1971 Chevy C10 Driprail - Project Get Shorty

The protruding portion of the rail gets cut off. However, the inner portion that follows the inner cab line stays behind. For that reason, my first step was to weld the bottom tab of the driprail to the inside of the cab.

With the rail secured to the cab, I then grabbed a Sawzall, placed it against the cab, and removed roughly 4 inches at a time.

From there I used a grinder, outfitted with a 36-grit disc, to grind the three metals down to an even height. Once ground, I cleaned the area with the stripping wheel.

Here's the three metals ground flush. Because the metals aren't welded together, I only cut out about 4 inches at a time--I didn't want the cab to completely come apart. Although fixable, why go through that much extra work? When it comes to this process, slow and steady is the way to go.

Instead of just welding the seam up with one pass, I placed 1⁄4-inch tack welds down the seam and then connected the dots. Also, with each tack I grabbed a third hand, which usually came in the form of my brother Chance, to press the inside of the driprail into the rear of the cab, which kept the three metals close together. In some spots (note arrow), the metals still began to expand from one another. In those instances, I grabbed my Eastwood body hammer and tapped the layers of metal back together before welding.

With things tacked into place, I would then weld up the seam. Also, I cooled each weld with water to keep the warpage at a minimum. Once the entire seam was welded, I simply repeated the previous steps and worked my way up.

When it comes time to weld the corners, a few obstacles must be overcome. One is at the peak of the corner where the cab skins meet. There's a lot of paint and debris here. For that reason I made sure to clean the area with a wire brush to get between the metals. To make sure the entire area was clean, that nothing was going to seep up in the weld, I slightly heated the crevices and brushed them again with the wire brush.

The other obstacle is the corner coming apart. When cutting it like before, it naturally begins to sag. For the most part, the problem is cured by having someone push the pieces back together from the underside and welding things back up, starting at the bottom of the curve and working up. However, a few places need a little persuasion in order to line back up. In those cases I used my body hammer to re-create the proper curve.

When using the "power of persuasion," slowly shape the corner and close the door sporadically to make sure things are shaping up to your liking. Here you can see how the corner is uniform, like it should be.