After finishing the right side of the S10 bed I moved on to the left side. As the previous post shows, the patchwork on the right side was shitty at best, fucked up at worst. But because this was merely a temporary fix to somewhat straighten out the bed so the truck can be used in a normal capacity, I really didn't care how the damned thing looked as long as its somewhat straight, especially if I end up putting a camper shell on the thing. Anyway, on to the left side. As with the right side, I had to start off with a bunch of cutting to remove a large portion of the side. I did have to stay clear of the fuel filler tube and door, since well, it leads to the fuel tank and sparky grinder cutting and welding is a NO NO around gasoline fumes. I did some initial pounding of the side with the sledge but when that didn't pan out I started cutting some, then pounding, then cutting some more, and pounding, until I managed to get things somewhat straightened out to allow me to cut the rest of the way where I can remove the section of metal so I can further straighten things out prior to welding things back up. Just like with the right side, after cutting out the plug of metal I further cut the section separating the inside and outside halves of the piece. Out came the baby sledgehammer to beat the shit out of the metal to straighten it out some more. The same was also done with the rest of the bed around the hole as well. After getting the bed straightened out as much as I can and getting the outside half of the patch straightened out I pulled out the welder to start with the outside metal. I started welding that patch all the way around and after getting that section done moved on to the inside half. I had to beat the metal some more to get things to fit as close as possible prior to the initial welds. I found myself having to manipulate the metal as I welded it more until I finally got the section secured but not fully welded all the way around. Because I had to cut sections of metal to get things to somewhat fit, I had a lot of gaps that were in need of filling in with welding slag to close things up. In addition to filling in one section of gaps I had to take a piece of cut metal to fill in a larger gap before finally finishing the whole patch. With that, the left side is all done, and looking plenty shitty, just like the right side. Later on I will probably clean up the burned paint and other residue from the metal and get some cheapo spray paint to cover the unsightly burnt and welded metal to at least try to make it look somewhat acceptable.
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