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Ryoken's Guide to Rust Treatment and Bodywork 101

Overview Gallery Discussion
Here are the things I ran into while test fitting the top, call them Cons:

1. The top will scratch the H*LL out of the bed rails no matter what I do

2. It scratched the paint on the windshield frame just lowering it down

3. It was difficult lining the truck up underneath the top

4. The stupid Taiwan brand quarterpanels don't have the captive nuts in the bedrail lined up...this is a real problem My bedrail tops are going to look like crap if I use the hard top

5. If I get the top on, I have nobody to help me take it off once I get to the destination...and the problem of where to store it if I could get it off
 
Chief Brody said:
How many 73-75 K5 owners are there on this forum? You know, there was enough demand for the grills that LMC started selling the 73-75 grill a few years ago..
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That grille is actually just the 73-74 grille. No one has made a repro 75-76 grille.

I think you should put the hard top on there. In my opinion it looks better than the soft top.
 
Bed rails will look like crap when I remove it....what to do about that?
 
What about using that clear 3M film on the areas that can get scratched? Tough as hell, and see through and will save your paint.

I haven't seen a full vert soft top that didn't look at least a little retarded. :whistle:

For as often as it comes off, regular nuts on the underside should be fine.
 
On a trail rig, I think soft tops are cool. But on a restoration, I just feel its a compromise. And if the bed rails get scuffed, well, mine is pretty much bone stock and the rails are scuffed, so it's kinda how it should be.

I dunno. But with that one pic you posted, I think it looks really great.
 
If I go with the hard top, I gotta fix the captive nut placement under the bed rails...not sure how that's going to go
 
I'd rather see the rig be topless, or hardtop... softtops, ESPECIALLY the only ones out now, softtopper, aren't very flattering for the K5 lines IMO....

eh, scratch it up..... :dunno: I would think you could hunt a reasonable gasket solution thru McBible or similar to save paint if need be...
 
You could use Nutserts.
They would install from the top.
BUT, use the steel ones, not the aluminum ones, and grease or Nevr-Seeze the threads well every time you put in the bolts.
They have a fair amount of vertical strength, but if there is a lot of torque on them, they can turn in the hole.
 
Fordum said:
You could use Nutserts.
They would install from the top.
BUT, use the steel ones, not the aluminum ones, and grease or Nevr-Seeze the threads well every time you put in the bolts.
They have a fair amount of vertical strength, but if there is a lot of torque on them, they can turn in the hole.
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nutserts would look funky because they are round and the holes in the bed rails are capsule shaped
 
That is where my lack of knowledge about things GM shows. I did not know that you already had holes in the rails.
Is the rail open at the bottom or closed?
I'm guessing its closed, because open would be simple. Just a thick piece of steel with threaded holes along it corresponding to the holes in the rail.

It could be mounted permanently or not with some small countersunk screws or rivets.
If its closed, then I would make a piece to go on top. Since the holes in the rail are oblong, you could make every other hole have an oblong piece that goes down into the hole and is twisted to lock it with a screw slot.

The other holes are threaded and hold the top on.
Glue fake screw heads on the holes in the top not used.
The steel strip would absorb any wear caused by the top vibrating, and the paint on the rail should be good when you remove the strip after taking the top off if you put something under the strip when you put it down.
 
Chief Brody said:
If somebody can convince me that I can install the header bar in the windshield and the snaps on the tailgate in a manner that rust will not set in, I am really, really leaning toward the tan soft top :eek1:
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Once you drill pretty hard not to induce rust, especially on the inside.

I still haven't convinced myself to drill the header for the snap strip which consists of 5 holes.
The tailgate is a magnet strip in the top so no drilling.
The bedside channels for the soft top get bolted on so you will have to come up with a nut system anyways.
And will still be bolted on the paint.

I know what you mean about scratching the paint when putting the hard top on and off. Even using towels on the paint when lowering the top. Really hard by your self.

My hard top has been hanging in the garage for several years. When the weather is bad no drive. Been caught in the rain but no biggie.
Here in the mid south we get enough nice days in the winter to drive and in the summer I do most of my driving in the evening.
Not a daily driver either.

Still looking to come up with a front section from a hard top a make a Bolt on header for a bikini or full soft top but thats a maybe.


Best thing might be to find a junkyard blazer you could cut the top of the bed sides off for the captive nut set up. Would be labor intensive tho.

There are structural bonding agents out there used to bond body panels together that might work to attach the captive setup as not to need to repaint due to welding. I'm sure ryoken knows about them.

The nuts are just rectangular plates with tapped holes held on with cage type metal covers that allow the nuts to float which I'm sure you know. Could be made with a little work.

Forums 2nd idea would using work but gets away from the original.

The original question about using the hardtop. Well if you wanted a roof you could have gotten one of those later models.

If I have the need I would just put the hard top on but my 74 is not restored like yours and with fresh paint.

Sorry for the ramble.
 
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For the bed rail nuts, I feel like what I would do is have a nut welded on a piece of flat steel with a hole drilled through the steel like the way diy4x4 does there nut plates. I would then use some kind of epoxy adhesive to glue them to the bottom side of the bed rail. They have adhesives now a days that rival welds in strength.
 
Gonna be hard to run a hardtop with the Amity police lights bolted to the rollbar...

-G
 
Forums 2nd idea would using work but gets away from the original.
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True, but most any idea would get away from the original except for installing captive nuts, and I think that would involve major work on the rails and repainting.

The way I envision it, the piece would be almost invisible when the top was on, and could be painted to look like the rail or a gasket.

And could be completely removed when the top was off and leave no sign it was ever there.

At least the way it works in my mind............

Of course, lots of things work in my mind that don't work in real life. I would be a lot more confident if I were able to see a rail.
 
Has anyone found anything that will fit as a "plug" into the "capsule" shaped holes on top of the bed rails? If I had some nice looking low profile plugs to stick in there I might not mind marring up those holes
 
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