1966 F100 Short Bed Styleside Metal/Body/Paint Work

I'm doing final alignment now. I bought some seals, they aren't rare or expensive for a 65 Mustang, but I wasn't sure what to put them on with as I will be taking them off for paint, whether I put the same ones back on or new ones.

I just wanted to confirm that dekaseal is good for this and is relatively easy to get back off for the paint process? And potentially may allow reusing the seals?
 
It would have been beneficial to have seen your thread earlier, but it’s definitely inspiring and helpful..even though it has shown me deficiencies in my skill set.
Outstanding work
Thanks!

Beautiful work! Early in my project I decided to invest in 2 sets of door seals. Too hard to keep the "alignment set" pristine.
So 1 set got trashed during alignment and then put the new set on during final assembly.
I'm hoping I can use wide tape to protect these during bodywork then reuse them for identical pressure against the door for final assembly, but that's going to be a stretch that they'll survive.

I'm doing final alignment now. I bought some seals, they aren't rare or expensive for a 65 Mustang, but I wasn't sure what to put them on with as I will be taking them off for paint, whether I put the same ones back on or new ones.

I just wanted to confirm that dekaseal is good for this and is relatively easy to get back off for the paint process? And potentially may allow reusing the seals?
It seems to be a good product for this so far. I was able to pull a couple of areas back without tearing the seal when I welded the lower skin on. A heat gun would probably make the seals come off easier. I was surprised at how well they were stuck on, it may be a good product for final assembly as well.
 
Building the lower door skins. I started by making templates of the cab corner and fender bottom so I can match the skin to the adjacent panels.

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The inner door flange was marked and trim to make room for the outer skin.

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Skin shaped on the english wheel using an inner tube on the upper wheel to make the top to bottom curve without adding any crown front to rear. I did make a few passes without the inner tube to add a slight amount of front to rear crown to match the shape above the patch.

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Lower edge bent in the brake as far as possible.

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Using a slapper to take it from this angle to nearly flat.

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Pullmax with delrin dies leftover from the fender top, with a strip of 1/16" thick metal as a spacer so the flange isn't fully flattened. This leaves enough room for the skin to slide over the inner flange but leaves minimal hammer/dolly work to make the hem snug on the flange. Also minimizes the change of stretching the flange when hammer/dollying the hemmed flange flat.

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Test fit at the correct height to match the fender bottom and cab corner.

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Scribing the fold lines using a tool that references the fender edge for a consistent gap.

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Establishing the fold on the bead roller.

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Test fit. The door needs to be adjusted back a hair to even out the gaps front and rear.

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Overlapping the blacked out original skin to scribe the cut line.

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After cutting, zero gap except a slight amount at the outer edges for tweaking the flushness with a thin pry tool- no rear access due to the inner flange.

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To weld the skin on, I started with a few tacks. I used a piece of aluminum c-channel to show the low spots that are created when welds shrink, since it flexes in an even arc. Each weld was planished/stretched via hammer on dolly stretching until the arc returned. In the spots I over-stretched and made a high spot, the next round of weld dots would shrink the high spot back into shape. I've mentioned hammer on dolly stretching to reverse weld shrinkage before, but showing it with c-channel gives a clear visual on what's going on.


The low spots before planishing.

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No low spot in between the welds.

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After planishing the first and second rounds of weld dots- the arc is restored.

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This one was over-planished which made a high spot. Welding directly beside it shrunk it down to the correct arc again. Welding directly beside another weld dot lets the previous weld act as a heat sink so the HAZ isn't quite as big for less overall shrinkage. I can keep the HAZ down to about 3/8" wide using this method.

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Thin pry tool used to align the flushness of both panels.

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Flange detail.

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After way more weld dots and a lot of hammer/dolly work I had the overall shape pretty well where I wanted it. I used the shrinking disk to pull down the high spots along the seam, and there was a high spot from top to bottom about 6" inward of the front edge which gave the door too much crown front to rear and made the front of the door dive in at the fender edge.

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Cleaning the fingerprint rust off with a wire brush before DA sanding the skin.

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Wiped down with mineral spirits to check the reflection. Not perfect, nowhere near metalfinished but should be good enough to be skim coated. I'll still probably need to do some final tweaking to the overall contour to get an even arc across the fender and door once it's reassembled.

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Do you have a part number for that tool you used on the panel gaps up thread? The one with the little scratch pin?
I have not seen that style before.
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.
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Looks like the OP is starting to get the hang of it. Should only be a matter of time before he puts out some quality work.

Your efforts have not gone un-noticed.

With that being said :).......... I've picked up some more critical information from you with regards to highs and lows, and when to use a spot weld to shrink a high.

Out of curiosity, do you have a spot weld function on your mig welder? Your spot welds are the cleanest, well proportioned, low crown spot welds I've ever seen.

As always, impressive craftsmanship.
 
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Very nice quality work!
Thanks!


Do you have a part number for that tool you used on the panel gaps up thread? The one with the little scratch pin?
I have not seen that style before.
.
.
.
I don't, I won it as a door prize at a metalshaping event but it was made by Ben van Berlo, I didn't see a website of his but his Instagram account is here-




Looks like the OP is starting to get the hang of it. Should only be a matter of time before he puts out some quality work.

Your efforts have not gone un-noticed.

With that being said :).......... I've picked up some more critical information from you with regards to highs and lows, and when to use a spot weld to shrink a high.

Out of curiosity, do you have a spot weld function on your mig welder? Your spot welds are the cleanest, well proportioned, low crown spot welds I've ever seen.

As always, impressive craftsmanship.
Thanks, glad the posts are useful!

I just have a regular Miller Millermatic 130 turned up to 3 out of 4 on the heat range and 75-80 on the feed range with .024 ER70S-6 wire. On the chart inside the welder those settings are closest to what is recommended for 1/8" steel.
 
Thank you,

.....and thank you once again for sharing your knowledge. Speaking for myself, it doesn't fall on deaf ears. It gives me something to learn, and so far in many cases, has been used with success. Of course their is a learning curve to over come (this is the talent part that's acquired thru practice, practice practice ) with a particular tasks.

As always, enjoy your updates.
 
The inside of all the panels were shot with undercoating so I scraped all of it off to prep for blasting.

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After:

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The two center floor braces were bent so I used our tubing roller to straighten them.

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They were also dented around the mounting bolt holes.

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The truck was stripped and repainted at some time. The paint strips easily and quickly with a razor blade leaving a thin coat of primer and some spots of filler. I'll strip the primer/filler with a DA sander to avoid blasting and warping the bed sides.

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I test fit the front header and cross brace, the filler panels I made, and the center braces.

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Also cut out the rust that was on the flange that the bed floor spot welds to and welded in new metal.

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It’s Andrew. Thanks for sharing your thread with me on the restoration 101 Facebook group. Lots of information here and in all of the other build threads. I gather that you use SPI epoxy haha.

Curious about what you use for blasting? Do you have a big setup with a big compressor? I am setting up a garage for myself after having retired so want to make sure I start off on the right foot. Thanks.
 
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