68 Mini Pickup Project

[94touring]

Harbor Freight man!  30" on sale for $50.  There's no way I could fab up a bed patch that matches or the couple sections of x-brace I need without it. Beats spending $200 on a new x-brace and I think $500 for bed panels, not to mention the labor involved tearing it all up and putting it back in, then hoping you don't distort the truck.  There are going to be a handful of other applications in the rear that it will come in handy, as well as making new brackets for the inner A-panels unless they come with new ones. 

[94touring]

I'd say this is 95% acurate.  Not half bad, everything lined up real nice.   

[joltfreak]

Looks awesome!!!

[94touring]

Well my auto darkening welding helmet decided to stop auto darkening, so gotta get a new one before I continue patching that right side of the bed and wheel well.  Took apart a seat to prep for recovering.  I've been tossing ideas back and forth over interior and think I'm going to go with stone beige seats w/ black piping, stone beige door cards, burr dash and steering wheel, black upper and lower dash, black carpet.  Color scheme for the body is still volcano and white/stone beige roof.  At least thats the plan as of this week.   

[94touring]

Placed a good sized order from minisport today.  Floors and various other panels and items are on the way.  Spent so much I even got a free IPOD  4.gif 

[94touring]

Working around the rear valance and lip from the bed.  It was badly rusted and the last person to replace the valance had huge nasty welds.  So it was time to use the metal brake again...

[94touring]

And done cleaning up the lines.  Huge improvement over the sloppy weld job and rusted lip.     

[94touring]

Just got word a huge box full of panels arrived.  Won't be home till next week and then limited time to work on it till I ship off again. 

[94touring]

All sorts of cool stuff to play with.   4.gif

[MEhinger]

I am watching this project carefully. I am in the middle of a similar challenge.

[94touring]

Oh wow, very comparable floors!  What are your plans for that rear load area and cross member? 

I'll be trying to do a little here and there on my truck over the next month.  I have tons of studying in preperation for work so can't get too carried away or involved with it.  I started fiddling with getting the inner and outer A-panels lined up to see what I need to do.  I may go ahead and try to finish what I started on the rear valence before doing the Apanels. 

[94touring]

Got the right A-panel and scuttle welded into place.  Fitted the inner A-panel but doing some patch work before I can weld it into place.  So far so good, all the holes align, and wing fits up against things flush too.  Pictures to follow once I get the inner A-panel on. 

[MEhinger]

Dan,

I had the good fortune of living in Europe a while so I bought nnew bed floors for my van and pickup while I was there. And then shipped them back with my furniture. Here is the van floor with a picture of it tacked in place. I have new wheel arches floor pans like yours and the rear (is it heel?) panel. I got off on my son's car before I got all the pieces installed. When I was cross measureing for alignment I was abot 3/8" off and I haven't gone back to finally fit and tack everything. Wish you were closer so I could drop by and see your progress.

[94touring]

Alright finished up some patch work where the inner A-panel butts up against.  Couple pictures showing how things line up.  Threw some bolts through the A-panels to show they line up as well.  Before I weld on the wing I need to clean up behind it and throw on some primer.  Not only did I paint between the A-panels but I sprayed them heavily with grease, figured it wouldn't hurt for rust protection. 

   

[94touring]

Patching and prepping. 







I've been using a high temp paint under where the spot welds are going to help prevent fires and give rust protection.  Seems to work.

[94touring]

Wing on and happy with the lines.  

[MEhinger]

I'm confused Dan. You said and it looked like you painted the surfaces where you are welding. I thoght they had to be clean or done with  weld through primer. And if I understand the timing of the posts, it doesn't look like it had been painted in the pics I think are after the welding. But really nice job anyway. I do oxy acetelene really well but I need your (and Cranium's) mig skills. I'll be practicisng soon on my van. And I've got a couple variations on spot welders to try.

[94touring]

What I did here was primer/high temp paint and then weld.  However I don't have a spot welder, so I clamp things down, drill holes, and then weld in the holes.  That gives me a spot to weld without the paint interferring and allows me to have paint between and behind any welded surfaces.  If you look closely you can see a dozen or more spot welds along that wing in the gutter.  In my mind I feel better knowing behind some areas that I'm welding (under the scuttle and splash panel below it for example) the paint isn't burning away leaving metal exposed to moisture after the welding process.  Its pretty much impossible to paint them once they're welded.  Just think how many bubbled up scuttles you've seen.  Both sides I cut off were only primered with surface rust present.  Same goes for part of the floor x-member.  I actually cut a couple sections from it to recylce metal for patches and no paint from the factory, just mild surface rust to rot in areas.  I'm spraying grease on as many hidden areas as I go along also as another rust preventative.  Guess I could use waxoil, but works just as well.

By the way you're lucky to have a whole load floor for you van!  Looks like a PITA to get installed true though.  Regarding welders, I use a cheapo harbor freight mig.  Not the prettiest but gets the job done.  Figure the majority of things you're welding you end up grinding down and prepping anyways.  For sheet metal its more than enough.  Anything real thin and its a struggle to not burn holes on the low setting.        

[94touring]

This afternoons work.  Have a lot of cleaning yet to do on the inner wing but got things test fitted to make sure I can proceed.  Everything looks the way it should.    

[94touring]

Started tinkering with the rear subby.  At first I took a wire wheel to it but realized it was going to take more effort than I wanted to put into it to take the rust off.  So let the electrolysis begin.  Made a tub from some rubber mat I had laying around, took some rebar and welded it into a square, placed it in the baking soda water, hooked up the battery charger and I'll let it sit for a day or two doing its thing.  For those of you unfamliar with this, the bubbles are a result of the electrolysis eating away the rust.  After its done it will have black oxide on there and I can easily wire brush it off and paint. 

[94touring]

Ok here's about 18 hours worth of sitting.  I still need to flip it over and do the other side and position my positive charged bar near some outer areas to finish it off, but the results are very pleasing.  Tons of scale brushed off with zero effort.  I hosed it down and more fell off, in fact some paint came off too exposing the shiney metal you see in the photos.  Gotta remove the suspension obviously and a go over once with the wire wheel to remove any oxide it will be ready for paint.   

 

[94touring]

Another day of sitting in the brew.  As you can see tons of crap is washing off.   

[94touring]

Done with the electrolysis and time to hit it with a wire wheel on the drill to clean it up.  Spraying some primer as I go to keep it protected for now.  Doesn't take long for the surface rust to show its face after sitting in water.  I have a rather large pile of rust and undercoat that I swept up after this project. 

   

[MEhinger]

I've not heard of this process. This is really slick. Tell us more!!!!!! The brew make-up, electrode placement, etc. I have a whitch's hat and wooden paddle I can use while the process works. Does it require a pinch of eye of newt? I'll keep it away from my broomstick parking area.

[94touring]

Lol  :D  No pinches of newts required.  The best part about this method of rust removal is its cheap and easy.  You'll need water, baking or washing soda (sodium carbonate), metal rod or rods, and battery charger or chargers.  There is probably a specific ratio of sodium carbonate to water, but for this project I just dumped enough in till the water was white in color.  Attach black ground to rusty metal and red positive to the metal rod or rods of choice.  If I wasn't lazy I probably would have bought a plastic tub to completely submerge the subby in and used a couple chargers with my rebar designed around all edges a little more effiecently.  You let it sit for a good 24-48 hours doing its thing.  I flipped it a couple times and moved the rebar to the edges a few times to do its magic.  It also loosened up all the random undercoat which to me is a miracle.  After its said and done there will be black oxide present which will need to be wire wheel/brushed off down to bare metal.  This method comes in handy for at least 2 scenerios...first if the part is rusty so bad that its just going to take forever to use the wire wheel and can save you time and hassle and two if your rusty parts don't fit in your sandblast cabinet if you have access to one.  I have a blast cabinet which I'll use the small parts on but for this subby the electrolysis really saved me a lot of physical work.  Rather than spending 2 or 3 days of removing the rust with my drill I just let it sit in the water and then spend a couple hours cleaning it off and painting it.