Found this truck pretty close to where I live, its a 81 single cab D150 with a 225 slant six with a slant six only 727 tranmission & 8 1/4 rear with unknown gear. So I went & looked at it & liked it so I bought it, had a good 30 gal gas tank which is good since the 20 gal one on my 84 is split and the cab does have rust issue with the drip rail which is no suprise.

Heres some pix of the drip rail and give me your opinions about how hard it will be to repair this, also the cab is dent free which is why I liked it because my cab on the 84 has that massive dent on the roof.

I cleaned the drip rail with a wire brush being carefull at this area but enough to clean the loose stuff off and I primered it for the time being to keep it from rusting anymore than what it is.

my plans for today are to strip the cab of the dash, evap box, column, seat & windshield to really get a look at the damage underneath the drip rail, heres some pix of the truck itself it has good front fenders, hood, core support & doors arn't to bad acually alittle better than the 84 lol

another pic

Are you sure thats rust in the drip rail ? Looks like the seam sealer has cracked. Id wire wheel it clean to be sure and reseal it if its not rusty.. Good looking parts truck..

Might want to look again. The first you can see the ground. looks like its most of the gutter

Is a No Bueno

Oh well drip rails/rain gutters are over rated anyway.

my 85 has the driprail rusted off with the corners getting holes, then it let loose along the front edge so now it has pop rivets holding the top skin down across the front.

it does not get any better.

that is a hard troublesome area to work with,you have 3 pieces coming together to form up the drip rail/pinchweld/gasket lip.

it can be shaved off and filled in,but it takes some carfull work to not let the top skin come loose.

most likly it will have rust on the bottom edge along top gasket also letting the gasket leak and run down the a-pillors to kick panels/floor line. how does that look on the inside??

patch it up and call it good IMO. or drop the cash to fix it the right way.

The inside looks good, no rot or rust any where so it looks like we caught it just in time maybe. My father's heard of some stuff called panel bonding comes in a tube I think. He said once u use it that I wouldn't have to worry about the drip rail coming loose anymore, most of our body shops use it and they like it so we might look into that, or possibly fiberglass.

But im still happy with the purchase & whats strange about this truck it has the full size healiner which was covered with beige vinyl instead of basic fabric which is the first time I have ever seen on these trucks of course its sagging like usual, but all the ones I have ever seen have had the fabric used. I discovered this when I was removing the red material that the last owner used to cover it which was sagging too lol.

Pump it full of seam sealer and use it up. The "right" fix will requiring replacing at least 3" of the inner roof panel and pinch lip, the outer pinch lip, and outer roof sheet metal. Good luck getting that all straight the whole way across the windshield. Gene