Project GoJo

[ken4444]

Sand or media blasting is clearly the best way to go here, but I have no equipment for that or means to trailer the thing to get it blasted.  So, bring on the wire wheels and strip disks.

I started off with my biggest steel wire wheel to see how the paint and rust would react.  This wheel is a beast but it takes some muscle to control. The Makita grinder is variable speed and super high torque.  It's a real powerhouse.  Ultimately this wire wheel will strip down to the bare metal without taking too much time.



After 15 minutes, I busted out this Harbor Freight silicon carbide strip disk that I had not used before.  I'd used Norton, DeWalt, and other brand disks like this and they are fantastic.  They take off paint and rust easily, but they wear down.  They also abrase the metal, making visible scratches.  The name brand ones are about 10 bucks a pop.  The HF one was maybe 7 bucks so I thought I'd try it.  This one worked as good as the name brand ones and lasted as long.



Like the others, this strip disk did wear down after about 30 minutes. It started at about 5/8" thick with a square edge.  These get rounded off at the edge and become worthless:



Here you can see the original white seam sealer revealed. You can also see abrasion marks that  the strip disk makes.  Ultimately these are filled in by the epoxy primer and 2K primer and won't be a problem:



Here you can see some real pitting from rust.  This was the worst area I saw tonight:



After about an hour, I got this much done:



Ultimately I used a smaller wire wheel in the corners and edges where the strip disk would not reach.  I am out of strip disks and will need at least 2 more, probably 3.  I will probably need 3 or 4 more hours of work to get it mostly totally stripped.  I will use a dual action orbital sander on the flat sides to save time and save my back a bit. Then the plan is to hammer out the major dents and spray epoxy primer to seal and protect the metal.

One other thing:  Sometimes it's not really needed to get all the way down to the bare metal, but when you have to remove rust and several layers of paint, it's impossible to NOT get to the bare metal in at least some places.  Given the rough shape of this bed, I pretty much have to take it to bare metal in most places.  In contrast, on a newer vehicle that was in better shape, it would be possible to gently sand off the top coat or two and not expose the bare metal  to the air which promotes rust.  Here, not so much...

[ken4444]

I went another round with the angle grinder and wire wheels and strip disks tonight.  Here's a video showing the Harbor Freight strip disk in action:

https://youtu.be/Kv3-3iPDQOo

The bed is about 2/3 stripped.  The floor is almost done, then I need to do the walls.  I will probably get the epoxy primer tomorrow at the local PPG store, and I need to ask them if they sell kind of metal prep stuff to treat any remaining rust that's lurking.  Normally I would use Klean Strip brand Phosphoric Prep & Etch, but maybe PPG has something that's guaranteed to work with their other products.

[ken4444]

The bed is 99% stripped.  I used a dual action sander and 80 grit sandpaper to do the sides and tailgate. I need to go back a steel wire wheel and hit a few select areas, but the bulk of the work is done:





The tailgate clearly had primer sprayed over rust.  I need to work harder to remove the rust.







Tomorrow I will try to hammer out a few dents and then hit the whole thing with phosphoric acid Prep and Etch (http://www.kleanstrip.com/product/phosphoric-prep-etch).  PPG makes a couple of similar products with phosphoric acid but I see reason to use theirs since I already have some of this stuff.

The steel panel to cover the gas tank arrived the other day, so I need to cut that to fit and figure out where the screw holes will go because it will need to be primed when I spray the bed.

The local PPG auto paint store was out of quarts of epoxy primer on Friday, but I should have it Monday.

This morning was Houston Coffee and Cars which is an informal gathering of any kind of car and truck you can think of.  Here's a video detailing some of what showed up today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9biLx5RZsYU

[ken4444]

Due to family things, I had almost no time to work on the truck today.  I got in maybe 25 minutes with the grinder and wire wheel to work on some rust spots on the bed but didn't make a lot of progress.

My truck has zero stereo equipment installed which makes it less enjoyable to drive. I ordered a Retrosound radio which I've never owned before. These radios are all modular:  The knob shafts, knobs, display, radio body, trim piece around the display, and brackets are all separate parts that have to be attached to the main body.  The idea is that you can both fit the thing into a given vehicle but also customize the look to a certain extent using the black or chrome knobs and trim pieces.

Here's the thing loosely assembled on my desk. The RJ-11 style wires from the knob shaft assemblies are not plugged into the main radio body:



Top view:



Rear wires:



The radio itself is supposed to be pretty fully featured, so we'll see.  As long as it can pick up AM/FM radio and play music from a phone or memory card, I'm happy. I also ordered Retrosound's 4x10 dual tweeter and dual voice coil dash speaker to put in the stock speaker location.  This essentially lets you run both the left and right channels to the thing. This speaker isn't ideal but I'm curious to hear it.  I will add an amplifier, active crossover, subwoofer, and maybe an EQ.  All of that except the sub came out of my 1992 C1500 before I sold it about 12 years ago, so it's real vintage equipment   The sub was out for the trash a few years ago down the block and it looks (on paper) to be a good performer, so I have to build a cabinet for it.

But, I gotta paint the bed first.

If the 4x10 speaker doesn't stand up to the task, I'll have to devise a plan B.

[ken4444]

I treated the bed with phosphoric acid for 30 minutes then rinsed it out:



The acid did not cause a huge reaction which probably means most of the rust was already gone. There was some foaming in isolated areas:





With the acid in place, there's not much visible difference:



This tailgate support clearly shows the purple paint of a former life:



The bed sheet metal piece has been here for a few days.  I measured for how it will fit and instantly realized that the corrugations go the wrong way. This means I'll have to cut two pieces and weld them together. No huge deal, luckily.  The other trick is that there are underlying supports before and behind the tank, and I don't want to drill screw holes into those, so I'll have to cut the panel big enough to reach past the supports.  Fortunately on the sides of the tank, I have plenty of room to work with.



Final problem:  The fuel pickup line sits above the bed floor by about 3/8".  Does anyone know if I can get a fitting that doesn't stick up as high?  I also have no idea what size this fitting is.   If I can't find a low profile fitting, I will have to make a raised area or some kind of cap to allow this fitting to clear.  Alternatively I could drop the gas tank down a half inch, but I'll have to see if that's even viable.



Maybe something like this?  Holy moly it's 60 bucks...

https://www.jegs.com/i/Aeroquip/023/FBM2263/10002/-1

[ken4444]

Here's another low profile 90* fitting but geeez, it's 74 bucks!

https://pitstopusa.com/i-23943706-xrp-adapter-fitting-90-degree-16-an-male-to-16-an-male-o-ring-ultra-low-profile-aluminum.html

[ken4444]

I sliced up the sheet metal to cover the gas tank.  Here's what I started with:



One piece:



The dang fuel line is very much in the way:



Two pieces, side by side, not yet connected together:



To try to make the fuel line a bit lower, I ordered this 90* "low profile" adapter from Summit:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ear-at934108erl

That one is female to female, so I had to get a male to male adapter:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ear-at934108erl

I'm not 100% sure this is going to be any lower, but we shall see.  I can lower the gas tank if I really need to.

I don't want to weld together the 2 sheet metal pieces until I can get them to lay flat so that I can get a good fit-up   I don't want to disconnect the fuel line and run the welder anywhere near the gas tank, so I'll have to wait for the parts to get here, and/or lower the tank.

I used a thread gauge on the gas tank fitting and it's 16 threads per inch, which should be an 8AN size. We'll see.



Finally, I picked up the epoxy and 2K primer today at the PPG store. I will paint on Thursday if all goes well.

[ken4444]

I woke up this morning and realized that doing this gas tank panel might not be the best design.  I think it would look much cleaner to make a panel that sits into the existing cutout. Yes, this would leave a slight gap around the perimeter, but I don't think that's horrible.  It has the benefit of not trapping water between 2 layers of sheet metal, like the original design would.  This new plan will require more work because I'll have to weld in tabs to support the metal panel from underneath the existing floor, but I can use pocket welds though the floor.  The only problem I can see is that the current cutout/hole goes very close to one of the support members underneath the bed, and I don't know if there's enough area to cleanly weld in a lip to hold the new panel.  Maybe I could do a series of tiny 1/8" holes and pocket weld though those.

[VileZambonie]

it would look better flush. Are you going to make it open with fasteners?

[ken4444]

it would look better flush. Are you going to make it open with fasteners?

I won't make it hinged or anything fancy, however I'm not going to weld it into place. I think it's super helpful to have an access panel over the gas tank.  Based on the work I have going on now, I will use short 1/4-20 screws to hold it in place.  I have ordered a good rubber bed mat that I will keep back there full time, so this will cover the access panel and give it and the screws some protection.

[ken4444]

I picked  up some 1/8" thick by 1.5" steel flat bar and pocket welded this underneath the lip of the gas tank opening. Here's one side:



Welds ground smooth:



The front and back edges have a layer of metal that will cause the new steel to sit slightly lower.  The sides don't have this problem. Here I am pointing to the metal in question:



Because I sliced  up the original new metal panel to fit a different design, I'm having to work with 2 pieces and weld them together. Here are the 2 panels test fitting:



Here are the 2 panels fit up for welding:



A few more welds. You can see one of the copper backing plates that I'm using to draw heat out of the steel. I have several of these and they're CPU heat sinks from old servers.



I'm letting the metal cool right now before I add any more tack welds.  Plus I'm welding this with .030 wire instead of .024 wire which would be ideal for metal this thin, so I feel like I'm pushing my luck.

Back to work...

[VileZambonie]

.030" is better for structural repair and high heat. What is the panel you are using from?

[ken4444]

I was originally going to use stainless steel sheet metal screws but after realizing they'd have to screw into 1/8" thick steel, I knew that was not going to work. So I drilled 13/64" holes and tapped them for 1/4-20 screws.  I found this combo drill/tap which was a huge time saver.  Tapping 12 holes would have taken an hour the old way.  I did use a separate drill bit to make the holes, instead of relying on the combo deal.



Here's the metal panel in place:



The big problem was the fuel line.  I lowered the tank but that only bought me about 1/4" of actual relief so that wasn't worth it.  In the end, I went low tech and I got out the body hammers and beat a bulge in the panel.

The panel looks OK.  It will be better after painting.  The new sheet metal isn't a good match for the original bed floor. The new stuff has much less sharp lines in the corrugations.  It basically lines up, but it's sloppy.  That's disappointing because how hard could that be to get right?

As usual what I thought would take half my day ended up taking all day. So no paint today.

[ken4444]

.030" is better for structural repair and high heat. What is the panel you are using from?

It's brand new from a place called "Raybuck Auto Body Parts". Here's the sticker that was on the panel. Unfortunately something is distorting the photo.

[ken4444]

So frustrated right now.

I got the trucked masked and the epoxy primer went on beautifully.  Everything was working right: The air system, gun, and painter (me).  I laid down 2 coats without any problems.

I went to spray the 2K primer and it all went to crap.

A brass air fitting crapped out and fell apart so I had to re-work the whole air line deal.  Keep in mind this is a totally ghetto air system.  I'm winging it here.  I get that going and then I start having problems with the gun spraying.  It's not getting air, or the air is inconsistent.   I'll get 100 PSI at the regulator, then nothing.  I fiddle with it and it comes and goes.  Then I notice the lights are out in the garage.  Get key to breaker box.  Open breaker box.  Breaker is tripped.  Reset it.  Do this 3 times before I realize the air compressor has seized up or something.  It's dead.  Primer wasted.











Here's the borrowed (from my uncle) air compressor.  I've had this thing like 3 years. I painted my Jeep with it.  It has filled my tires. It's been really useful.  Now it's dead.  He didn't want it back because he would have to, "make space in his garage".  It's barely enough for a job like this, but workable if you let it catch up and use a lot of in-line desiccant to dry the air.



At this point I'm tempted to go down to Maaco and see what they'll charge to spray the bed.

So frustrated.  At least the b---- didn't quit before the epoxy primer was done. Thank God for the small things.