As a safety precaution, we always lift bodies off of their frames in small incremental steps. Every phase of the process is cross-checked by at least two people to ensure that nothing is missed. As one person operates the lift to raise the body, another keeps a watchfull eye on the body and frame. After lifting the body approximately 1" off of the frame, we stop and inspect everything to ensure - first of all - that nothing is still connected or binding. Secondly, we check to make sure that the body will be able to support itself without the frame. This is particularly critical on convertibles since there is no roof to keep the body from folding in half at the door openings.

While we encountered no binding at all, with the body just one inch off the frame, we realized that the rear half of the body (the truck bed) had absolutely no support. The standard method of using door bracing that works well on convertibles wouldn't work here because the body wanted to buckle at the rear fender openings. So, we lowered the body back down and - after some head-scratching - we realized that Rick's custom roll cage was the perfect support structure. Of course, this would mean that we would have to defer painting of the floor and roll cage until after we have the body reattached to the frame. It was certainly the best solution. So, after almost three hours of work mounting the rollcage, we were able to lift the body clear of the frame.

The entire sodablastingprocess took just 7 hours. Compare that to how long it might have taken using conventional sanding or chemical stripping methods. And, conventional methods would never have resulted in such a thorough stripping of every surface. Once completed, we had a bare-metal shell that was ready for us to start working some magic.

The repairs started with Rick coming by and using his plasma cutter (oh how we want one now) to fabricate doubler plates for the vertical panels of each front fender well. With these in place, Buckshot would no longer be the "Buckling Bronco" it was when we first mounted it to the rotisserie using the front body-to-frame mounts. Rick also cut out some plates to weld to the front of the A-pillars - after first cutting out all the rusted metal.

Unfortunately, since the body mounts at the front of the floorboards were utilized to mount the body to the rotisserie, we had to mount the body back onto the frame before we could cut out and replace the passenger floorboard. Also, the right-front vertical of the roll cage bolts into the very floorboard we needed to replace. So, we unbolted the roll cage from the body and used a lift (with the help of some 2x4 wood blocks) to raise the cage above the body far enough to gain access to the floorboard. Then, after all the metal work was finished, we again bolted in the roll cage, took the body off of the frame and remounted it to the rotisserie.

Rick was kind enough to leave his plasma cuttter with us for a week. We are now totally spoiled. With it, we were able to quickly cut out the passenger floorboard, rocker panels and the bottom corner of the right rear quarter panel. The new floorboard was welded in place and then sealed with seam sealer. The rocker panels and rear quarter panel were repaired using just portions of the reproduction replacements that Rick supplied. Fortunately, we were able to use the one replacement rocker panel to patch both rocker panels. After a bit of filler and some sanding, the sheet metal repairs looked great. The rest of the body was smoothed with body filler to hide the numerous dings and minor dents you'd expect in a truck of this vintage.

The tailgate received some special treatment. Rick's custom spare tire mount interfered with the tailgate when it was lowered. So, we cut out a vertical slot in the bottom of the tailgate where it hit the tire mount's bracket and welded in a section of 2" steel exhaust half-pipe. Dennis' welding and metalworking skills were put to the test, but the net result looks great.

You'll notice that the exterior body was sprayed with a green primer. That's PPG's DPX-171 non-chrome self-etching primer. We laid that down prior to doing the metal work and body filling so that we could ensure both good corrosion protection, but also to give later layers of primer and paint a solid base that guarantees good adhesion to the metal body. Remember, sodablasting does not etch the metal, so something must be done to ensure that the paint layers have something to grab hold of.

Finally, the front fenders were mocked up on the body so we could check for any fittment problems.

We had to wait until after replacing the floorboard, so we wound up mounting the body to the rotisserie twice (once for sodablasting and again for coating the underbody). Of course, we masked off all the green etch primer that we had applied to the outer body - especially since we know that any overspray would be permant.

We like this stuff so much that we prefer it to powder coating for just about anything we would want coated in black - especially engine compartments.

Once we had the frame repainted and the body protected from rust with etch primer on the outer body and POR-15 inside and underneath, we lowered the body down onto the frame for the last time and secured it with a fresh set of urethane body mount bushings.

First came the front fenders. These came to us as new reproductions - and they fit quite well. As to be expected, some minor tweaking was required to get them to fit just right and make sure all the panel seams are as even as possible ("as possible" being the operative word in an old truck like this). Also, no body panel ever seems to arrive without some minor dings, so those too were addressed.

Next was the new grill. This is a new item made using original Ford tooling. Yet, still there was a little bit of work needed to get rid of some imperfections and - believe it or not - stretch marks.

Then came the new fiberglass hood with integral hood scoop. The unfortunate thing about fiberglass hoods is that they always seem to have some minor cracking at the corners and around the edges. So, some minor repair work was needed there. Also, the scoops openings needed to be cut out as did both of the rear intake grates. All-in-all, the labor required to prepare the hood for paint exceeded the cost of the hood itself - by about double. But, once mounted (with its trick hydraulic supports), it's very cool.

Finally, the new custom dash panel was filled and sanded smooth.

We also colorsanded, compounded, polished and buffed the entire truck. All in all, this was probably the most time-consuming step of the entire project. But, it's also the final opportunity to make everything look its best.

Finally, Rick arrived to load Buckshot onto a trailer for the trip back to 4X4Review Offroad Magazine's shop for final assembly. But, we'll see it again when Rick brings it back to paint the rocker panels black after he mounts the rock scrapers.