Weather was absolutely awful here this weekend, the only thing that was missing was Noah and his animals. I didn’t want the ’55 sat out in weather that bad so I had a big tidy up and spun the cab round ninety degrees to get a bit more space to work in. I had a quick look at the passenger door and decided to leave it alone till I got it back on the cab and could see what the gaps were like. I got one of the wings out of the cab, and set about doing some more on that. It had a few rust holes on the top edge, so I ground them out to good metal and tig’d them up.

A quick rub down with a grinder and a file and they were done. I had put a big patch panel in the middle and it needed a bit of work to get the curve back in it. Faced with trying to spend the next year or so trying to hone my metalwork skills or using a bit of filler I got the filler out. It’s a lot smoother than it looks in the pic, but it’s had a tough life made worse by me. It got a quick skim of filler and I’ll give it a sand down when I’m out there next.

I’d spent a fair bit of time stretching the door edges to fit the opening a lot better, but had noticed that the inner part of the frame was all over the place from where the roof had been chopped.

I decided it was beyond hope, and just chopped it out. The replacement panel was easy enough, but welding it back in wasn’t so easy. I decided to hang the cab from the roof by one of the hinges with the other side on the floor.

With it up like that I could stand in the hole where the transmission cover goes, and reach up to weld the frame. Welding was better but I burnt my head a lot with sparks!. Quick smooth with a flap disc and I was back where I started minus the wrinkles and dents.

I’d pulled off the rotten remains of the gutter on the drivers side, and had now got to the point where they either all had to be cut off, or I had to make some new ones. I decided I’d just get on with it and make some. Firstly I made a plate to hold the shrinker too as it was a pain to use clamped in the vice. I could then clamp the plate really tight so it didn’t move about.

After a bit of measuring, I cut up some more of the donor hood and folded up a strip of it to use. It was a few inches more than I needed, but was the right size. With the shrinking jaws swapped for stretching ones I made the curve for the end of the rail then cut it down to the right length. A few quick tacks with the gas welder and it was done for now. It’s between the two lines on the roof in case you’re trying to work it out!

For a bit of a change, I decided to make a start on the front valance panel. I had two of them with the truck, one bent like a banana and one that was full of holes. I picked the one that was the straightest, and spent a while bending it roughly back into shape. I also wanted to fill the bumper slots, so the rusty one became a donor for repair patches and filling it in.

After carefully cutting out the damaged bumper slot, I used that as a template for a piece from the donor, and after a lot of slow and careful welding it was filled in with very little distortion. A quick run over with the flap disk, and it was pretty much ready to go. It needs a fair bit of reshaping to get the rest of the dents out, but I’m happy with the result. I’ll do the other side when I’m fed up of doing something else!

I really wanted to learn how to do heat shrinking properly after messing about with a shrinking disc and not being happy with the results. Knowing nothing about gas torches, I decided I’d rather play it safe and buy new stuff than set myself on fire. A quick chat with the welding supplies place round the corner from work and I bought a load of bits and rented some more bottles. With it all bolted together, I was still not convinced I wouldn’t burn myself and nervously lit the torch. I had made a test piece to shrink from an old bit of hood that I beat the heck out of with a ball pein hammer to get about an inch deep stretch in it. I gently heated it to cherry red, then hammer and dollied it flat. And that was it, done. I was amazed.

Convinced that it was a fluke, I got another scrap piece and did the same. To my amazement it came out spot on as well. At that point I decided I may as well have a go at one of the front wings. They were in a pretty sorry state, with a few bad tears, and were stretched really badly where I had tried to repair them with just hammer and dollies. After a few hours of heating, hammering and some gas welding (which I really like for some odd reason) I was miles further forward despite them looking like they had been in a fire. I even managed to get rid of the”oilcan” in the bead that made the bottom quarter pop too far in or out. Another thing to add to the list of “if only I’d bought one years ago I’d be miles ahead”.