The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Time to remove the cab...

Ok guys.. need some advice and assistance. I've started the teardown of my 1951 Chevy 3100 5-window and I need some guidance and support. After about an hours worth of work this afternoon, I successfully removed the bed from my truck. The only things that I'll be able to reuse will be the two side bed rails and rear sill. All of the other cross sills will have to be replaced as they've rusted thru.

I would now like to move on and get the cab off the frame so that some major repairs can be done. The floor in front of the seat from left to right including the toe board will need to replaced. The passenger side door pillar appears to be in reasonble shape. The driver's side door pillar.. well that's another story as it will most definitely need to be replaced. With these improvements being required, does anyone have any advice as to how to remove the cab in terms of steps to take, mechanisms that can be used (motor puller, etc.)? Also, knowing that the entire front floorboard and toe board as well as the driver's side door pillar and both rocker panels will need to be replaced, what would be the best method of accomplishing this. Can the bed be removed and placed on its' back? Should we weld in some temporary supports to ensure that we don't lose the original cab shape? I'm also trying to understand where the "footwell" part is on these trucks? Is it located on the side of the cab just in front of the door bottom? I've located the sheetmetal that I need to make the door and cab repairs.. just would love to hear how others have handle. I did a search on Cab Repair in the forums and even though I found some interesting information, I didn't find what I was looking for. How to remove cab? How to repair cab floor? How to best install door pillar? I look forward to any responses.

My Stovebolt Page

I am in the process of repairing similar damage to my floor board and toe boards. I have also looked at how others have suggested doing it. A couple things to think about. If you replace the floor panels and and accompanying cab mounts in place you match cab to frame. I looked at this and believe if it is done while the cab is off that you will have to use additional supports. I didn't want to take a chance on this so I have replaced the panels before pulling my cab(1950 3600). I used the cab mount hardware (new) to help assure the panels were correctly fitted. My plan is once all the major work on the floor is complete to pull it and finish the additional work. I have also stripped and rebuilt my doors and hinges so they come off and on easily (lots of work so something to think about).

I also completely rebuilt my bed and the easiest way to store it is to dissasemble it since you are replacing most of it anyway. Then the pieces lay flat and you can work on them individually (I used metal sawhorses). I replaced my front panel, two sills, and rear stake pockets. This work is really easy to do with the bed in pieces. Here is my work so far if you have any other questions drop me a line.

http://community.webshots.com/user/RugerWSM?vhost=community

Many guys have rebuilt AD cabs and there are several ways of approaching it depending on the level of rot. Try more specific searches. "Patch panels" gave 40 pages of threads in the last year alone! I guarantee everything you want to know has been covered and is in the archives. I took quite a few pic's myself. Click on old album below then on cab repair. Good luck.

I'm about to get started on a similar project on my '51 too so I guess we can cry on each other's shoulder

Remember that sheetmetal can move around quite a bit so don't go cutting out everything and expecting the cab to stay "plumb". My plan is to do a piece at a time and do as much as I can with the cab in place... the same place it needs to go when it's finished... kind of using the frame as a fixture. Once you pull that box off the frame you're going on faith... not a good idea. Many an extensive panel replacement job has come back to haunt the owner after paint when it came time to hang doors.

Another trick I learned many years ago is to dry fit as much as practical and then tack the thing together. When we used to MIG weld panels we just wore a heavy glove on the left hand, pointed the wire where we wanted the tack, cupped our gloved hand over the welding tip and squeezed off a BB sized tack. Then go to the farthest distance from that tack and did another and then put one half way between each until we had a tack every inch apart. Many times we just kept tacking until the weld was solid with no gaps. But in the 70s sheetmetal was a lot thinner and more prone to warping so that method may not be practical. If you've never welded sheetmetal before you can get yourself in a big mess real fast. Measure, measure, dry fit, dry fit, tack, measure, check... As tedious as it sounds it's a lot easier than trying to fix a warped panel or even worse a warped cab.

THIS is what I'm up against. A PO with the soul of a butcher did this to mine.

chevyTruckKy
Wanting to first build a rolling chassis I totally disassembled my truck and had the frame blasted along with the replacement rear end. I then installed an IFS and a sbc crate 350 HO. Then I had my sheet metal blasted. That way the rust was gone and everything was primed and ready for bodywork. Also you could more easily see the spots needing patching.
There are many ways to skin a cat and more ways to rebuild a ride. Use the archives here and any other resources you can dig up and you will do OK.