Question about welding for the body guys..

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crazy4offroad

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It's a shame you're not closer, a buddy of mine has a Chevy car hauler and a rust-free squarebody cab for sale for $1500. Actually he has 2 car haulers for sale, both for $1500, just one comes with the cab. He has to sell them for health reasons.
 

Christian Nelson

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By the time you invest in all the replacement panels and time that is going to be needed to fix that cab you will be close to the prices of a replacement cab. Plus if you think the cab is already tweaked then that is one more reason to look for a replacement. If it is tweaked then none of your body panels will ever fit correctly.

I can understand about not wanting to buy a cab with no title. That is just a bad situation all round. My luck would be that I would finish the truck and the next day the local LEO would show up, impound the truck and haul my ass to jail.

Don't just look for a cab you can look for a complete truck or one without the drive train with a good cab and then sell the rest of the parts and make your money back and maybe make some extra cash to put back in the truck.

PS You can keep the snow.

That's just it, I have the supports already, the floor pans, and even the door sills. Got them form LMC truck years ago, they are just sitting in the truck waiting for me to get around to working on it. Doors still open and close, so the tweaking isn't too bad as far as that is concerned. Buying another truck for me is just not in the cards, no money, none. My budget for working on this is about $50 now. Which I figured would go into body adhesive, and bedliner paint. I have rust bullet stuff I got years ago, never opened it. All I have is time, and not much of that either, and nothing to lose, if it ends up scrap metal when I am done, well I am out a few hours, and it is pretty much scrap metal right now anyways. I agree about the LEO, which is why I don't wanna buy a cab. Most of the decent cabs around here are brought up from down south, and no title with them. Buying pretty much any truck here is only going to be marginally better, I have 3 squares in my family, and all of them are rusted out like this, the other two the cab supports arent' physically broken like these are though. Any truck around here that is for sale, and they don't want like 5 grand for is in the same shape. They salt the crap out of the roads, and these old trucks just get eaten I've seen fewer and fewer old squares around, it isn't getting any better. I've thought about just buying a truck from the south, and driving up here in it, but I'd probably have to save up about 2 grand to do that, and have $$ in case it breaks down or something. Some day maybe, but not any time soon.

It's a shame you're not closer, a buddy of mine has a Chevy car hauler and a rust-free squarebody cab for sale for $1500. Actually he has 2 car haulers for sale, both for $1500, just one comes with the cab. He has to sell them for health reasons.

Sounds like a good deal, but again, I paid $700 for this truck back 10 years ago. Married, and 3 kids, 2 refinances on the house, having to jack up the whole house, and put a basement under it because my foundation was collapsed and home insurance threatened to stop coverage, jeapordizing my mortgage, possibly losing my house costing me many thousands and hours of work to get to where they were happy with it again later, and I just don't have any $$

I finally had just a few hours of time to work on it, and now, 2 feet of snow dumped on us.. I spent all day Monday plowing my parents driveway, my sister in law's driveway (and most of the road leading to it, since the county didn't plow her road at all) my parent-inlaw's drive way, and then finally my own, The drifts have buried my truck now, so I probably won't be getting back to this project til spring.

In the meantime, I have plenty to do, I have a 727 torquflight I am rebuilding for a friend, and an old shovelhead harley that decided to drop a lifter, wiping out the cam, and possibly more to sort out, and a 4 wheeler that my cousin bought that the piston hit the valve he'd like me to fix..

Not trying to whine, but it's all I can do to keep from scrapping this truck, and just doing without, but I keep feeling like if I can just spend some time on it, even if I am just pop riveting it together, if it will hold together, I can use it as a truck! I have a plow for it, I just need to get it going! Time $$.. Don't have either of it right now. But I am so far committed that I just can't let go yet.
 

kstanbach

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I would, first, invest in a sandblaster. Yes you can install the cab supports without removing the cab.
 

FRANKENTRUCK

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It would not surprise me if you could find an old broken down truck with a title that someone just wants out of their yard for that $50-$200. You could use the cab and sell the rest for scrap. I was considering replacing my cab due to the rust on the cab corners and the lower windshield corners too. But my floor has NO rust whatsoever, so I decided to stick it out and repair like you have done. You have my sympathy with the home insurance thieves too. My house that I had for 7 years had hidden water damage behind the walls which they refused to cover because it was "pre-existing".
 

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