Chevy & GMC Vans

do you guy use gas with your welders or the "gasless" wire ?
any pros/cons on either of those ?

Darren, did you tack continuously around the fillers or did you leave about 1/2-3/4 inch between each spot and call it a day ?

what about white reverse lights for backing up at night, or did I miss something ?

talkdty wrote:what about white reverse lights for backing up at night, or did I miss something ?

Who needs Reverse lights anyways?

I used a mig welder with shielding gas as I always do and I tacked every 2 inches at first, then when cool every inch, let cool and every 1/2 inch.

was the 3rd cycle of welding necessary for structual integrity or was some of that purely for the "feel-good" factor ?

I'm thinking of shaving the all-door handles and gas filler and
re-boxing the stock license plate location a little more custom

You could tack every 2inches then every 1inch when it is cool, this will be good enough.

Taking your time is most important, if you warp any metal it will cost you extra time and headaches + bondo to fix it.

I used flux core wire but I'm sure gas is much better. Also did as Darren mentioned. Tacked every 2 to 3 in. and then between each tack. I ran into trouble with warping when I did my gas door so this time I made my first couple of tacks and from there held a damp rag inside cad. bucket to keep everything cool. Also used the damp rag to cool the fillers while tacking them in.

Sorry.

No reverse lights right now but will have hidden lights when completed.

thanks for the knowledge =D>

next item on the agenda, is anyone here burning chips for a "reasonable" price...?

[quote="SoCalli V8"]And my Final modification......But I Have Manny more...... UP MY Sleeve......


Uhhh, yeah. The problem, dearest butler, is that they're up your sleeve instead of on your truck....

Perfection takes time...... Mr "Wam Bam Thankyou Mam"......!

Ok,,got one tail almost completed Sat. and the other ready to tack up. Here's a shot after I completed most of the big sanding. What you see here is with a DA except the upper body line. Not real happy with it yet but went ahead a sprayed primer so I could see the high and low spots when I block sand and will be working on that upper body line again.


As you can see it's a close fit and skinned up the primer. Trick I think is putting the bottom in first and then pushing the top back in the bucket.


That's about it for now. Will probably finish this up this weekend.

peter wrote:

SoCalli V8 wrote:And my Final modification......But I Have Manny more...... UP MY Sleeve......


Uhhh, yeah. The problem, dearest butler, is that they're up your sleeve instead of on your truck....

Looking good Larry...... >not easy to install, are they....?

Darren,,no,,they aren't that easy and to think I mentioned making the fillers. lol No way. Guess you could make something close but lots of filler would have to be used to get the correct lines again and I wasn't up to that at all.

Thought I'd come over and show off, you know, pull a Darren with you guys. After a few dissapointments the tail light install is complete. Wouldn't want to do another set for sure. After getting the passenger almost complete, I decided to fill in the slider track also and will fill slider after I get about 14 feet of metal sheared to tack in the slider gap.

Sorry I don't have the lights and chrome bezels installed in this pic but just ran out of time. Will try to get that in here later.








As you can see on the completed pic, I've got a passenger side body line on the right side of cad bucket which is not exactly right but won't take much sanding to get that line where it should be.

Ran into a little issue with the Cadtail lens, no clear backup lens on them so bought a small set of oval driving lights and installed one on the dif. and the other I hooked up under the hood.