First Cargo Door and Back Doors for the Box

Going to use these for task lighting and for the backup lights in the back of the truck box. They came in black but we stripped them down and polished them to match up with the polished back panels. Also sanded off the brand name to make it more clean looking.

Holes cut out in the panels for the lights and installed the backup camera. We also stripped the paint off the backup camera to match the lights. This picture still shows it with the paint.  

Light installed in the panel and the first cut on the panel.

This is the start of the cargo door. We are using a 2" tube in the top of the door to mount the hinges in. The door will be made up of six pieces of formed material and will be welded and glued together. 

The doors will have some adjustments in the hinge. We will weld this into the tubing and the hinge will mount to this. I will post some more pictures of this process later so it will make more sense.

These are the two end caps for the door

Bottom rail 

The doors will all use automatic door latches for a nice clean look on the box. The latch is mounted in the bottom rail.

The skin for the door.

Bamm its done. Okay I didn't get any pictures while putting this door together. The good news is that we have six more to do and I will take more pictures of the process. The bad news is that this door was to long in height and will have to be remade. It was not all bad we made some additional changes to the door to make it work out better. 

Its nice to see at least one open spaces closed up. Some of the body work has started so that we can start to fit the siding on the box.

While we wait for the cargo doors to be cut and formed we got started on the doors for the back. Each door has two skins that fit into each other to make one door. They will have a frame inside to make for a stronger door.

Chris laying out the frame for the door.

The frame in one side of the door skins. 

A lot of work went into these doors to fit hinges, door handles, bottom sill plate, and the window.

We used a old reproduction door handle that were used on some old vintage trailers in the early fifties.

After all the fitting was completed it was time to glue everything together. We are using glue to help keep the distortion down from welding, because these door will be polished to match the back panel.

Used up some claps to hold the skin to the frame while the clue has time to dry. Next we clue on the front skin to this door.

Almost done polishing the back panels only have the last final step to do.

This will be probably the only picture you'll see of this guy. I'm pretty happy about how the back panels are turning out. Can't wait to get the door finished up and polished. It's taken some learning and trying different techniques to get it to this point. It should go better on the doors (I hope).
 Happy Thanksgiving to you all and thanks for watching the progress.

Rear Panels Part 2

 The corners getting welded together.

 Second round of welds to fill in the low spots. Chris used the router with a round over bit to get a nice even radius after the build up. We had some contaminants in some of the welding that took some time to work out, but Chris persevere to get it perfect. The back will all be polished so everything had to be dead on. 

 Some more hinges being installed for the back doors

  

 Using concealed hinges for a clean look.

Starting to putting together the back panels. The propane gas regulators will be placed inside these opening in the panel. I know square would have been easier but where's the fun in that.

 Getting ready to weld in the pockets.

 Panel all welded, fitted, and being glued in place. We glued the panels in so we wouldn't have to deal with the effects of the heat that the welds would produce.

 Started to polish the panel where the gas valve will be placed. I'm thinking this might have not been my greatest idea, but man it's going to look awesome.

 Just have the valve in place to see what it's going to look like. Need to do some work on the base so it will fit closer to the back of the opening. The header piece that goes above the door was formed wrong so we are waiting for the piece to finish out the doorway. Once we have that we can measure for the doors and get started on them.  

 We moved onto cutting the extruded aluminum so that we can fit them to truck.

 Each panel needs to be fitted to the trucks body line that was designed so that the extruded metal would fit just right. A good profile gauge is a big help on getting a nice fit.

To make it easier for the body man we are having the body work done on the body line where the extruded metal will be. It would be almost impossible to achieve a nice clean line if we installed the siding before this was done. 

Rear Panel Work

Started to work on the rear panels of the truck this week. This is the rear panel that will house the taillights. It will be a polished finish when done.

We used a 1/8" router bit to round off the sharp edges where the taillight will go.

The rear panel was bump with a break to get the radius that we needed for it to fit the truck. It took some time to get the break lines out of the panel. We started out with 80 grit to get it flat then worked are way down from there. (180,240,380,400,600) 

Have about 10 hours into at this point.

This is the start of the first cut with the polisher. Found that I need to go back and do a little more work in sanding department.

I'm thinking this might not have been a wise decision, but man it looks good when it all done.

While I was working on the rear panel Chris was fabricating the rear steps.

The step formed and tact and ready for test fit into the opening.

Top panels and stairs in and being welded into place.

The weld will be rounded off to match the radius in the formed step.

Well I'm almost done with the front being polished. I did the second cut but need to work on my final cut on the panel. In the mean time Chris was ready for the panel so the final polish will wait till later. We are laying out the holes to be drilled for the trim work that we did for the taillights.

At this point you can see the trim piece in place and we have the studs in place to hold the taillight housing

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We used a epoxy glue to attach the elevator bolts for the housing. 

Are custom taillight housing that we made from a 70-73 camaro.

Housing ready to be bolted in so we can turn it up and see what it looks like.

Don't look to closely to the polish work it's not completely done yet.

The middle section of the panel will be cut out for the stair opening. 

Ready to be dismantle and fitted to the truck.

We had to do some trimming for the panel to fit, but after that it was a great fit.

All clamp down and ready to be welded together.