Well, I started some body work...

[oldestof11]

Are you good with an Oxy/Ace setup? You can braze. Stronger than solder but not full on welding.

[PToombs]

Brazing panels warps the siht out of them. BTDT in my younger days. Mig works good because it doesn't get the panels too hot. I thought solder was for filling spots, like bondo but old school?

[cmann250]

Brazing panels warps the siht out of them. BTDT in my younger days. Mig works good because it doesn't get the panels too hot. I thought solder was for filling spots, like bondo but old school?

I can MIG and there's a welder at the farm. I think it'd be best to lay a thin bead, skip a few inches, and another bead and so on so the metal don't get hot and go back and weld up the gaps. He showed me how soldering ends up and it works just fine, I'd just never heard of it being done that way before

[PToombs]

That's the way, just keep stitching it like that to disapate the heat.

[dazedandconfused]

I just put a cab corner in my brothers truck. Just kept tacking and jumping around to keep heat down. The metal is just to thin and warped when i tried to run a small bead.

[ekroman]

I MIG welded in my patches, tried to run 1 inch stiching on my quarter patch panels, and warped the crap out of it. It warped the body more than the patch, which just made me mad. I know better, it's just been 15 years since I've done this type of work.

I've found the best way is to tack in place first, then fill in between the tacks.

Back in my body shop days, we would occasionally see a brazed in patch panel. Most of the time, it was fiberglass and bondo, which doesn't hold up well.

If you can take it to bare metal in your bad areas, try to make sure you can get all the rust out of the pitting. This is very important. The paint will hold up for a while, but if it's pitted heavily on the backside of that panel, it's coming through, usually in a year or two.

If you rap your rusty or questionable areas with the pointed end of a body hammer, it shouldn't dent easily. I rap it about as hard as you would hit a finishing nail into drywall to hang a picture. If it dents, you're rusting from the backside.

[BobS]

I do most of my auto body welding & panel forming tips research over at this website:
http://www.allmetalshaping.com/forumdisplay.php?f=52
You have to join and do an introduction to view the pictures. On this site the folks MAKE their own replacement panels which to me is a form of artwork by itself. Most gas weld or tig their panels together in most cases without using filler rod.

[cmann250]

I ordered patch panels today to the tune of just under $200. Naturally the passenger side rocker panel is back ordered. I can MIG well enough, so I'll do that. More like I'll trick my boss's son into doing it. I just have to have the materials, time, and weather cooperate when the mood strikes me to take a crack at it. Realistically, I know it won't last forever because I don't really know what I'm doing and it's kind of hopeless living deep within the rust belt. If it looks good for 5 or more years, I'll be happy. When it rusts out again, I'll yank the engine and put it in a 4x4 5 speed OBS Ford and sell the desirable parts off the Dodge. The rest gets scrapped. I'll end up with a diesel 4x4 Ford, which is what I wanted the whole time

If all goes well, I'll have pics of a non-rusty, non-dented, primed bed in a week or so to share.

[cmann250]

To the top!

Passenger side wheel arch, driver's side rocker panel, and that back driver's side bed corner showed up today. I'm not sure where the driver's side wheel arch is. I can say that these Tabco parts are quality. The test fit was great and they were the same thickness as the factory metal. The plan is taking a crack at installing these panels and doing some more sanding this weekend.

What's the thickness of the factory sheet metal or better yet, how do you determine the gauge of a piece of sheet metal? Naturally the inner fenders are rusted through and it doesn't matter if they are pretty.

I cleaned up that spot behind the passenger side front wheel and it's all the way through and into the edge. Should I patch both layers or would I be money and time ahead to find a new fender?

[BobS]

Metal thickness to gauge: http://www.offroaders.com/tech/sheet-me ... ckness.htm

[cmann250]

Got a little bit to show for today. I didn't weld them in, my coworker/friend Austin did. I tack here and a stitch there was all it needed. I'm super happy with how it turned out, but I'll still have some dicking to do with it tomorrow. As you can see, I was running out of light and I think I primered in a bug

Don't ever kid yourself and just buy a quart of Bondo

[1STGENFARMBOY]

A QUART ! ! ! !HA HA HA HA I get it by the gallon.

primerin in a bug aint bad, it's when you set down the gun after the last coat of clear
and a giant luna moth lands in the middle of the hood and drags himself around in big
circles before dying.

if you have a dent the size of a dime, before i get it to look ok i have put on and sanded
off a pint of plastic filler.

Darwin

[cmann250]

This cooler weather is kiling me. The paint I got on it yesterday wasn't dry enough to sand again today.

New info: I found a disc for my angle grinder called a Weiler Vortec Pro that uses little sheets of sand paper layered in a circle. This little thing is THE thing to have to take off those little nibs that hold the trim on. It's gentle enough that I won't need to fill the spot where the nibs were, but it still zips them off.

[oldestof11]

Use something like that all the time at work. On ours, when the ends get worn down, the top side (plastic) on the edge 1/2" is noticeably thinner that the rest of the hub. Take the grinder to something metal at a 90* angle and let that edge eat it. Wears it down to fresher sandpaper.

[cmann250]

Well, this project just turned on a dime. A friend of mine is using his '90 for a donor and I'm pretty serious about buying the rest of the truck. It would need rockers and both wheel arches, but both are half as bad as mine are and his has about 1/4 the dents that mine does. The cab just has the typical heel hole, but the supports are fine. The bed's nice and straight, tailgate is ten times better than mine, and it has 4"exhaust to boot. We'll see how this winter treats us