is this. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. They have good food (I love good tex/mex and brisket), clean cars and good hunting. The problem is they also have really hot nasty weather most of the time, table top flat ground (growing up in the mountains it drove me crazy being able to see that far) and a dozen different critters that can cause untimely and unpleasant death. I don't think that's the answer for me but as you said, it's a lot cheaper to live there than where I am now in most respects.

I guess I'll fix my rusty truck and get on with my life for now as unpleasant as it is.

 

[laserjock]

Small update. Got the cab on the ground. the ground. That was no small feat. Had to break down and get a gantry crane because I just couldn't do it on my own any other way.

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I finally got the back glass out. As usual, I was being too gentle. It seems to be the original slider. Notice the date.

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Frame looks okay and as my wife put it when I brought it home comes complete with opinion.

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The window frame looks pretty good except for a little rust at the usual spots at the bottom drain holes.

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While I was at it, I pulled the side windows. I saw some excessive sealant on the passenger side window so I figured is better see what was up. It was easy enough, so I pulled both of them to make it easier to paint. Just remove the little speed nuts then used my trim removal pliers to finesse the outer trim off then the window out.

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Well that about sums it up. I also pulled all the plastic from the inside from the door back.

Next items of business are to make a few decisions. I really would like to swap in a set of 92-97 scab quarter windows. I like them a lot better than the split window. I can't find a definitive answer with any pictures to see how hard the swap is. I've seem pictures of a couple brick nose trucks with them but no real details.

The other big thing is I want to add the later shoulder belts to the rear seat which means adding the shoulder mount point and apparently a lower mount point as well. I need to locate a set of those belts so I know what I need to add for certain. I may also look at adding car seat quick connect loops like most cars have now but that's a lower priority than the shoulder belts.

I need to get it on its back and then I can start on the floor and work out my sheet metal order. Business is picking up. I'm planning on taking some time off to really make a run at paint before winter. We shall see.

 

[laserjock]

Small update. I got her over on her back.

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What a mess.

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After several hours of wire wheel work.

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It's not perfect by any stretch, I've got a lot more sanding and grinding to do but the first pass to get the really ugly stuff off. I did a test section to see how good I could get things.

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It's pretty hard to tell much because of the reflection but there is still a lot if pitting. After a lot of internet reading and head scratching I narrowed it down to a couple options. The first was to clean it best I could and use POR 15 metal prep and paint on it. After some reading I decided against that. I am going to use Southern polyurethane products for everything else (again after a lot of reading). Normally when I get in a situation like this I reach for a rust converter of some sort. The tech sheet for SPI epoxy says that's a no-no. So I emailed Andy there and asked him what to do. He recommended ospho rinsed before it dries to stabilize the rust pits. After through rinsing with water dry it quickly and prime it with 2-3 coats of epoxy. That's the plan I'm going with. Going to use SPI for the epoxy primer, 2k primer, base coat, and clear. They have three shades of red. I like them all and it will be a game time decision on the color. All the same price. Probably order all that tomorrow.

I put together my sheetmetal order from lmc. I'll probably pull the trigger on that before the week is out.

Next steps will be to remove the insulation off the firewall so I can start onto it and have access to the cab mounts to clean them up good.

Then finish repairing the core support and prime it. And start repairing the cab floor when the parts get here.

Also think I'm going to do a dolly to hold the cab during paint and floor repair. That will save me a lot of grief now that I can lift the cab without breaking it.

Getting things moving finally.

 

[Greg5OH]

regarding you lifting the cab off the frame, any reason why u dind tjust wrap a lift sling thru the door openeings and pull form there? Thwats what I plan on doing, but I do have the 4 doors so i can cross it thru em all to have it mor eor less balanced. When i redid my sheetmetal last year i just fabbed all the peices. LMC dindt make anything for crewcabs. Figured i would use thicker stuff than OEM and make it better. Now that i will be doing it with the cab on its back like you it should be a breeze. Definitely sandblasting mine though.

nice progress, and keep at it! Lets see who finishes first ! (my goal is to have it all back together and driving by 4th week of october....yah...right)

 

[laserjock]

The balance point on a super cab is like right at the steering wheel. That makes that a little more interesting. I was working toward getting a solution together that would let me paint the cab and set it back on without touching the shiny bits. I think I have that now. I'll leave the plates welded on the back and the front holes were already there.

My goal now (hate to even say this) is to have it together in time for a good shake down trip next April before trying to hit the rally in NH. Will I make it?? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

[laserjock]

Btw, short of the front floor sections, I'll have to fab the rest because like you said, nobody has them. I am going for new metal for the front clip in the interest of time. We'll see how that works out for me.

 

[TahoeTom]

Could you get the cab outside and sandblast the underside? That would clean most of the pits. I like the Ospho idea, and the SPI. I haven't used either, but will use SPI eventually. I use Picklex as a rust converter and it doesn't need to be rinsed but is expensive. Compatablity with SPI is an unknown for me. I guess I should do a test. I enjoy following your project.

 

[laserjock]

I had considered sandblasting the bottom but with the holes in it (intentional and unintentional) I would have sand everywhere inside the cab. I have everythiing out but the headliner and dash and don't really want to take them out. Yes, Andy and SPI gave me the advice on the ospho treatment and how to deal with it and the reported adhesion issues.

I asked for guidance in this thread and I think you guys are right on the money. The long term plan is definitely a clean cab/truck.
http://www.oilburners.net/forums/showthread.php?70341-Need-advice-inspiration

So after much stewing over this whole cab situation, I think my plan is going to be to lower my expectations a little and get this thing on the road. To do that, I would really like to reduce my cost a little bit since in principle this will now be a temporary solution. That temporary will hopefully be 3-4 years but at a minimum I would think 2-3 years out of the repairs is not unreasonable before action is required again. To do that, I am going to get the fenders in the garage and assess them carefully. I know there is at minimum some surface rust on them around the trim. After that, I am going to start work on the hood to get it straightened if I can. That will determine what metal I will have to order asside from the cab work. I worked up an order for the cab metal. For $500 I can get all the available repair parts for it and that would get it back to useable. I think for the short term, I am going to give the cab a resonable effort so I can get the truck on the road. If I can reuse all the original sheet metal, and only buy the repair parts for the cab, I can bank that money and start looking for another cab or complete truck casually once this one is complete. Unless one falls from the sky in the next few days, I think this will be my plan once again. The real dissappointment is that what appears to be happening is that quality of the resto is going to have to suffer a little for sake of practicality. I hate that, but the reality of the situation is that this is what I am getting down to until I change my mind again....

Stay tuned... something is about to give... one way or another.

 

[laserjock]

Weekend update.

So the paint products fairy arrived. Among the goodies were various safety items such as a new chemical mask and some mixing cups etc.

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So with the cab situation irritating me, I jumped on the core support. If you look back through this thread, you'll see that it was a mess. I finished welding up all the cracks and ground them down. I didn't go to great pains to make them perfect because it's going to be covered up anyway. Here's a few pics.

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This thing was broken all over on top of the cutting I did to straighten it up.

I also got my jug of ospho for the rusty bits.

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There's a lot of talk on the inter web about rust converters and epoxy primers. I decided to go with southern polyurethane products top to bottom. After talking to Andy there, I decided to go with ospho for the rusty bits I can't get clean. His instructions were to not let the ospho dry before washing it thoroughly.

So that's what I did to the core support to get to the parts I couldn't get to well.

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After I rinsed it off well, I pulled it back in the garage and finished sanding with 80 grit and maroon scuff pads.

I forgot the wax and grease remover because I'm a moron and had to wipe it down with alcohol. It worked okay but I had a couple problem spots. That might be due to moisture in the air lines (the dryer I ordered hasn't arrived yet). None the less, I will probably scuff those spots and shoot them again.

And here it is in black SPI epoxy. The epoxy shot really nice. If the rest of the products
shoot that easy, I should be able to get a decent paint job. It really lays down nice.

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So you probably noticed the core support is in two pieces. I took the lower section out to straighten it and have access to the hidden bits to clean and paint it. Now I'll put it back together and touch the paint up with a final coat of epoxy on everything to seal up the welds. The big problem now is the weather. I had to build a fire tonight to warm the garage up to let the epoxy cure. Hopefully it will stay warm enough long enough.

So I took another hard look at the cab tonight with my buddy. It's really not that bad. If I replace the parts that I can buy, I won't have too much custom work to do to patch it up. If I don't hear from anyone I've reached out too by tomorrow sometime, I'm ordering parts from LMC and being done with it. Decision made.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Greg5OH]

nice, keep ya head up. Ya this weather is no bueno for painting. Im about 2 or so weeks away (i hope..) from painting mine and oif it continues being 40 degrees..thats no good. Gottaa see if I can grab a couple wood movers dollies form harbour freight, put osme 2/.4s on it and put th ecab on it to wheel it into my garage

 

[laserjock]

Moving the cab is one of the next challenges. I'm going to have to move it out to the edge of the garage door at a minimum because it is going to get soaked in massive amounts of Ospho and that stuff is a little ******* concrete. I'm thinking the same thing. Two movers dollys and a sheet of 3/4 plywood screwed down between the carpeted risers to hold them together. They say they are good for 1000 lbs each. I don't know about that but a pair should hold the cab. I am going to move it standing on end at first and then once the floor sections are done, I'll have to find something to set it on horizontal to do the cab corner work and paint the cab. I think I'm going to end up painting it off the truck and then setting it on. I just don't have enough space to set up enough paint booth for the hole truck right now.

I'm with you on the weather. I was planning to try to paint this sucker about the last week of the month. It had better warm up a little. I had to build a fire last night in the garage to try to keep the stuff warm overnight. This is just crazy.

 

[TahoeTom]

http://autobodystore.net/Merchant2/...=ABS&Product_Code=inf141000&Category_Code=PSH
I use one of these infra red heat lamps for painting in lower temperatures. You can pre warm the part and use it again after spraying to get the paint to kick. It wont allow you to paint the entire cab in one shot, but would work great for stuff like the core support.
Edit: You need an infrared non-contact thermometer to monitor the temperature of the metal.

 

[laserjock]

Would a set of halogen work lights do about the same job? I would think so. It's just shifting the light from IR out to the visible a little more. I hadn't thought of that but I'm not sure why. I did that in the house to hurry along my drywall compound.