How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[Jordan Baker]

I have also finaly started in on the restoration of the roof. This one has suffered from the normal rust/rot areas along the rear lower bead, window frame and above the door frame/rain gutter areas. There was also substantial rusting along the front main frame piece. However the actual roof sheet metal was in pretty good shape. It just has a few holes that will need filling and one small spot that will need a patch.

So far I have just begun removing the bad areas. The previous owner had cut out the rear window and replace it with a solid panel. This will be getting an entier new panel put in with the upper and lower bead applied.

Lastly I have begun to modify a 6' long 2"x2" 1/8" thick angle iron piece for the front support. The original on mine was flat plate bent in a brake. By the time I am done my new piece will look the same.

[Jordan Baker]

To remove the front support I first thought about trying to use a zip disk and going inbetween the sheet metal and the support. The figured it would be easier and quicker to use the air hammer with a chisel fitting. This worked really well for cutting through the spot welds. I will just have to hammer the front edge back to flat. Im thinking that if I drilled out the original spot weld holes to clean them up I can simply reuse them for welding the sheet back to the support.

[Jordan Baker]

Finished making the front roof support today. The original was 1/8" plate bent. For mine I used angle iron and just rounded off the outside corner to make it look like it had been formed from bent plate. This will be a much better piece then what was left of the original part.

[Jordan Baker]

Work today involved cutting out the upright cab roof frame on the passenger side. It had been badly rusted through in a couple of spots. A new piece was made up from 1/8" angle iron and was welded in.

[Jordan Baker]

The past 4 days I managed to finish up the majority of the metalwork on my roof. I welded in a few large patches in the sheet metal skin where the cab bracing goes. After reading a lot on line and looking at pictures I managed to get a decent result from butt welding the patch in. I still had some issues with porosity but overall it was a very strong weld. When I removed the remains of the rear wall, in spots, the upper skin was torn away. I went back and cut out the bad sections with a zip disk and then welded in small patches. I found using a copper paddle tightly clamped behind the patch provided a strong backing and heat sink to keep the weld from blowing through. I also found that be cutting the wire tip each time and wire brushing I got a lot less porosity. It took me quite a few hours to weld in about 6 small patches but the end result is almost invisible. Any seams still showing on the inside will be covered up when the rear wall skin is welded in.

[Jordan Baker]

Once that was all done I took the roof and some other parts off to the sandblaster. Picked them up the next day and had to do some minor work on filling in a bunch of pinholes. I decided to try using JB Weld. Everything worked well except for taking a very long time to cure. I did find that by setting up a heater nearby it cured much faster. I think next time I will use the JB Quickweld. After this was done the usual POR15 steps were taken and then I began to spray the POR15 only to get one coat applied on the inside and I ran out. 6pm on a Sunday means the rest of the paint job will to wait until I can get another quart of paint.

[Jordan Baker]

Lastly I started fitting the fenders. The passenger side had taken a bit of abuse at some point in its life. I ended up bashing it somewhat back into shape with a carrier wheel as the hitting force. I dont want to but I may have to do some minor cutting and welding as when I re-curved the fender the rolled edge pushed out in a spot.