Spectacular work...and a lot of it! I bet most don't realize actually how much goes into a project like this. Time, determination and Skills....gotta have those .

Thanks for posting...very cool.

 

I'm envious of the skills. But I probably wouldn't put in the work to save the vehicle even if I had the skills. Not when it's easy to buy another at least where I live with no rust.

 

If you study the details on the last picture, you can see that I forgot to fix the inside reinforcement with the two nuts for the door catch. I'll have to jerry-rig something here, possibly an outside doubling plate and fix the nuts on the backside of it...

 

The work continues. Captain's side fender yesterday:

 

So... I thought one rear door was fine. Yah. No. Absolutely not. Someone fixed it before me. Didn't last.

Well. More steel and more welding, then...

 

Cutting and forming new panels. Zinc spray for the inside, now that can cure until tomorrow and I'll weld it in place...

 

Sills done, now the bed

 

Starting on the bed, Contemplating how much to do, but since rust-free beds are NOT available in Norway I’ll have to do a bit.

Will fix these corners, replace the front support, maybe just the outer ends of the middle supports, the whole length of both sides where the bed bottom meets the inner fenders, some of the internals inside the rear corners (structural support) and all four bottoms in front and back of the wheels, here the previous owner probably did a redneck repair to make it look nice on pictures: cardboard inside, gobs of bondo and rattle-can silver spray paint…

By the way, I never overlay plate on top of old material, I always make a clean cut and MIG weld (or spot weld on facing edges).

Oh well, back to work.

 

Lol, you oughtta start a used truck importing business...I know a guy here who ships used vehicles to Africa and he makes a killing. You could start by importing a clean bed for yourself. If you do the legwork on shipping, I'd be happy to pull one from the junkyard, lol.

 

Your work is way better than most bodyshops in the US I've seen.
The bondo and rattle can was done at some chickenshlt dealer .

Good luck, and thanks for keeping us up to date. I enjoy your posts.