July 13, 2003 - Well, I finally got the '70 cab into the shop and got started getting it stripped down...and found some VERY disturbing rust. I just took some quick looks when I was first checking this cab out, but after getting it back here and stripping the interior, I found some fairly serious rust in the floorboards, in addition to the rusted rear cab corners (which I already was aware of). I'm now trying to decide whether to try to salvage this cab or to try and find a more suitable donor. It's still in better shape than the original '67 cab. If I decide to go with this one, I'll have to replace both floorpans, both rear cab corners and both front cab mounts. LMC has cab corners for $20 each, floorpans for $40 each and cab corners for $30 each...so the cash outlay isn't too bad. But it would be a lot of work which I hadn't initially counted on.

..by spraying some of that expandable foam insulation into the cab corner. Needless to say, it didn't work. I have a supervisor at work who has a mid-'80s Ford Ranger with rusted cab corners, and a previous owner tried the same remedy with that truck. Heck, I might have tried it at one time myself...but not after seeing this. It's obviously not as watertight as they thought...either that or they simply waited too long to apply. Once rust starts it's extremely difficult to stop.

Here's a shot of the worst of the rust damage on the driver's side floorpan. I understand this sort of rust comes from water entering through the cowl panel area and running down the inside of the cab and getting trapped by the carpet. While the pan is toast, the rockers are still in pretty good shape, so it's salvageable.

Here's the passenger-side floorpan. You can see that a previous owner as attempted a crude repair with a piece of aluminum. While the pan itself isn't as bad as the driver's side, it still needs replacing...and the rust has found it's way into the rocker panel. If I decide to fix this cab, however, I can use pieces of the original '67 cab's rocker to patch this.

Here's a shot of the '67 cab almost complete gutted, except for the seat. I carefully removed the wiring harness in case I'd need it (or pieces of it) later. You can see the three holes immediately below the radio mounting which housed the temperature control knobs, a feature only on the '67s. Starting in '68, due to increasing Federal safety regulations, Ford went with the slide controls, since they didn't protrude as much from the dash.

The shop is getting extremely crowded these days!...what with the Studebaker pickup project in here, the '67 Ford, the '69 cab...and my home-brewed '72 Pontiac LeMans convertible. The cab here is ready to come off, but will probably remain until the '69 cab (or whatever cab I decide to use) is ready to be mounted. Plus I still need to save the very good windshield and remove a small piece of rocker panel for the '69 cab repairs.