done welding/grinding add some all metal and sand it off smooth and shoot it with 6 gallons of bed liner.

The problem with that repair is it didn't address the root cause. It may be ok and last long enough for what ever your plans are but if you had opened up that roof you would have been greeted with bare metal and a lot more rust.

I have some pics on my phone I'll see what I can do to post them.

Some pics.

I sprayed Eastwood's inside frame coating inside the roof and all the panels. There wasn't a whole lot of welding most of it was done using panel bond. That was on the advice of my body and paint guy brother in law.

The way it's put together is you have the inner roof panel. The header panel is attached to it. Then the drip rail is attached to the header panel and the outer roof panel is attached to the drip rail.

Some before pics

yikes! right click save those pics for reference. thanks for sharing those.

yes, I just cut a piece out of my 88 truck last weekend and found hand
fulls of rust scale just laying there.

getting after it early is the key to keeping the work down. unfortunately they are always left as is for way to long then giving up on.

looks like we can start a faze in another 30 yrs with convertible/open top trucks. LOL!

When we were fixing it I commented to by buddy, "It doesn't have to last 30 years, I'll be dead by then." That would put me at 92

more pics if anyone wants them. starting at post #19 on link:

https://ramchargercentral.com/mopar-trucks/1988-w-100/

Was not a fun job but holding up well 3 1/2 years later/so far

Great pics, thanks. Does anyone have experience with a cab that has had a sun visor on it? I've got another candidate truck that looks pretty good but it has a visor. Without taking it apart I won't know the condition of the roof.

The donor truck I used had a visor on it. The rest of the truck was rotten but the roof was pretty nice. They did seal the holes they drilled though. I guess it all depends.

I studied your thread before we dove into my roof. You are right about it not being any fun. I swear, between the two roofs I must have drilled out 100 haphazardly placed spot welds.

You da man, Mike! Was that Ace man sprayin' bedliner?

yep, we are still at it every saturday got the 440 gasser build going on now. got a free 440/727 and a free 86 swb 4x4 chassis and a free 86 title/cab got about 200$ in oil pan/mounts/gaskets so far! splicing up a wire harness for it next.

Scratch is always building something! Like to see pics of this build!

Yep, I used to have that kind of drive and ambition. Now I'm just old and tired.

I feel your pain

I talked to Ace about skinning a roof and why we did it the way we did.

he worked a body shop 15 yrs. and the least amount of work, least amount of materials = most profit. so there are lots of tricks of the trade to patch/repair and send it out.

there is also the correct way of doing it and that is time and lots of $$$ lots of work but in the end you have a rust free straight ride.

I have found a new respect for body shops and WHY they charge the $$ they do.

last Dec, I painted the oil tank on my sportster 5x to get it right. 3x was my gorilla hands touchy feely drop it. 2x was due to runs in clear coat.


again...extra time/work/materials but I got it! so now its rebuilt with 1200 miles break-in with fresh paint.

I will start a pic page of all my junk in progress

Ooooo! Truck Pourn!!!

Funny you mention that. I was thinking of a summer time open top for one of my rust buckets, as well as a 4 door Fury.
I figured it'd be a great way of getting some use out of a rusty junker. Any one remember the 80's, or maybe 90's (?) convertible Dakotas?