Update time!
Front doors off and dash out first.
Side windows out.
Weapons of choice!
With the B and C pillars carefully cut along the roof gutter, and then into the seems at a 45 degree angle, We could roughly cut through the A pillars.
And the roofs off!
Needed to trim the front next.
I've seen a fair few 70's now rust along the bottom of the screens.
I had intended to sort my rust out at some point, but hadnt intended doing it this way!
All the rust is around drain holes, so I suspect the holes get clogged up with crap and the water cant escape.
Needed to trim the stumps back next.
The front panel took a bit of careful cutting because its double thickness and we wanted to cut the inner and outer sections in different places.
Scrap pile was mounting up.
Got the new roof out and onto the tresels ready for trimming.
Looks like an OK paint job on the pic below.
Look a bit closer and its patchy with loads of runs!
Not too bothered as I want to give the whole truck a coat of paint at some point.
I found having the truck in this state slightly over whelming. kind of like shit what the hell am I doing?
Anyway........................back to the build.
We flipped the roof over to trim the inner section below the screen.
(Used the prayer mat to protect the fresh paint from damage.)
Hopefully it wont look like this ever again!
The roof section was quite heavy and awkward but we managed to carefully lift it on.
Needed a bit more trimming.
We clamped the A pillar in place and started trimming the joints, scribing the 2 pieces of metal together.
We clamped the bottom of the other A pillar in place, so now both A pillars were clamped and ratchet strapped in place.
It was then that we realised that the roof was twisted to all the pillars, and at the back was 65mm out.
After much looking and thinking we came to the conclusion that the bulk head must be bent/twisted.
We checked the floor pan, sills, and body mounts for any signs of distortion or twisting but couldnt see anything.
At this point I honestly thought is this the end of the road for my 70.
After a phone call to my mate who has experience of repairing car bodies, we carried on.
We were both very sceptical about whether we would be able to sort out the issue we had.
The main issue we had was to twist/pull the rear of the roof over so that it lined up with the tops of all the pillars took a lot of force and we were worried it was twisting the windscreen surround.
So we carried on cutting, clamping and ratchet strapping the body into shape.
(The tarp also made an appearance due to the great British weather.)
The joints were slowly closing up nicely as we trimmed and clamped everything.
The way we chose to join the front below the windscreen turned out perfect.
More trimming.
I bloody love ratchet straps! So useful and versatile, they worked particularly well in this instant.
So the joints.........................
They all turned out great apart from 2. But 2 bad ones out of 12 isnt bad.
First bad one.
Not a huge problem. I will plate over it and then the plastic trim will cover it over.
Second bad one.
Bit more tweaking with the ratchet straps and panel beating.
And we were ready to tack weld everything.
So this is the welder I've borrowed off my mate. Unfortunately he didnt have any gas for it.
Now if I was staying in the UK id have taken out bottle rental with BOC or Air Products. But as im leaving very soon I decided not to do this.
So I've decided to use little bottles. They are £10 each and I cant see me using more than 2 or 3.
So my mate went round cleaning the areas where we wanted to weld and I followed behind tacking everything.
With everything tack welded we could remove the clamps and ratchet straps.
We did this carefully one by one and watched for any movement.
We were then able to see how the rear doors closed.
Very happy by this point, gaps looked good and the doors closed and the latches engaged perfectly!
But also quite worried about whether to front doors would fit and close properly, and also the windscreen and whether that would fit properly.
Passenger door next.
Also worked perfectly.
Followed by the drivers side.
So by this point I was pretty stoked that all the doors were fitting so nicely. But I was a bit worried about whether the screen would fit Ok.
Fitted great!!!
So nice not to be looking through perspex anymore.
Very pleased with how the panel cuts have worked out below the windscreen.
My perfect paintwork.
With day light fading fast we had a tidy up and got all the tools away.
So as you can imagine I'm very happy and relieved that today has gone so well!
Once its all done and with all the doors closed there wont be any visible signs that the truck has had a new roof!
With the doors open their might be a few signs of welds, but I will grind down my welds and fill and paint them so they might not be visible at all.
Huge thanks to my mate for his help. Couldn't have done it with out you dude.
Tomorrow I will fully weld everything and then start rebuilding.
Got one last laning trip planned for a few weeks time, around my beloved Shropshire lanes with my mates!
Less than a month now till my insurance runs out which wont be getting renewed.
