TECH WEEK! Carriage bolt hole repair/alignment. Got bed strips?

I would like to start this tech off by saying that I made this custom front panel for my F1, due to the fact that the original is straight and has a nice gap at the outer edges, but just about touches the cab in the middle.



Although, you may know that you can by things for your project that may not fit as intended. I.E. holes my not line up out of the box....
First thing to do is align all of your bolts. In my case the radius in the front panel caused me to make new crossmembers for the bed ( I might mention that I made new frames for the bed to adjust the wood up 3 1/2" to clear the c-notch in the frame, and keep the wood as factory ) So, a bit of filing and adjusting. Then you have to mark the bolt heads in place. My choice was to spray paint the location of the bolt heads. So, I pulled the strips, layed painters plastic down over the wood, and bed sides, placed the strips back down, and realigned the bolts. Painted the locations.



So, once everything is removed you should be able to pull the strips out and work on them individually with out wondering where the bolt should be located in the oversided hole. This is what the marks looked like.


Next was the job of holding the carriage bolt in place on top where its marked, and being able to mark the location of the squared edges on the bottom. Here is a little tool I made just cut some square tubing and drilled a hole. This allows you access to the surface for marking the location, and will wedge/hold the carriage bolt in the proper location on top.


Here is a picture of where I have marked the under side at the outer edge of the hole that I need. I just scribed a line.


Next, is the real "Life saver". I fabricated this tool, we'll call it a "buck", out of 3/4" x 1/8" copper, along with a piece of 3/8" x 1/2" copper square stock. The section of square stock was cut and filed to be around 5/8" square. Just under will help as I'll explain later. Drilled a hole through both and connected them with a machine screw and nut..



With this buck you can place the edge of it against the marking in the strip, and weld to create the edge of the square hole needed. I bought small vice grips to hold the buck in place.



Next weld. Be sure if you need to weld both sides, you move the buck over prior to welding the other side to create a small space. If not welding both sides will lock the buck in place.


Once pulled you can see the bottom.


and the top.


With a bit of filing, I used a cut off wheel on a die grinder to take down the weld, then hand filed the rest, finishing off with 220 sand paper. You can go from this.


To this.


I might add that these are metal finished in preparation for them being powder coated. This is a picture of the the strips against the front panel.


Thanx for looking. Jay

 

Cool. Nice job.

 

Well done.

 

Dumb question I know but how do you post photos like yours then add comments , then more photos , etc. etc. ?
I would like to post something but am to stupid to figure out how you do it.

 

For that I open a second internet application, and navigate back and forth. Cutting and copying the url into the insert image deal when posting, it has a mountain in the tool bar at the top. click above the picture or under, type what you want then hit enter a couple of times then insert another photo.

 

I always wondered how you would repair a square hole. Now I know!
Thanks!

 

very good idea..........

 

That is great, I need to repair a couple of square holes!

 

Great tech! What did you use to make the square hole larger before welding?

 

If I understand your question?? How did I lengthen the hole for adjustment? I used a copeing saw with a metal blade, sawed each side, grabbed the piece in the middle and pulled downward. Cut the end off with the saw or a cut off wheel, you could use wire clippers. Then I used a small square or triangle file. There were a few that I didn't have to cut, I just filed them with a square file. Then welded the other side to make the hole the correct size.

 

Thanks!