The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop '53 roof replacement?

I've been working on a rust bucket '53 for a long time. The original cab was total junk. I found a nearly rust free cab from out west as a replacement. I am pretty sure it was on a grain truck, and they must have stood on the roof. There are many many dents in the roof. I am not skilled enough to remove them, and I'm not confident that our local body shops could either. I think they would pound it out close, and skim it, but the roof will already pop in and out, I think it is stretched and would need shrunk to be right again. I'm considering a replacement skin. I'm pretty comfortable with a cab corner replacment, or something like that. Is the roof going to be considerably harder than that? it looks like i would drill the spot welds at the windshield and doors and back window, and have a butt weld at the posts. the drip channels above the doors look like they need to come off and then go back on as well. Am I on the right track here? Could a body shop fix the roof better than what I'm thinking? The roof isn't caved in, the dents are probably all less than an inch deep, and some less than that, but there are a lot of them. Theres more dents than there is straight up there. Otherwise the cab is really nice.

Whether you replace the roof completely or straighten the original is going to have to be a personal decision.

Just about every cab has dents in the roof, and working them out is quite an exercise. I'm still in the middle of that myself.

My experience with repop parts (even something that should be as simple as cab corners) tells me that a replacement roof isn't going to fit exactly right and will need quite a bit of work to get it right, especially with a butt joint required at the rear (the replacement roofs that I've seen don't include the rear window area.) That and the interior panel at the rear window will need to come off to gain access for a butt weld to be done properly.

But even if your body shop isn't capable of getting the dents out, you could give it a try yourself and be an expert by the time you're done, including metal shrinking.

Can you add some pictures of the carnage?

If your replacement cab is still free and mobile you have options. There are body shops and then there are body shops. Before making a decision do some networking to determine if there is a shop within reasonable driving distance that could do a good job on the original (replacement) roof.
Cutting and replacing sounds like a real headache- even if the repro part fits ; and I expect some degree of problem with that matchup.

I didn't replace my roof on my 1948, but I did fix the dents the and oil canning. I didn't have any experience heat shrinking, but took my time, watched a lot of videos and got the oil can out and only had to use a little body filler to fix dings I put into it. I would give it a try, since you are thinking about replacing anyhow. The good thing is you can reach the other side with a dolly, if you have the rear window removed. What have you got to lose?

Now, the rear panel on my truck was badly dented, which I didn't know until I went to remove the old paint for a re-paint. I found what must have been a large tin of bondo used back there. The difficult thing is, you can't get to the interior side of the rear panel because of the double wall. I tried using a stud puller, heat shrinking and even cutting pieces out and replacing, but I was making it worse. So I did get a patch panel for that. It was easy to install, and fit great. It was fun learning what my limits were. I think putting on a roof patch panel would be pretty critical in fitting because of the front windows. Maybe someone will chime in who has done it.