You never quite get it good enough

It has been a while since my last truck post but. I assure you that I have been diligently working on the cab. Not day and night, 24/7 mind you, but consistently on the weekends when the temperature was above 60 degrees.

While the cab was in good enough shape - that is it had no rusted out spots except for the crushed corner which I successfully welded a replacement patch panel. This was an earlier post. There was still one big task remaining, it was to block sand the roof and the back. What this means is you use primer and body filler to “level” out the sheet metal, so that when you show your project to other truck guys they will rub their hand over the cab and say how good it feels.  Don’t make me explain it as it is something in guy DNA and even we don’t understand it.

Who would know working on the cab would be a three month odyssey.  Let me give you the short tour. Grind off all the paint and surface rust, prime it, fill the dents with body filler, sand until smooth, reapply body filler, sand, reapply body filler, sand, spray high fill urethane primer, sand... Okay you get the picture.

After about a month into this Sisyphean task, my wife said it was good enough and pointed out that no one would ever see the back since the bed would cover it and no one would see the top – remember she is just 5’-0”. In her opinion it was plenty good and I should just “put a fork in it”.

So I had to start working on it on the sly. I would say that I was going to church, get all dressed up and walk to the end of the block. Then I would come back to the garage and sand in the name of Jesus for the rest of the day.  I think after going to church on Saturday and Sunday for two months Stephanie started getting suspicious, maybe because in our 28 years of marriage I had never gone to church before.

Finally last week after two coats of high fill primer, I had it level and man does it feel good. I know you would expect someone to say that it “looks good”, but that is not the objective – it feels good.  Body work, excuse the pun, is a tactical experience. You know you are done when it feels right.

 

I finally told Stephanie that the cab was mostly done, just so I could stop going to “church”. The next step is to put the cab on the frame to see how well everything fits.

Now just between us girls – I am going to spray one more coat of high fill primer on the cab top, I just can’t get enough. There is always another pound to lose, another mile to run, another dash of chile powder, one more kiss, and of course it can always be smoother.

These pictures show a little bit of the progression.





April Huntsville Times Column

The story in my column tells how I had to endure several days of the Clear Fluids diet in order to prepare for a doctor's visit. It was a happy ending, but not so fun at the time.

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2013/04/it_turns_out_that_sometimes_yo.html#incart_river

Enjoy.

The instructions could have been better.

I repurposed a story about struggling through the instructions on how to rebuild the cab bench seat and posted it on Al.com.  Hope you enjoy it.

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2013/03/it_would_have_been_easier_if_t.html

Reaching the Summit – Priming the Cab.

Believe me, a lot has been accomplished on this restoration project in the last two months. The cab is 100% primed – the whole enchilada, everything, todo completo. This milestone is akin to reaching the summit of Loveland Pass, the view is great and everything is downhill from here.

It was a long climb to the top; you remember the total replacement of the floor panels, the kick panels, the cab front patch panels, and everyone’s favorite shaving the gas cap filler hole. Not to mention sanding the rust from every frigging inch of the cab. The last welding task left is the cab corner patch panel.

The cowboy that owned the truck before me modified the bed for some kind of ranching task that involved crushing the left corner of the cab. Just like my daughter crushed her Jeep’s front fender trying to turn into the parking space at thirty miles an hour. The truck she hit was undamaged.

A crushed cab corner is apparently a common ailment since the part suppliers conveniently have a replacement part just for it. So here I go, one last welding task before the summit. The first step was to cut out the crushed and rusted corner. Next, I had to fabricate the inside corner support piece.

I am always surprised how quickly I can make the new part and have it closely resemble the original piece.  Note the term closely - exactly the same would save me some last minute sledge hammering to make it really fit.

In order to prevent the newly fabricate panel from rusting I needed to spray on a coat of primer.  Since the temperature in my unheated garage was freezing, I sprayed it in the back bedroom – Stephanie was conveniently out shopping.  My daughter, who was home and has an OSHA certified nose, went nuts over the paint odor.  She did not call the inspectors to arrest me but did spray about two cans of Fabreze in the house. I called the inspectors to report her.

With the old cab corner removed, I had to install the truck door in order to get the new corner panel properly aligned. This sounds so simple but I must have agonized for several days before figuring this trick out. Once everything was clamped in place it was time to butt weld. My welding technique is improving, but I did manage to warp the panel so I will get to practice my body filler skills a little bit later.

Now that the welding was finished the only task left was to remove the rust from the bottom of the cab. Enlisting the help of my lovely wife, we tilted the cab over to rest on the front firewall. This exposed the underside of the cab, which to our surprise was in pretty good shape. We also figured out that it was a female truck – no I am not showing these pictures.  In no time the undercoating was stripped off. I sanded off most of the rust and used POR to encapsulate the bad spots.

Once the weather cooperated, I broke out the spray gun and primed it all. Yippen Farcheesy! Ain’t life grand.

March Update

I promise to put out a status on the truck project this week. But I have two other updates.

When Brooke was 6 years old we ran a 5K race. The finish was a very memorable event. I was able to tell the story on NPR this week. You can listen to it at this link.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/WritersCornerOnWlrhPublicRadio

 

 

Also, I have a new story about surviving a kayaking trip. Sometimes you just have to trust that your friends will be there to help you.

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2013/02/kayaking_the_locust_fork_is_a.html

February HTimes column

A friend of mine took a trip to Baldwin County that turned into an unexpected adventure. Enjoy the story.

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2013/01/really_how_many_sweet_potatoes.html

Brimmer

New Column for the Huntsville Times

If you have never experienced arc welding, you need to try it. Or at least get invited to one of my parties. Enjoy the story.

I appoligize to the people that are following my on Facebook for getting two notices.


http://blog.al.com/times-views/2013/01/learning_how_to_weld_becomes_a.html