1978 loadstar 1700 4x4 cab

[Hotflint]

This is turning out great! I love seeing this

[william.owen]

Well predictably I made a whole bunch more work for myself rushing to get the roof tacked together. Nothing quite like the feeling of knowing what you're doing isn't going to work, but going ahead with it anyway!


Rather than getting everything nice and straight first I figured (hoped) I would be able to do that after welding the roof together. Which didn't really work. I then proceeded to over stretch, then what I thought was over shrink, and then once again over stretch the poor old roof.


Once I came to my senses I was pretty mad at myself and put a blanket over the truck for a week. Ariana helped me today and yesterday afternoon to shrink down the egg of shame (no photos!) Then we wheeled it out ever so gently. She isn't too big and its a big and heavy panel to roll through, so quite an exercise. I am very proud of her and grateful for the help and patience with me!


Happy with where it's sitting for now. It will need some dollying in a few places before fit-up, but the shape is all there and it's tight. After pulling the roof off found a few patches that need rust repair so that will be the next project in between paying jobs (busy summer up here work-wise - lots to juggle, I have a bit more sanity knowing that I won't need to make a new roof from scratch though!)


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[bill m]

Looking good William! Nice save on the roof panel.
cheers
Bill

[Gojeep]

Had to grab the wife to help wheel a few times too.

[william.owen]

well it's been a long break from this truck! Stupid amount of work the last 5 months. Have not had much time for anything.

Back at er now!

Windows I found last august for the extension;

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Did a bunch of work for the girlfriends f150 in exchange for the wheel'n

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Still photos from last year;

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[william.owen]

a customer gave me this anvil

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Today an yesterdays work

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This piece was a farker to make. I ended up welding up the rest of the rust holes in the upper windshield support. I'm going to remove the inner skin once roof is on and check/paint the inside incase the rust is worse than appears.

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Now I'm onto fixing the rear panel and drip rail which some f#ker made a mess of with a 9" grinder! (I couldn't get this piece off without removing the roof first, which I did not want to do till I had more supports in)!

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The bead roller got some improvements

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And I got 2 new drip rails for the sides. First one bent all wrong way had to shrink it along the flange to get straight, roughly put the dog leg in for the extension. Second one turned out pretty nice. Always the way

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[william.owen]

fixed up my happy accidents on the rear panel

I also got a 180 amp mig torch, feeding .6mm wire a whole lot nicer than the 300amp torch I was trying to push it through last year. I was constantly pulling out birds nests!

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In my infinite genius I decided to purchase 2x bicycle hanger contraptions for $15/ea to hang the roof from the roof, nice idea but didn't work so well. I dropped the roof when I was hoisting it up last year, putting a decent dent in the rear corner.
I was happy to bring the roof down, but also nervous, as I was doubting the job I did getting it all straight and looking good.

Thankfully past Will did future Will a favor. The roof does look ok.

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The back part where the flange mounts onto the drip rail sits up 1/2" or so off the bench, but when the middle above the door pillar is pulled out to fit the cab it drops down.

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Confirming that the roof fits, I found myself at a loss where to go next. As a last resort I came up with a plan

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As the plan/list stipulates, first thing on the agenda was to remove the rear panel. I finished welding up the inside panels, and fixed the rust on the lower rear skin supports. Then some wire wheeln and finally spray bombed in rust converter. Tomorrow I have a scrap magnet to put back together, then I will get cracking on the rear skin.

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[123pugsy]

Looking good Will.

Thanks for the updates.

[Kerry Pinkerton]

Impressive result. You're not building a show car and this is going to be a good (and good looking) serviceable work truck for another 20 years.

[william.owen]

Thank-you, Kerry.

Onto the back panel. The main reason for not fixing the rust yet is I want to have everything in place before cutting anything that isn't necessary to cut for the extension. This may come back to bite me because any distortion down the road may upset the delicate ecosystem that is my "body work". Time will tell.

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10 minutes later we have a respectable panel

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Only rust starting on the outside is at the lower portion of the rear window. Not bad. The rest of the rust is from the inside from leaking lights that were mounting on the roof.

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The fume extractor salvaged from the scrapyard helps a lot with stuff like this. Torit means elephant in French!