9 Jun 2013
Rust repair (and more rust)

If'n you'll recall, back on 2 Jun I cleaned up this area and was thinking to cut the outer layer off on the bottom.  Here, I've indeed cut it all off.  The underlying metal is pitted and unpleasant, but intact enough.  Air chisel works better than hammer and chisel at cleaning spot welds away.
Alternate view.
Cardboard to make a template for the patch as a single piece.  Throatless shear for the cuts (best hundred bucks I ever spent at Harbor Freight), hammer and vice for the bends.
Father in law built planes for a long time, and a few years back he gave me his tools.  These included, among other things, several hundred Clecos.  Now's a good time to start using them for test fits.  Here the angle on the front edge isn't quite right.
And, as I mentioned, I'll have to cut and replace the edge here.  Used masking tape to show where 1 inch in from the edge was.

Replaced this inch, but apparently took no pictures.  Towards the windshield there's an area where an inch probably wasn't far enough in, so I suspect I'll be doing more here.
Replacement panel is "good enough" here.
Additional tweaking needed to get the outer cowl panel to clear.
So how am I going to protect all this rusty metal once it's all back together?

Oh wait, isn't that pretty well exactly what POR-15 is for?

Do I have any?  Yes.  Yes, I do.
The entire side of the cowl got a coat, and with that I must be done for the day - I can't do anything else with this until it dries. 

Still need to make the last closeout piece for the front of this side of the cowl.  Seam sealer is on order, new roloc disks have arrived.
My can of POR-15.  This is the same can I did the insides of the quarter panels on the Chevelle with back in November of 2002, and I bet I had it for a while before then - probably approaching 15 years.

They say the shelf life on an opened can is 6 months.

Advice: Do like I did, put two sheet metal screws in the lid and never take the lid off; just remove the screws to pour some.  If you take the lid off, the paint will glue it closed when you put it back on.
And then foolishly, I went poking around in the car.  Here's the view after removing the smuggler's box thing (this would be the rear seat area if this weren't a truck).  Lots of rust.  Sigh.  Not entirely sure how I'm going to fix this.
Even the lip of the smuggler's box mount is rusted.
Here's the hole in the back wall of the cab, from the inside.
And another hole on the side of the box (to be fair, I knew about this one).
So to recap: Rust repair almost complete in the drivers' cowl.

Still have rust to repair in:

Additionally, I need to figure out what I'm doing with the tranny tunnel and firewall that got cut up for the T56. The reverse lockout does stick out quite a bit so it's going to need a bit more than just adding some height to the existing tunnel..

I suppose it's not surprising that I don't feel like I'm making that much progress.  I suppose it's something that every panel I'm having to patch is getting patched with 16ga steel and not something thinner.  The thought has crossed my mind to cut my losses and get a different body, but it feels like that would be 'cheating'.

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