Starting Teardown

The parts truck was good practice for disassemble. It is all in pieces and ready to sell what is useful. I have started to disassemble the good truck, taking lots of pictures and keeping a journal seperated by sub-areas. Notes and drawings are made so that I can put it back together properly.

On the subject of fabrication: I originally planned on fabricating replacement parts myself but I found out that the truck is made with thicker sheet metal than I can afford for machinery. Some parts are 12 and 14 gauge metal and the inexpensive combo machines from Harbor Freight etc. will not work for metal over 20 gauge. I found a sheet metal shop that will fabricate the larger parts and supply the metal I need to patch the bottom of the cowl. The cost is aprox. one fourth what it would cost to buy a sheer and brake. I found plans for a homemade brake on the internet and by combining a few designs I plan on building my own so I can build the pieces for the floor boards.

On the subject of welding: I want to do my own welding. There is not much, mainly the bottom of the cowl, the bottom of the door posts, and the floor boards. I also plan on building side supports for the cargo bed. After much reading of books and the internet I am looking for a mig welder in the 180 size range, probably the millermatic 180. It appears that gas welding gives a better bead than flux core and the larger machine can actually be controlled better than the smaller machines. It also has the ability of doing alluminum with a wire spool gun. I have plenty of scrap to play with and the resell value is high if I decide to sell it afterwards.