1956 International 120 - The Complete restoration

                                              Via www.E-tekRestorations.googlepages.com

The box of any truck takes a beating - hauling loads, trying stuff down, trhowing stuff into, onto and over the sides....and this International's box was no different. It led a hard life - the rails are dented front to back and even crushed in one spot, The front end is bowed out from years of having things thrown into it. The tailgate is thin from rust, broken in spots and out of shape. So why n6t f5nd a better one and sawp it out? Believe me, I looked! Anything you can find is even worse off - and since I was changing out the floor anyways, the largest part was done.....or so I hoped...



Working the sides to be close enough only to need a skiff of filler was our goal:

A couple last rusted-though areas tended to with new metal:

Metal-finishing the sides takes a lot of work, but saves on a lot of filler....

Starting to look like a truck box again! 

Soon it'll look like a NEW truck box.

Check out much more restoration information, builds, how-to, 

products and  more at https://sites.google.com/site/edanneberg/

1956 International 120 Series 4x4: stripping paint, fixing rust

Another month, another 100 hours in body work! This thing is rough, it's rusty, its beat and - its tough to work on! Oh well, not much different than the last 5 restorations I've tackled! ;) 

The primer on the top surfaces of the IH had been ultra-hardened by so many years in the sun and harsh environments. It saved parts of the body from major detioration but is a bear to remove!

 Even these special-hard 24-grit discs would not strip the primer from the roof without clogging and quickly going dull...I went through several getting to where you see here!



After a lot of work, much of the old paint and primer has been removed from the area requiring bodywork...

Rust  in the front glass channel. Tmese areas are treated with POR15 which chemically alters the rust to a black paintable surface.

Box sides - the box was also rough - to say the least. Aside from some patches thoughkokmm

 The roof had a huge dent that was never properly repaired. In my previous post I showed how I had to resort to the slide-hammner to pull it out. Here, we close up the holes to ensure moisture can't penetrate and cause issues with the new repairs.











My trusty Lincoln 180

Cab corners arre always rusted out on old trucks. They collect dirt and hold moisture. 

This one was no exception.

The affected metal will be cut out and new pieces fabricated from scratch.

 Check out what we found ...

The inner panel is compromised only at its corner.













Fabricating parts generally begins with a template:

Once the template is perfected, a new peice of metal is cut to the size of  the template.

The hard part is shaping the part to fit the contours of the original. I use a variety of anvils, hammers, sand bag and other "tricks of the trade" to get the metal to yield to my needs.

                                                                                       

Checking the part occurs about 20 or 30 times during the shaping process/

The inner structures are treated with Rust Bullet to preserve it for another 50 years. 

A commercial shop would never go to these lengths.

Next up was the lower portion of the adjacent door sill:

After cutting the entire length of the door skin, I grind the edges to expose the folded seam.

With the seam visible, the skin can be split open and the lower part of the door removed.

More Rust Bullet....

The Tailgate we have is rough as well. repairs begin with welding up the cracked edges: