And the story just keeps getting better…

I’ve been racing against the seasonal clock to get my truck repaired to the point where I can paint it before it gets too cold. I also gave myself a $400 budget for parts and paint. Prior to this mad dash, I’d already rebuilt both sides of the bed and bed floor, most all of the underside supports and picked up a new tailgate. I was able to get a free pair of decent doors off a ’92 that will replace my badly rotted ones. To save time, rather than attempt to fix the rotted fenders, I picked up a near perfect set for $90 at a local salvage yard. It took me several weekends to make and weld the necessary patches to repair the massive rot damage at the rocker panel / door pillar areas on both sides. The drivers cab lower rear corner was also rebuilt from scratch. I dedicated Sunday to installing the new doors and fenders in anticipation of doing the necessary filler and sanding over the week and then painting next weekend.
As George H.W. would say, “Naht ganna happen!”.
The doors went on and aligned just fine, but I couldn’t get the fenders to line up at all. I used every washer I had and neither side looked right. The big and small gaps on the left side were opposite on the right. I took a break, stood back and stared at it for a while. Looking over the rim of my coffee mug, I noticed that the gap between the under side of the core support and the frame rail on the drivers side was about 1.125”, but there was no gap on the pass side. After moving a big light over the area, I discovered that the core support is also badly rotted and the brackets that the body mounts are bolted through are gone! The core support was collapsing causing the entire front clip to droop on the pass side. The cost of a new core support (if available) is well beyond what is left in the original budget, so I’ll have to fabricate a couple of “bandaid” plates to hold the core support together and attached to the frame. I’ve been taking pictures so stay tuned…

 

<cr>
Sounds like quite a project. Looking forward to seeing the pictures

 

Sounds like a good project. Im doing some similiar things on my 82 F100, check out my pictures in my gallery weymouth. I'll have some newer pictures up soon of the finished cab corners and the tailgate. Fred

 

I have the same problem. have you made any or found where to by them? love to here an update.

 

I just uploaded pictures to a gallery called "Core Support Repair". I didn't have the budget for a new support. In the parts catalog for Raybuck, the radiator supports for the years before 1987 and after 1991 ran about $170. For my year, 1989, they listed the price as "CALL" and you know what that means. Also, the catalog listed the supports as being too big to ship via UPS.

I forgot to photo the back side of the support, but I basically replaced all the missing metal with new hand made pieces. The "boxes" for the body mounts were formed separately and then welding into place, thus making the resting surface (the part that sits above the frame and holds the body mount in place), two layers thick.

For what it's worth, I did all this repair with essentially no metal forming tools and with only a 155 amp mig welder. I used .080" thick steel, salvaged from an old furnace outer casement and beat it into shape against the floor and an old cast iron rail car coupler with a big ball peen hammer. It really wasn't all that difficult, just time consuming. PM me if you have any questions.

 

<cr>
Excellent job !!

 

Looks great, I have the same thing to do on my 82 F100. Rust repair sure is time consuming, but much better to save the original piece than to pay too much for a cheap aftermarket piece. Keep up the good work! Fred

 

Been there, done that. The temporary fixes are just that, temporary. If you plan on keeping the vehicle for any length of time you will need a new core support. Unfortunately, Ford trucks are really bad for rotten core supports. Ive relaced them before, and have to do it on my Bronco soon. Im in the same predicament again, its being held together with some metal brackets, bolts, and lots of weld. The removal and installation of the core is easy, just time consuming. A day should be alotted. Luckily, the radiator does not have to be removed, but both fenders will have to be unbolted and pushed away so the old one can come out and the new one can come in. But once the job is done the truck will feel like new again. I hated feeling the body "float" over the frame, and all the squeaking. Good luck

-Matt

 

I have to dissagree with you MatthewC. It looks to me that weymouth removed all of the rusted area and replace it with solid metal. It doesn't look like a "temporary" fix at all to me. If the orginal one lasted 15 years there is no reason that his fixed one should not last another 15 years. If he paints with a good quaility paint to keep it from rusting there is no reason to buy a new core support. You also say that "Im in the same predicament again, its being held together with some metal brackets, bolts, and lots of weld." If you just temporarly fixed it of course its not going to last long. Im just trying to defend the guys work. Sorry I just got fired up there a bit.

 

Sorry, I had not taken the opportunity to check his pics on his work, I had assumed that he had just quickly patched it together until a new one could be put in. My mistake. It has just been my experience that if the patch jobs are not done ruggedly, they will eventually break apart again due to the stresses of bumps, twists, and shakes of driving. If his repair work is as good as you say, disregard my previous post, im sure it does the job and will hold up. Im just saying that with my situation, ive chosen my el-cheapo repair until the funds can be saved for a whole new core support so i never have to worry about it again.

-Matt

Just took the time to check his gallery, and it looks like an awesome job was done. Please remind me to look around next time before I open my mouth please....

 

Hey 1982fordf100, thanks for the compliment. Another item in the repair that I neglected to mention was that I cut out and replaced the metal that runs horizontally underneath the radiator, it was in bad shape, although not totally rotted. Nothing actually touches this part, but it seems to be sort of a collar tie that keeps the support itself together and straight (sort of important). While that part was out, I was able to get at all the rust inside the lower box section too.

MatthewC, I don't intend to keep the truck forever. Sure, I'll probably keep it for as long as it lasts. This could be a while too, because there's not that much left to fix. I bought it two years ago after a 3 year search for a low mileage, cheap, full size 4X4. All total, including the cost of the truck itself, I'm still under $3K invested. Short of Herculiner, a hydraulic tilt bed and maybe bigger tires, I'm done spending on this one. And to quell your concern about the repair lasting. It's re-built like the perverbial brick ****house. As best I could tell, the original metal mic'd at about .055" thick. All the new metal is at .080" and I cut away all the rotted metal, cleaned up any rust I could find and then ospho'd the whole thing. The whole thing was shot with PPG epoxy primer. The side that faces the engine is slathered in RustFre undercoating, and the front surface is shot with leftover Dupli-color truck bed liner (from a tool box project).

 

I added a few more "AFTER" photos in the Core Support Repair gallery

 

Looks great! I made the exact same repairs on my 82 F100 that you have in your misc. repairs. Your truck looks good now that its painted all one color. Check my gallery under restoration pictures and you can see the same things I had to do, that you did to your truck. Fred

 

Looks great, you should be proud. How did you clean up all the metal before you used the Ospho, grinder, wire wheel or what?

 

D. All of the above. Wire cup & sanding disks on the angle grinder, although most of it was elbow grease with #40 & #80 emery cloth. Once I had all the loose rust off, I Ospho'd it and left it for a few days to dry. Then I started cutting away the unusable areas. After all the repairs were done, I went over the entire thing again with #80 emery cloth, wiped it down with degreaser then Ospho'd it again.