Fig. 1 - Here's a shot taken as I was drilling out the spot welds.

Fig. 2 - Here's a close-up of a drilled-out spot-weld.

Fig. 3 - Here I am trying to slide the box on end, past the project truck to the '72 chassis sitting in front of it (out of view).

Saturday, December 17, 2005  -  I spent the day today finishing up the bed disassembly on my original box that I started on last weekend. Basically I just had to finish removing the bed floor and rear support.

Since I didn't get a chance to get the special spot-weld drill bits ordered, I decided to just go ahead and use a regular drill bit. It really didn't matter how deep I drilled these welds, even if they went all the way through, since the bed floor was going to be discarded anyway. The holes that remain in the supports will enable me to weld everything back together anyway. Fig. 1 shows the drilling process about halfway through for the front support. Fig. 2 shows a close-up of a drilled-out spot-weld.

Once I got all the spot-welds in the front support drilled out, I'd gotten about as far as I could go with the bed sitting up on end where it had been sitting for the past two years. I needed to get started drilling the spot-welds for the rear end of the box, but first I needed to get the box laying down flat. I decided to lay it over onto the bed floor that was still sitting on the '72s rolling chassis, to use as a workbench...but it definitely took a little work getting it there! I was alone and had to get the box from one end of the shop to the other. I laid a couple carpet runners on the shop floor (to keep from damaging the box) and was able to push/pull the box on it's end over to it's new home for a while. In Fig. 3 the box is about halfway there (had to stop and take a break!). Fig. 4 shows the box laying upside down on the '72 bed floor. This will be convenient, since it'll hold everything at a comfortable level for the necessary repairs.

Once I got the box laid over, I got started drilling out the spot-welds holding the rear support in place.

With the floor completely removed, I was able to then get started on necessary bed repairs. However, I found that the bed sides weren't in as good a shape as I remembered. I took a bunch of pictures to show what I have to deal with here. This is going to take even more work than I'd initially thought! Figs. 7 thru 10 are things I already knew about, and wasn't too worried about repairing.

I decided that the first repair would be to weld in a patch panel for the area pictured in Fig. 7, on the passenger side of the box. I figured I could weld in a patch panel spanning the bed side and the end cap, covering up the seam between the two, and then continue with welding up the seam around the remainder of the end cap perimeter to smooth it out. I cleaned up the area with the angle grinder and wire wheel to survey the damage, and then got out the air chisel and cut out the rusted area (Fig. 11). I was planning on cutting a patch panel from the bed sides of the '72 which I removed last weekend, but they weren't good enough to use. Therefore, I just decided I could start hacking up the '68 parts truck sitting out front of the shop, using it as a donor for all the bed's patch panels. While I was messing around with the wire wheel in the angle grinder, I hit it to several blistered areas in the paint along the bed sides and was more than a little disappointed by what I found. I knew the back sides of the side panels were pitted to a fair degree, but I figured I could sandblast them and coat them with POR-15. However, I discovered that the pitting actually went all the way through in several spots (Fig. 12). It was at this point that I just spent almost an hour looking things over, trying to decide on a course of action.

Fig. 11 - Using the air chisel I cut out the rusty area and cleaned it up a little for the patch panel.

Fig. 12 - Here you can see that rust has completely penetrated the side walls.

I guess I'm now leaning towards completely replacing the bed sides, using skins I can remove from the LWB '68 parts truck. After removing the entire skin I'll have to trim it on each end to fit the SWB box, but I didn't want to get started doing that this evening, since by this time it was dark outside and I really wasn't 100% certain of the condition of the '68 box's bed sides. I decided I'd better wait till tomorrow when I can check them out in the daylight, just to prevent any more surprises. I'd really hate to remove the bed sides only to find that they too were unusable!

So tomorrow I'm going to head back to the shop and take inventory of the condition of the '68 parts truck's bed sides, and go from there. However, I have to admit....at this point, I'm almost thinking that this is going to be more work than I really want to tackle. Although I'll still keep my eyes open for a better box to use, in the meantime I guess I have to continue as if I absolutely have to use what I already have. With my luck, it'll be just like the cab I spent about 3 months sandblasting completely clean (Oct.-Jan. '03), only to find another rust-free cab to use instead. Oh well....at least I'll get a crash course on aligning body panels and getting used to welding sheetmetal with the MIG.

So anyway....stay tuned!