My little mule, Pe'pe

[broncomatt]

Well I have made some more progress, not all of it good. I am going to use the soft upper doors that were on the roadster so I stripped my old doors, cut the rest of the frame off and welded a plate over the OE slot. The next step would be to drill and weld the tube in to accept the upper frames. I decided to mount the door to be sure the frame is exactly where I want it. This is when I found out the true shape of the tub. The door was off on the bottom more than can be achieved by normal adjustment. I installed the other door to be sure of my suspicions. Then I mounted the fenders and hood and grill. I went back to the photos of the tub when I first got the truck. The roadster's tub (ok the whole truck) had been dragged on the drivers side and the front clip was hit hard on the passenger side. So much so the fenders and grill were junk and I had to beat the quarters into some shape to skim coat them. The tub is twisted on both rear quarters and the front end is shifted to the drivers side. So to get the doors in line I'm going to put some relief cuts in the C pillars and pull till I get the numbers I'm looking for. Then I will pull the front end over to set the front end. I was hoping to be farther along with the body work but I'm glad I caught this before I wasted too much time on other aspects of the body prep. The good news is with some sand blasting the doors can be patched up, I found one spot in the tailgate that will need a patch. The grill is in better shape than I thought and with some hammer and dolly work it came into shape quick. Just need to skim coat and start sanding.
The other step I'm getting ready for is to put the rear fender flares on. I'm going to do things different (what a surprise huh!), I have been looking at the 3M panel adhesive. It is often used to put quarter panels and non structural body parts on cars for years. I'm going to try putting the flares on with that, not rivets. I will use a few machine bolts to hold the flares in place and secure till the epoxy cures. Then fill those holes in. Stay tuned....