The biggest thing is how to fill those old holes left by the spot weld cutter. They are so big, 3/8in, and sometimes there are two spot welds directly next to each other which we can leave an even bigger hole. Both the inner and outer skin and I think even the middle support skin are all 20 gauge metal. From working on that truck I have found 20 gauge to be way less forgiving and way more temperamental with your heat settings in comparison with 18 gauge. I've gotten pretty good at setting the welder, but for those giant holes you basically have to stitch in rosettes and use an air compressor, which I forgot to break out until halfway through. My OCD and lack of knowledge, I was wanting to fill them so that you couldn't see any cracks or pinholes left by the welding process (pictured), but the other side of me knew that that was putting way too much heat into those panels. My buddy that works at a professional body shop told me to quit filling them with so much weld because the filler would do that. I think having somebody that's done a true body work and paint looking over my shoulder would have been helpful. That's probably the biggest thing though. And I'll add too, once every spot weld is tacked in. You can put a little heat into that panel because it really can't move because it's got 75ish spot welds holding it in place. Heat management is important, but that does give you some wiggle room. If I had put that kind of heat in a bedside, it'd probably warped all over the place.
Another thing I'm glad that I did was keep a lot of those little discs left over by the spot weld cutter. Inevitably. If you go this route on a convertible conversion, I think you will drill some holes that weren't necessary. Some of those spot welds from the spot weld machine didn't really stick to anything, but you can't tell that until you've cut them out. Saving those discs is helpful for those holes where there's no backing to weld to. They came in real handy as hole fillers.
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