79 w150, rusty drip rail

[Hoover]

I am working on repairing the drip rail on my truck and it seems like the roof skin was not welded to the windshield frame.

Or....
The rust is a lot worse than i thought.

Does anybody have experience with this?

 

[mopar56]

Very common issue on these old trucks, get out your welder, ( if you have one ) and cut back to metal and start patching, my son's 80 had a visor when he purchased it many years ago, once we removed the ugly thing we found much of what you did, the problem carried on up untill they switched body styles in 94, maybe even after that? I don't know if anyone makes new panels , you might get lucky in the pick n pull yard? We had a yard up our way a couple years back that had a clean little 80,s s/b truck that got completely picked clean, even the roof as it had no rust. Good luck with you project!

 

[Hoover]

Thanks for the reply.
There is one truck that might have a good roof in a yard locally.
I will investigate.

 

[mopar56]

These are some photos from a local body shop that just did one, this guy also painted my 56 recently. Lots of work he put into this old truck.

 

[mopar56]

In this case they couldn't find a doner so they patched it, but it came out nice.

 

[Hoover]

The strange part is that there are only a couple of pinholes in the skin itself.
The rail is rusty, but whatever fastened the skin to the window frame is no longer there all the way across

 

[mopar56]

I'm guessing the water entered maybe through a weld or some old seam sealer then the two layers just separated??

 

[volaredon]

My son had one he cut off of an 87, not sure if he still does. But just might have a 2nd one depends on what he is gonna do with that D250 he has sitting