My first stab at body work since I was in junior high

[hillcountryflt]

Back in my eighth grade year, I found an old beatup 1968 Torino GT at our family friend's wrecking yard. You know the car you wish you could really have back - fastback, 351w, auto, air. Well the passenger-side front fender was beat to heck. Back then, I knew nothing of "replacement parts" for such, so my father and I beat it out and bondoed it and then painted it to pretty much match the grey car. It looked like, well, a beatup fender with bondo. But it served well as my first car for my freshman year.
This weekend I started doing some body work on the 71 f100 flareside. We had removed the bed previously and set it off on the driveway. I cut out my cab corners with a Harbor Freight 4" grinder with cutting disc. I was surprised how easy that was. And then smooth it up as much as possible with the grinder disc. Then we used the special vice grips from Eastwood, we created an offset on the panels I had bought from LMC so they would slip under the cut edge of the body. It took some effort but we got both to line up pretty good.
Using rivets, vice grips/clamps and 3M panel bonding adhesive and an expensive dispenser we attached the repair panels and let them sit for 2 days. At this point they looked pretty rough. The replacement panels did not line up well on the vertical indention essentially lining up with the outside edge of the fuel tank on each side. The LMC panel was a little narrower in the groove. Otherwise, not bad.
Next we ground a strip of paint about 3-4 inches above/below the cut out line and ground down the rivet heads along the attachment line (leaving the rivets in across the bottom of the panel (they will likely remain).
This was followed by the initial coats of bondo along the upper cut area.
This is where I am now, working this. Hope I can do a better job than my first bondo effort.

[hillcountryflt]

Here are a couple of pictures of my efforts so far.

[Ranchero50]

Looks good. When I was fitting mine I used #8 self drilling screws with the 5/16" hex head to hold it together. Once affixed I just removed the screws and filled the holes. Worked out really well.

[hillcountryflt]

we made a "mistake" on the driver's side. My partner did not hold a backup/hammer against the corner to press the corner/replacement piece tighter together prior to drilling/riveting. We tried that approach on the passenger side and the corner was a lot nicer.
I am prone to leaving the rivets in the bottom edge. They ground down very easily along the upper edge of the seam.

[sargentrs]

I had the same fitment problems when I replaced mine. I bought mine from a member. They came in an NPD box but once I got them out, and the floor pans, they had DC stickers on them. The corrugations did not perfectly match up. I welded mine in. Got it as close as possible and blended it with filler right where the seams met, up and down the rib a little. Didn't take much and kinda hid the misalignment unless you looked closely. Once the bed's back on it won't be noticeable anyway. My first attempt too. Good work!

[hillcountryflt]

My thoughts exactly on not being that noticeable once the bed is in place.
On my floor plans, I did the no weld approach as well. Rivets and seam sealer. I had treated the rusted areas of the floor with ospho and rustoleium (not wasting por 15 there). Afterwards, I went underneath and used one of those paints for under fenders with a heavy body and sprayed everywhere with multiple coats, making sure the rivets sealed up well.
Floor pans, they came from LMC, did match up a little better. Sound deadner and carpet will cover them.

[hillcountryflt]

I can see one challenge already is getting the recessed ridge to work. The ridge lines up, but the seam between old and new portions with the bondo does away with the ridge. So, not sure how this is handled.

[hillcountryflt]

I was hoping to get better use of my helper this weekend. He is showing me the ropes on body work. However, high humidity and moderate temps seemed to really impact cure times for Bondo. He will be gone for about 2 months, so will be on my own trying to move forward.
Kind of humored about put it on, sand most of it off. A real body man would probably have completed this very quickly, a day, perhaps. A real body man probably would not have used my approach.
Looks like I might need to replace the lower quarter panel on the passenger side door. Found a fair amount of rust through.

[hillcountryflt]

Have kind of redirected my efforts to inside the cab. Pulled the seats, steering column, gauges, etc. along with the tank. Have new flooring and firewall pad. So going to make a press to get it back together.
Primed the back wall of the cab last night. Hope to have the rest primed this weekend. But still have some seam sealer work to do under the dash.
Have pulled more stuff than intended and will be replacing the windshield (small crack became large crack while trying to get it out.
Picture does not show it well, but there is primer all the way to the floor (behind where the tank will go).
Also, repainted the tank - black.