Cab Restoration
Ok, as mentioned, you will notice in my pictures if you read the earlier tutorial that the cab I am meticulously rebuilding is, in fact, a 2WD cab and I am converting it to a 4x4 cab. If you are unaware of the difference, it is that the 4x4 cab has a larger hump in the middle to clear the transfer case and also a hole for the additional shifter and boot assembly to attach. My old cab that was entirely rusted out and in brutal shape WAS a 4x4 cab.
After walking back and forth staring at the two cabs, I realized that the only difference was the area in the middle of the cab. See the image below:
The only area that is different is the rectangular area inside the ridge that the black arrow above is pointing to at the very tip. If you look at the ridge as it runs up to the front of the cab (by the transmission hump) and down about 12 inches from the tip of the black arrow, you will get an idea of how small of a change is required. So, I walked over to my old cab, and using an air-powered cut-off saw, I cut out the entire area contained in the red box above. On a 4x4 cab, you can actually remove the "cap" from over the transfer case to allow you to service it and unbolt it. I wanted not just the cap, but I also wante the part of the old cab floor that had the holes and threaded nuts welded so that the cap could bolt easily to it. Therefore, I didn't just cheap out and take the cap and weld it onto the new cab, I cut out the entire area around the hole as well.
I then went to the cab above and cut out the exact same area. In order to do this. I put the part from the old cab down on the floor of the new cab and outlined it with a felt pen. I then used the cut-off-saw and painstakingly cut out the precise space. Once it was all cut out (sorry I forgot to take a break and take a photo) I welded in the piece from the old cab. The image below is of the cab bottom after the new metal has been welding it. You will note you can see right through it because the service panel "cap" that I mentioned above is removed and being cleaned up as it looked shitty. Also, you will think the part I welded in looks crappy and dirty and nasty and you are right. However, the metal is completely solid and it is nothing that my sand blaster, a head-band, and some attitude cannot fix in about an hour (that will come at the end of this tutorial).
Here is the section that was cut out of the new cab. This is the 2WD "hump:"
Here is the a shot from after I have "grafted" the floor piece from the old cab into the newer cab, ground down all the welds, and put some fibreglass body filler over any low points to make it uniform. I have not yet ground and sanded the filler in this photo:
Same shot but this time from the inside. Notice in the picture above as well as the picture below that ou can see the bolt holes in and around the hole. This is where the 4x4 service panel bolts to. After this was done I measured up how I did and I was 2 mm off of the original position of the 4x4 hump position. That seems good enough for me...
My next move is going to be to sand down all the putty and connect the bottom section (left side of new material in image above) to the floor. There is currently a 3 inch gap. I will have to fabricate a bit more metal on the end to seal up the new panel. This is easy enough at this stage. I take a piece of card board and cut it to fit just as I want it. Then I trace the shape onto some sheet steel and cut it out with a zippy-cut disk (grinder). I placed in in there and started to weld it one side at a time after tacking it in. Then I pounded it with a hammer to fit, cut it, grinded it, and ultimately it fit well. I then welded up the seams as the image below shows:
You will notice at this stage I have grinded down the short strand fibreglass filler. It doesn't look smooth in the picture, but it is when felt in person. You can see the fully fabricated hump at this point. It is time to grind down the welds a bit more completely, put an edge to them so it looks stamped, and primer this bugger. Here is a close up shot of the newly fabricated piece and attendent welds:
Doesn't look pretty eh? Just wait until we grind this thing down a bit. It took about another 30 minutes of grinding to get the top bead looking nice. I then hit it with some epoxy primer once everything else was ground down a lot more. You will note that I didn't grind the bottom weld (in the picture above) because I really don't care (and besides, taking the weld surface down reduces strength). After splashing it with primer, here are a few photos:
And another, zoomed out:
It looks not bad, I guess. I don't have much experience welding so those bottom welds ain't that shit hot on sheet metal, but it has complete penetration and is likely stronger than the metal around it. Now it is time to clean up the "cap" for the 4x4 hump and bolt that think back in place. I didn't really measure up how far back the 4x4 hump comes in a stock application, so I hope that I have raised up the 2wd hump enough. If not.... oh well.... I am starting to get the hang of this metal fabrication crap so I think I might be ok yet.