I Just Needed a Little Advice

An alert reader sent me a message that the three inch deep crease in the cab was most likely caused by the door being opened with such force as to bend the cab sheet metal. Lots of clues corroborated the diagnosis, particularly the tear in the front hinge assembly and one of the door mounting bolts broken off. In order to ding out the dent I cut out the inside kick panel and even cut out a piece of the front cab to put in a patch panel. Don’t worry I didn’t perform surgery just to get at the bolt, the panels needed to be replaced and I took advantage of the opening.

With everything removed I had a clear shot at the broken off bolt and nut. That is the good news. Since the bolt was rusted into the old nut, my plan was to weld a new nut to the inside of the door frame. That was the plan, but there was still some sheet metal around the hinge assembly and I just couldn’t figure out how to weld it in such a tight place.

Some engineer friends came over the next day and were interested in the truck project. I explained the situation about not being able to weld in the nut, when one of them stated that my captured nut had slipped out. That’s funny I had just had my yearly physical and the doctor did not mention that anything looked out of sorts.

Okay I get it, a welded on nut is “captured”. He had a good suggestion about welding a washer to the nut which would give me a way to weld it to the frame. And another guy suggested an airplane Rivnut which is a pretty cool deal. I was afraid to call Boeing and ask for a quote for one Rivnut, so I went to the Stovebolt forum and there were tons of posts on fixing captured nuts and using threaded inserts. The moral here is you just don’t know what you don’t know and it’s good to have knowledgeable friends.

I drilled out the rusted bolt remnant, rethreaded it, pressed it up against the frame and welded it to the sheet metal with a small steel rod. Hallelujah.

One small task finished. This weekend I am going to get the outside panels welded on, sand off all the paint and rust, and prime the left side of the cab. Stay tuned.