guiltybydesign
+1y
On May 22nd an EF5 tornado hit Joplin and leveled about 30% of the city. Among the damage was my shop along with 9 trucks inside. At the time i was working on kennys courier that was getting a raised hood and new motorbay sheetmetal. The storm completely destroyed the body and frontend i was working on. A few days after the cleaup was done we started talking about rebuilding the truck as a quadcab. Kenny had asked me if i could do it after seeing my yota quadcab and i said yes. Shortly after i relocated my shop he brought me parts to start with.
I had the basic idea of what we were doing but it wasnt untill after i started seeing how the truck was built that i decided im gonna build this one to look like it could have been a stock cab both visually and in its construction. Were not gonna do a bunch of obvious mods that grab your eye, just tons of metalwork.
We of course started by getting 3 cabs for the build. 2 will be the cab itself and 1 was for parts. Trying to decide on a rear door length is always hard so i used the same math i used on my yota.
After i saw it looked right we started to mimick the inner structure of the cab. I made new rain gutters and inner roof bracing exactly like stock, and outer rockers and inner rockers only 1'' tall.
I took everything apart at the spot welds and welded everything back in. New rain gutter and inner structure.
New 1 piece outer rocker
With that figured out we hit a snag. The new B pillar would have to be so small it wouldnt be able to fit the rear door hinges. The stock hinges would also fold the rear door into the front due to the way they open. We decided to suicide the rear doors. Certain cars of this era still had factory suicide rear doors so i think theyre fitting.
I started by skinning 2 front doors and cutting them down to size. Then i cut the inner structures out of 2 donor doors and welded them in opposite (drivers door has pass structure, pass has drivers). This will make the doors appear like theyre stock stamped skins when theyre open. I then swapped the doors themself so the pass door is on drivers side so the doorhandles will be in the front instead of back.
Then i used a set of suicide hinges. Theyre the only thing that i think wont appear stock but shy of alot of trial and error i think they will work fine. Here you can also see the section of the door im grafting in.
There was a recess in the stock doorjamb for the latches that i had to shave so the hinges would mount properly
Theres still alot of bracing i have to do but they work
Then it was onto the B pillar. I skinned the rear doorjambs out of the donor cab and flipped them like the doors.
Thats where im at as of today. Eventually the truck will get a handmade roofskin, sheetmetal floor, new firewall, and new glass. Were hoping to have it done by and at SEMA 2012.