Tin bashing

david85

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Well, I found some more rust to cut out:rolleyes:. The front mounts are both cracked and rusty.

Here's another defect in ford's design; The front of the box drains into the front cross beam. This allows plenty of dirt to pile up inside the beam and there is only one drain hole for it to get out. And no, you can't even get in there with a hose or pressure washer because the internal bolt spacers block off access from either end. Oh well. At least I won't have to make it look mirror smooth like the box sides. The rest of the inside beam looked fine once I blew all the dirt out. Nice clean grey factory primer.
 

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david85

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One mount is finished. The other repair is sized, prepped and ready to go but tomorrow is another day. Wasn't fun Tig welding this overhead but it turned out ok.

The bolt spacers seemed to have caused the cracks (and resulting rust) from vibration over the years. Ford's engineers were hoping the bed bolts would be tight enough to clamp everything together but it didn't work this time. I hope this is solved now by welding the spacer directly to the bottom of the support beam thus spreading the load. I sandblasted the mill scale off before coating the inside with zinc primer.
 

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david85

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Getting closer. Not sure what other surprises this box has for my but I THINK I *Got Em' All*:rolleyes: (shouldn't have said that...LOL)

I managed to find a really nice steel 1.5" rounded corner square tube with 3/16" walls. Took some persuading but I got it into the upper fold of the front box wall. That stiffened it up considerably, but I added some stainless steel corner brackets to tie the front box corners together. Those of you who still have an OEM ford box on your IDI pickup can attest to how weak this joint is from factory. Its really just there to hold its shape and not much else.

All bolts that go into the front wall are stainless steel and machine tapped into the 3/16" wall. The two bolts on each side that go into the hanging edge have a nut under the box top. As a bonus, I drilled a hole into the corner bracket to double as a light duty tie-down. If I need any heavy tie downs, they will go under the box hold down bolts themselves.

The Stainless brackets will go on permanent only after painting and box lining is finished. The square tube will be removed, cleaned, epoxy primed, then reinstalled with seam sealer just before the box goes to paint.

Only thing left is to stand it on the front wall and power wash the underside to clean off some of the grease and expose any other potential surprises. If all goes well, I'll send it to sandblasting to prep the bed for eventual Linex application. Hoping for sandblasting early next week.

Once it comes back from blasting, it will need a final pass with urethane sanding to prep for paint...THEN it can go to paint...(maybe sometime in late 2018:rolleyes:)
 

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subway

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Great work, I enjoy seeing all the progress. Thanks for documenting all of this.

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david85

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Great work, I enjoy seeing all the progress. Thanks for documenting all of this.

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I'm sure there will be plenty more carnage once I finally get to the cab.

I stood the box on end today and powerwashed the underside. No surprises thankfully. Whoever did the undercoating used good stuff...even if they missed a few spots. The driveshaft grease also came off nice. Sunny weather is back tomorrow so I may give it another quick once over in the daylight. The patches I did for the bed holes could use a bit of grinding and I'll mix up some epoxy to seal them proper. Also, every single dent spotter point will need to be touched up on the inside since it burned through the factory coat.

Still not sure when will be the best time to undercoat it...waiting until after paint insures no contamination but do I really want to stand a new, freshly painted bed on end and risk damaging it?? Hmmm...sleep on it.
 

david85

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More pix.

Everything seems to be in decent shape underneath, but I may have to dig out the sandblaster for a couple spots. I'm also debating on what to do about the exhaust system heat shields. They'd probably hold for another 5-10 years if I undercoat them. Or I could make new ones out of aluminum. If I insulate them from the box, it should keep galvanic reaction to a minimum (Aluminum tends to protect steel though, so even that may not be much of an issue).

I'm thinking more and more that I'll undercoat the box after it comes back from sand blasting. That way I can do the final pass of urethane primer and catch any possible contamination at the same time. Then off to paint... After that, I won't have to stand the box up anymore and hopefully avoid damaging any of the new paint. Yeah, I'm liking that plan.
 

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david85

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Well guys, I threw in the towel.

My plan was to sandblast the underside myself only where needed but I decided to just farm it out. 2 hours later everything was done.Totally worth it considering I got the cargo bed and underside, AND hood cowling blasted for $320CAD. The guy worked on resto projects before, so he was able to preserve the factory galvanizing and primer wherever possible. I also lucked out on the undercoating because it came off pretty easy. Most of the underside is still covered in factory primer except for where surface rust was coming through.

The bed is now coated in epoxy. All I need now is a good break in the weather to coat the underside.

Closeups show the color difference between zinc and raw steel. Darker metal is the raw steel.

Once the bottom is sealed, I can do the last pass of primer (urethane) and sanding on the bed sides. Then its ready for paint.

Its getting so close I can taste it!-Drool
 

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david85

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Bottom of the bed before & after black epoxy primer. I wanted grey but the supplier only had black on short notice...no biggie.

Note the bits of undercoating dead center on the before photo. Those spots had to be cleaned up before applying the epoxy (varsol, acetone, then wax/grease remover...then acetone again...).

There are still a few spots I'll need to check tomorrow. Many of the dent spots are still not covered up inside the box walls because my paint gun is too bulky to get in there. Might have to just brush it on by hand.
 

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Looks real nice!

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david85

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I dare you... I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU! JUST TRY AND RUST!!!!

LOL Actually there are a couple spots that I'll have to touch up later but I'll do that after the paint. Its easier to wipe excess undercoating off fresh paint, than clean it off fresh primer (primer is porous and is a real pain to wipe down once the tar speck gets on it). The holes for attaching the body trim will also be filled off by then, so I can really cover every possible surface at that point. I plan to use nuts, rather than the metal snaps used at the factory. That lets me properly seal them at the same time. Ford decided to nuts at a few spots, like the rear corners of the box but snaps save time so they went with that on the rest.

Anyway, I'm glad that's over with.
 

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david85

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Almost forgot this detail. I improved the mounting for the skirt braces at the bottom of the quarter panel.

Normally the skirt braces are held in with nut & bolt at the skirt end and either a nutsert (rear) or U-nut (front) at the bed floor beams. The only reinforcing at the body panel end is a tin fold that is then spot welded on either side of the bolt hole. The fold traps crud inside, while the nut & bolt breaks the paint. Since this area is exposed to road spray, the damage mounts quickly and rust often starts here.

First thing I did was weld and seal the folds at the bottom of the body panels. Then I used stainless steel nut & bolt that clamp only the sheet metal. These were then sealed with urethane caulking. The remaining bolt stem can still attach the brace on top of the existing nut. This prevents any damage to the paint on the body panel, since the stainless bolt and nut are the only parts that can get scratched. The connection to the tin is thus left undisturbed...at least that's the hope...

Photos were taken before the undercoating went on, so the bolts will probably need to be cleaned with a tap before final assembly. This method should work well for mudflaps too. I haven't yet decided if I'll install any though.
 

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david85

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OFF TOPIC: Any RC guys out there?

Not much new to see on the box right now. Urethane primer is the same color as epoxy so no point seeing it. Passenger side is sanded down to 600 and just about ready to go. Driver's side has what I hope to be the final primer coat. Been slow going because every time I came out, it started raining.

Anyhow, here's a look at another little "tin bashing" project I've been working in with the old man. Just shy of 48" stem to stern for what we hope will be about 1/7 scale (some day...). I've already torn up one prop shaft coupler due to too much power from the brushless inrunner. Damn weeds. I have another collet on order but will probably be going to a 1/4" flex drive eventually.

The hull is fully welded out of 1/16" aluminum. Its a bit on the heavy side but was fairly easy to Tig weld. I used Delftship to develop the hull patterns before converting them to autoCAD friendly DXF format. Once they were scaled and placed properly on the 4x8 sheet, Dad was able to convert to G-code with Mach3 and cut it out on the CNC router.

I keep telling myself I need to learn SolidWorks some day....Oh well. Maybe next time:rolleyes:
 

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