October 26, 2003  -  Well, I decided to spend the weekend working on getting the cab sandblasted. Since the bottom of the cab contained very little rust, this should be a breeze. However, just to make things a little easier on the sandblaster (or more specifically, the air compressor) and to keep the sand clean, I spent an hour cleaning the bottom of the cab with a wire wheel on the angle grinder. This removed any remnants of undercoating or other impurities which would get into the sand. Then I rolled the cab out into the driveway and hit it with the garden hose, paying particular attention to door jambs, roof pillars, etc...any place where mice had set up residence and built nests. I wanted to make 100% sure all foreign substances were gone.

When I initially built the cart that my cab sets on, I underestimated the weight of the cab when I bought the casters, by quite a bit...plus I got rubber-coated versions instead of solid. Big mistake! The floor of my shop sits about 1-1/2"" higher than the driveway, and the casters simply were not sturdy enough to navigate this lip. Right after rinsing the cab, I decided to roll the cab back into the shop so the sun could dry the driveway quicker...and one of the casters hit the lip and broke off. I was able to get by maneuvering the cart around on three wheels and a hand dolly...but later in the day while sandblasting, a light rain started and I had to rush to get the cab back inside so I could get the sand cleaned up before it got wet. In my hurry, another caster caught the driveway lip and broke off. So my cart is dead in the water until I pick up some heavier hardware.

I picked up three 70-lb bags of silica sand today and was able to fit one of these into the tank of the sandblaster plus have room for a little more. A full tank gives me about 5-10 minutes of work time. The picture to the right shows you what I can accomplish in that time period...providing there's no serious rust. Cleaning off surface rust and paint/primer goes much quicker than cleaning an area with deeper rust. (Or is that stating the obvious?) As you can also see in the pictures, I've cut off most of the driver's-side cab mount. The portion which remains will be left on, since attempting to remove it could easily damage the floorpan. It'll be complete covered by the new mount anyway. While cleaning the bottom I noticed the passenger-side mount is starting to rust through in one small spot, so I'll be also cutting that one off and replacing it. I believe I can get both cab mounts and the rusty door pillar welded up in a single afternoon.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the semi-mild weather the area is currently experiencing holds out for a little while longer...at least long enough for me to finish sandblasting the cab, radiator support and inner fenderwells before it gets too cold...or it snows!

When rinsing this cab out prior to sandblasting, I was fortunate to have a route for the water to drain out: the rear cargo light hole.

Here's what the bottom of the cab looked like after cleaning with the wire brush and then getting rinsed off.

Here's what one tank full of sand in a 40-lb sandblaster will do before needing a refill. Obviously, this is going to take a while!

This is as far as I got before it started raining today.