Here's what I've (tentatively) decided to do: this is going to be my 'rat-rod' truck...one that ain't purty by any means, it'll be loud and scary-lookin'.
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The previous owner had replaced the floorpans, front cab mounts and rear cab corners and then sealed up all the joints with a tar sealer. While it might have been OK, especially considering the goal of this project, I decided that I did want to clean up and seal the interior and exterior floorpans with POR-15, which meant stripping it all down to bare metal....so getting the outside floorpans cleaned up was what was on today's agenda.
Here's a shot of the box removed and setting up on end, the front sheetmetal removed and the cab flipped onto it's back for cleaning.
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After I got the bottom side about half cleaned up, I was taking a smoke break and walking around the truck when I noticed some bubbling under the primer on the driver's door. At this point I'm thinking "...oh hell, here we go again...", and I was right. After spending some time stripping the primer off the door, I discovered that the whole bottom half of the door skin was rusted and very beat up, and then just covered up with body filler almost 1/2" thick in places.
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Since this door has been chopped, I can't just throw under rust-free door on (which is too bad, since I've got several)...I'm going to have to weld in a whole lower door skin. I decided to temporarily postpone the floorpans, and went ahead and dug out the cut-off tool and then cut off the skin.
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I'm putting together a project update page with a whole bunch of pictures, it'll be posted tonight before I go to bed.