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Theoretical


Brain75

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Shran

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I think if I was you, I would try removing the roof skin from your truck before you do anything else. If you can get the skin off fairly easily, replace only that with your donor piece and patch in little pieces on the inner skin. I really think if you cut the whole roof off yours and try to weld the pillars back together, you are going to have a hell of a time getting things straight, square and lined up so that the windshield and doors fit right. It is a LOT easier to drill out a bunch of spot welds on your skins than get everything lined up with a full roof swap... and you'll have the opportunity to fix that dent in your donor panel while the skin is off.

That cowl is not going to be fun to fix, I do not envy that one bit.
 

1984RESTOMOD

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I think if I was you, I would try removing the roof skin from your truck before you do anything else. If you can get the skin off fairly easily, replace only that with your donor piece and patch in little pieces on the inner skin. I really think if you cut the whole roof off yours and try to weld the pillars back together, you are going to have a hell of a time getting things straight, square and lined up so that the windshield and doors fit right. It is a LOT easier to drill out a bunch of spot welds on your skins than get everything lined up with a full roof swap... and you'll have the opportunity to fix that dent in your donor panel while the skin is off.

That cowl is not going to be fun to fix, I do not envy that one bit.
I am going the route of replacing the headliner/rear window trim in only the necessary patch pieces. The roof skin is solid so don't know that I will remove that but a compressed air bath and coat of fluid film post weld in between roof and headliner is a must - also have a donor cowl for the interior bulge at least...the firewall side will have to be custom. Damn rodents.
 

1984RESTOMOD

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Bought some of these cool little butt clamps for the one sided access on the headliner since I am not planning to remove the roof skin.
 

Shran

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Oh, good call, for some reason I thought you were replacing the whole roof skin. Patching in a few spots will be a lot easier.

I think you can take a cowl cover off a second gen and put it on a 1st gen to eliminate the slotted holes. It helps keep a lot of debris out but it's kind of a pain because you have to remove the windshield and it's spot welded in a lot of places. Good upgrade though. It's really easy on 80-86 F series trucks, the cowl cover is simply bolted on and 87-? fits perfectly. Wish our Rangers were that easy :pissedoff:
 

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I think you can take a cowl cover off a second gen and put it on a 1st gen to eliminate the slotted holes. It helps keep a lot of debris out but it's kind of a pain because you have to remove the windshield and it's spot welded in a lot of places.
I've thought about that before too, but decided it's too much work unless the cowl needs to come off and you can easily get the 2nd gen one to install. If someone has the skill and is going to be welding and body working anyway, cutting out the vent sections and splicing it in might be an easier option?

I really have no idea how much work either would involve, but replacing the whole cowl would require removing at least teh front clip and windshield, then finding and removing a lot of spot welds. Make it twice if you've got to harvest a used OEM from a donor.

If someone didn't want to do that work, but were looking for a way to prevent leaves and trash from collecting in the cowl while sitting, consider getting some sheet magnets cut to size to fit over the vents.
 

1984RESTOMOD

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Man this shit is thin. I'm using HF titanium 125 flux welder with 0.030 flux core wire and having better luck on my butt welds with longer wire stick out and higher amperage but it's a lot of tack building then letting cool off completely to not burn through. On a practice piece I could get along great on a lap weld but can't over lap these patches obviously.
 

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I've thought about that before too, but decided it's too much work unless the cowl needs to come off and you can easily get the 2nd gen one to install. If someone has the skill and is going to be welding and body working anyway, cutting out the vent sections and splicing it in might be an easier option?

I really have no idea how much work either would involve, but replacing the whole cowl would require removing at least teh front clip and windshield, then finding and removing a lot of spot welds. Make it twice if you've got to harvest a used OEM from a donor.

If someone didn't want to do that work, but were looking for a way to prevent leaves and trash from collecting in the cowl while sitting, consider getting some sheet magnets cut to size to fit over the vents.
Swapping them is a real pain. Cutting a section out is certainly an option but that's a lot of welding and a lot of warping.

I did the magnet thing on my crawler, it's parked under a tree all the time so it gets full of leaves fast. You can get big sheet magnets that go over floor vents in your house at the hardware store, I used those and they work great.

Man this shit is thin. I'm using HF titanium 125 flux welder with 0.030 flux core wire and having better luck on my butt welds with longer wire stick out and higher amperage but it's a lot of tack building then letting cool off completely to not burn through. On a practice piece I could get along great on a lap weld but can't over lap these patches obviously.
I don't think I would have attempted it with flux wire, butt welding sheet metal is difficult enough with gas. 0.030 wire is a little big for sheet metal too, I try to use 0.025 but I don't think they make it in flux core so you might be stuck with what you have. Here's a couple tricks -

#1 if you can access to the back side of what you're welding, you can hold a piece of copper or aluminum directly behind where you're going to weld. The weld won't stick to it and it allows it to pool and fill in the gap rather than making a bigger hole and falling through.

#2 Do quick little spot welds and cut the end of the wire off after each weld. The slag that comes out as the wire cools will interfere with the arc when it first starts on your next weld if you don't cut it off... having a fresh end on the wire will help the arc start evenly. And keep the area you're welding CLEAN... nice shiny metal.

#3 I like to do spot welds about every inch around the patch piece, in a star pattern like when you're tightening lug nuts. Once you have that, your patch should be fairly secure so then I do each subsequent weld into a previous weld...those are thicker than the material so it will be harder to burn through.

#4 keep a wet rag handy and cool off each spot weld immediately to help with warping

I am not a pro nor am I a body guy, just a lot of dumb stuff I've learned from patching junk back together.
 

1984RESTOMOD

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Swapping them is a real pain. Cutting a section out is certainly an option but that's a lot of welding and a lot of warping.

#1 if you can access to the back side of what you're welding, you can hold a piece of copper or aluminum directly behind where you're going to weld. The weld won't stick to it and it allows it to pool and fill in the gap rather than making a bigger hole and falling through.
Can I use solid mig wire in the fashion your talking about? Ol Bondo Billy on YouTube may have me over confident in the flux but he gets along pretty well with it in very similar conditions to what I am working in.
 

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Can I use solid mig wire in the fashion your talking about? Ol Bondo Billy on YouTube may have me over confident in the flux but he gets along pretty well with it in very similar conditions to what I am working in.
You have to use gas with solid wire. Having done sheet metal with both I prefer solid wire & gas... but flux is doable.
 

1984RESTOMOD

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You have to use gas with solid wire. Having done sheet metal with both I prefer solid wire & gas... but flux is doable.
I should have specified more; Using flux core wire through the welder, can I then lay solid mig wire in the gap and tack it?
 

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Oh, yeah, I've never felt the need to do that but you certainly could. I try to shoot for as little gap as possible so that you don't have to mess with filler.
 

Brain75

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The corner of my box had a 2 inch tear in it (strap ripped out corner pocket) and I managed to mig it back together using a big mig and 0.035... It is what I have here at my sister/brother in law's farm. I definitely wished I had my little mig and 0.025 - all gas setup, no flux core. Definitely a x2 on using a copper/alu backer to both get it perfectly flat and keep it from pinching / making a big lump. I also had six 1/2" holes from the original owner putting a topper on that I filled in, had to have a piece of alu behind it to even have a prayer filling those in. With that big MIG I had to put it on the absolute lowest setting and basically was just a series of spot welds.... with that little MIG I could weld pop cans together with the right wire.
 

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One ting I saw recently that might help is to use an airgun to speed up the cooling process between tacks. Of course, that requires having an air compressor. So, you might be stuck with the wet rag.
 
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