It's been a couple of weeks since my last update. During that time I've been hard at it, welding up a storm. It's been an interesting experience. The weather turned colder here and the garage temps dropped below 50 degrees. That definitely had an impact on the penetration of my welds. To deal with the issue I did a couple of things. First, I moved a small space heater into the cab of the truck to warm the metal up. It's not hot, but certainly warmer than 50 degrees. Additionally, I increased the power setting from "low" to "high" and increased the wire feed slightly. All combined, I think the problem was solved.
As you may recall, I decided to use epoxy to bond the remnants of the original floor pan to the new pan and keep the replacement part whole. I had a few fit issues when I went to bond the two panels together. I'm not sure what went wrong. My only guess is the space that the epoxy took up, but that's only a guess. The fitment issues were not bad enough to cause major problems, just more of an inconvenience for me to work around. In the first pic, you can see that I've been welding the seam between the new panel and the old panels, making a series of weld dots, until it is almost a complete weld across the entire seam. Additionally, I've been removing the sheet metal screws, drilling out the top panel to simulate a drilled out spot weld and making a plug weld, while filling the sheet metal screw hole. I'm not 100% done, yet, but over the hump. It's been a ton of work. The other day, I decided to climb into the cab and test my work by placing my body weight onto the new floor. I sat on the seat riser and there was one pop from a weld breaking. I was quickly able to figure out which dot broke and fixed it. Definitely not a lengthy test, but it made me feel better about my welds. The good welds produce a sharp tone when lightly struck with my slag hammer. The bad welds produce a dull thud. The dull thuds get redone until a sharp, crisp tone is produced. The sound and how the penetration looks on the back side are my factors in accepting the weld dots or redoing them.
In the second pic you can see the outside of the inner cowl (being test fit) and the inner to outer cowl piece being test fit. What a poorly made piece the inner to outer cowl piece is! To deal with the poorly shaped piece, I'm thinking that I will cut out two pie shaped sections in the sides. One will be near the top where the arc begins and the second will be further down with the exact location tbd. The thought is that I'll be able to correct the bend in the back piece to match the arc on the outer cowl. Once the arc is correct, I'll make patches to fit in the pie shapes that I cut out. Kinda hard to describe and it will be easier when pics are attached. However, before I go there, I need to fix the hinge reinforcement part while I have access from both inside and outside of the cab. Then I'll address the bottom of the hinge pillar. Then onto final fitment of the inner cowl piece. Then the inner to outer cowl piece. Oy!
A ton of work still to go, but a ton behind me. Definite progress being made, but I grossly over estimated the speed at which I would be able to work. Meh, that's life. Onwards and upwards! As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.
