Bed Holes - Lots of them - Conclusion

[OB Bus]

'67 Single Cab that has a very very rough body. It has has at least one nose job (poorly done), lots of evidence of bad paint and cracking bondo and is currently mostly covered in primer.
My question involves the bed. Some prior owner apparently had a sheet of plywood covering the very wavy bed that was installed with screws around the perimeter. There are probably 60-70 screw holes in the bed. The holes are really small, perhaps about 1/8" max.
My goal is to seal up the bed so that there after a rain (like today) there are no longer puddles of water in the engine compartment and to protect the surprisingly pristine treasure chest. Once the holes are sealed I intend to wire brush the bed, sand and paint.
What to do about those holes? I do not have a welder so welding and grinding is not an option. One person suggested just putting in pop rivits or round head screws. Another suggestion was a small dollop of paintable silicone in each hole.
Ideas?
_________________
Larry in OB
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!
69 Westfalia and 2002 Eurovan Camper.

[wbrown45]

I would seriously consider buying a cheap wire feed welder from Harbor Freight and get to welding. You can get one for less than $100 with their coupons. They are not the best welders, but they could definitely do the job you have described. You will probably end up regretting the other options you mentioned. That just my .02 cents.
_________________
OK Thang

[theKbStockpiler]

The preferred method would be mig with .025 gauge wire. Has anyone filled a 19 gauge hole with flux core? I'm curious if it is do-able. You could also fry to find a slow shop and see if they could do it here and there on their schedule. Offer to do the grinding your self and other prep work.
_________________
My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[wbrown45]

I have had good luck with my wire feed on sheet metal by reversing the polarity on the machine, and using a good quality flux-core wire fed at a fairly high speed. Not as good as a MIG, but a cheaper, preferred method than filling those holes with rivets, screws, or silicone.
_________________
OK Thang

[theKbStockpiler]

Thanks for sharing your method. I'll give it a try when I have flux core loaded in my machine. Do you have any theories on reversing the polarity? I understand the concepts with tig but for flux core the bead is supposed to be compromised.
_________________
My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[Bobnotch]

[57BLITZ]

[wbrown45]

[heapes]

Debur the holes with a grinder to make the metal flat. Don't take off much metal. Then back the hole with brass or copper. I use copper pipe joints from Lowes or Home Depot that I hammer flat. Then mig weld the hole. Mig welding will not stick to the copper. The copper also acts as a heat sink to minimize the warping of the metal. Don't do holes next to each other in a row. The heat will build up and cause warping. Finally, grind the welds down smooth. I personally use and angle grinder with the green "flap" wheels that Home Depot and Lowes carry. I prefer to use 120 grit. A rock grinder wheel just makes a mess of the work. By doing it this way and being careful you might not need to use body filler over the grinds. Properly sanded primer will likely flatten for a nice finish. Good luck. I have filled 1 in diameter holes by this method before. You just have to take your time.

[heapes]

By the way, I bought a spot welder from Harbour Freight once. I had to return it for a new one 13 times before I finally gave up. Someone suggested buying a welder from there. I wouldn't buy a battery from there with someone else's money. I do buy stuff from there that doesn't have a plug on the distal end though.

[theKbStockpiler]

The 'cut off discs' are finer then the grinding discs. They wear faster but their purpose is served well. There is usually 2 different thicknesses of cutoff discs where as the thinner one is the finest.

Also I personally have never found the need for backing up with copper when using .025 wire and can do it methodically so everyone else can as well.
_________________
My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[OB Bus]

Thank you all so much for your very helpful suggestions. It is true that while the best solution is to weld the holes shut I cannot do that - and I do not want to get a welder at this point in my life. I will try the local muffler shop and see if they might so a quick contract job.
Then again that idea of soldering the holes shut is intriguing. I have a really big old soldering iron in the garage that I inherited and it might be worth to give it a try.
I'll get on this project after New Years and report back my findings.
_________________
Larry in OB
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!
69 Westfalia and 2002 Eurovan Camper.

[eyetzr]

I have soldered holes & it works fine. 1/8" holes are quite manageable. Bobnotch had also pointed out a mobile welder to do the work, I have a guy I worked with did that & the welder did a nice job. You could also braze the holes shut, map gas & oxygen. Our local auto parts store as well as home depot sell something that would work.
_________________
I think he meant "rare", as in "not well-done"

[OB Bus]

As promised it is after New Years and I want to report how things went. I decided to try soldering the holes. As suggested I sanded the area, camfered the holes with a large bit, wiped down with acetone and then put a generous glop of flux in the hole. I tried the big soldring iron mentioned earlier but at 55 watts it could not heat the metal enough to get the solder to flow. My 1970s vintage 140 watt soldering gun did the trick. I just had to make sure the metal was plenty hot and then the solder would flow just fine.
Thanks for all the help.
_________________
Larry in OB
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!
69 Westfalia and 2002 Eurovan Camper.

[eyetzr]

What no pictures?
_________________
I think he meant "rare", as in "not well-done"

[OB Bus]

[57BLITZ]

[OB Bus]

I went out and filled another 10-12 holes this afternoon. I only had about an hour to work today.

As mentioned above I was mostly concerned with 1/8" holes around the perimeter. Filling 1/8" holes is easy. I found a number (75 at least) of holes where it appears that prior owners had used 3/16" pop rivets to secure "something". When the something was removed it was pried out of the bed so the holes were ripped wider and dimpled up. Those holes are 1/4" or larger. Larger holes are harder to solder up.

Here is how I did it:

First the original hole. This is one of the larger ones.

I beveled the edge of the hole and used a grinder to clean up the paint and rust. Hole was wiped clean with acetone or lacquer thinner. A finger tip full of flux was placed in and around the hole.

I worked the solder around the rim and - if the planets are aligned properly - a nice bubble of solder filled the hole.

I gently used the grinder to smooth the solder, cleaned up the flux, primed and painted.

As earlier noted I do not weld. Filling those holes takes some artistic skill and I have none. It got done and I am happy. I am now just working on getting the bed rain proof. The spray paint is temporary. Once the holes and all filled and/or patched I will take a twisted wire grinder and take the hole bed down to the base. I plan to either bed line it, POR15 the whole thing or just paint it.

Thanks.
_________________
Larry in OB
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!
69 Westfalia and 2002 Eurovan Camper.

[eyetzr]

Very well done. It is the more economical way to fill & without a welding machine.
_________________
I think he meant "rare", as in "not well-done"

[OB Bus]

Today I finally finished the paint stripping, grinding and rust neutralizing on the bed. For some odd reason I decided to keep track of the number of holes in the bed. The total: 143. Incredible. Included were the holes for the slats, the holes around the perimeter that held something, any number of just regular old rust holes and then all the pop rivets that were randomly inserted.
The soldering system worked well. Thank you so much 57BLITZ for the idea. My soldering gun that I was bragging about earlier was not working well at all. A friend who knows electrical things pointed out to me that the gun was actually only putting out about 25 watts. I went back to the 1960s-era soldering iron (inherited from my father-in-law and not used for a long time) and it worked just great.
_________________
Larry in OB
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!
69 Westfalia and 2002 Eurovan Camper.