Cab rot strikes again

For the past while I've been debating about the best way to remove the layers of bondo from my truck cab.  I've tried chem strippers, which only soften the top layer a little.  I've heard of heating up putty knives and prying it up that way.  Sandblasting I suppose, but I've heard this is a terrible thing to do.  Then there are power tools.  Not too long ago I picked up a used rotary sander on craigslist with the intent on using it for SOMETHING during restoration.  So I went to the store and bought some super nasty 36 grit sanding discs for it.  I also had some wire wheels for my angle grinder, so we would see who did the best job.

I knew there was some bondo on the cab when I got it, but I had no idea about how much until I started to remove it.  As I cut through the bondo I could see multi-layered applications where it was applied very thick.  It appears the person who worked on this truck had no interest in body hammers & dollies and chose to work only in the art of body filler.

You can see the multi-layered approach to bondo here if you look at the rings, plus some pinholes in the raised cab seam.

The sander won the speed contest, but once the layers of bondo thinned out the wire wheels were nice to prevent abrading/cutting away sheet metal.  The wire wheel also probably made some damage worse, but I'm supposing the structural integrity of what was left wasn't very good if my wire wheel was damaging it.

Passenger side cab seam rot.

This looks worse in person.

Now I need to make a cab decision.  There are many places that need patched.  I have some of these panels already, but not all.  I'm contemplating just finding another cab and calling it quits on the one I have since it's so rough.  Right now I'm holding off on making a decision, but I know where to find what I need either way. I'm going to spend some time working on smaller things and think about my options.

Engine Decision, made

I went to a nearby car show with low expectations and came away surprised.  Several people selling old parts at the swap meet had parts for my truck.  There was even a complete cab, more on that later.

My main goal was to check for front fenders.  No luck there, but I saw someone with a couple inline sixes on a trailer and asked about one of them.  It was the Chevy 261 I had been trying to find!  This engine is the 'biggest engine easy' swap you can make for my truck.  I didn't want to go to a V8 for several reasons and was hoping to find a year appropriate 216 or any 261 engine.  I thought I had found one not too far away, but it fell through after the seller realized he needed to do a lot to replace his engine, so off I went looking again.

261 engine, with some orange (shall change this)