Re: Frankentruck
 

Thanks Jay. The end of college is approaching quicker than I expected :lol: Merry Christmas to you too!

Re: Frankentruck
 

This weekend has been a busy one. Yesterday, my buddy Levi and I went to Cagle's U-Pull-It to look for some parts that we needed. I ended up finding the coolant/wiper washer jug from a 90s F150 and a rear sway bar from the same year range Bronco. Yes, I'm putting Ford parts on my Chevy :lol:. I'm doing the Jeep wiper arm swap, so I picked up a couple extras as spares/practice. The yard also had an old International Loadstar that just so happened to have a factory dome light lens that looked exactly like the one in Frankentruck. It had nice clips, so I'll be replacing mine that the clips broke on.

After we were done rummaging through the junkyard, we went over to Flashed's place and talked trucks and stuff for the rest of the afternoon. It was a great time, and was great to hang with John again. Got a sweet shot of John's super clean square in the sunset.

Today didn't see any work done to the new parts, but I did drive out to Cumming so that I could check out some wheels that I've wanted. Frankentruck got some new shoes for Christmas!! :four: I picked up some Wheel Vintiques 15x8 steelies off of Facebook Marketplace for a great deal. Needs a coat of black and they'll be ready for new tires. Eventually I'll find some 61-63 hubcaps, but for now, I'll run the caps that came on the truck when I got it over 4 years ago

Re: Frankentruck
 

Christian , it was great having you and Levi out at the Truck Farm for a good visit , youre always welcome here . And I love the shot of the sunset with Cream Puffs nose in it . You need to share that pic with me . Great score on the wheels too.

Re: Frankentruck
 

I don't know how I forgot Cream Puff's name, but thanks for the reminder! I texted you the pic. Once the weather gets a bit warmer, I'll scuff the wheels up and shoot em black

Re: Frankentruck
 

Christian , you can always bring your wheels up here to my shop , turn the heat on and paint away .

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Thanks John, I had not thought about that. Looks like the truck will be down for a bit longer than I thought for some upgrades, so it might be spring time until I even start thinking about repainting the wheels

Re: Frankentruck
 

Yesterday after work, I started mocking up the rear sway bar. Went great until I tried to move it into position. The exhaust system that I am not too fond of drops right down over the axle where the sway bar mount needs to go.

Is there any reason to not reroute the exhaust to dump outside the truck in front of the tire? My dad is worried that if I move the pipe closer towards the cab that the exhaust fumes will get into the cab through the nonexistent cab corners.

Also, I noticed while I was under there that the trac bar has loosened itself over time. The bar is an adjustable one that I bought to replace the factory 63 that split in half. The factory trac bar was heated and bent to make a 65-70 rear end fit in the truck.
It is looking like I will have to end up removing rivets from the frame mount, moving it back a little, and getting the right angle when I bolt it in.

Any suggestions on these two issues?

Re: Frankentruck
 

Was able to stop by Harbor Freight last night after work to pick up a riveter so I could finish up the Jeep arm swap. I finished it up today and got some new blades on Frankentruck. They work so much better, and I am so glad that I did the upgrade.

I ended up make 3 sets of them because that was all I could get at the junkyard I went to. I'll put the two sets up on the parts board probably after Christmas

Re: Frankentruck
 

Merry Christmas y'all!

Got to spend some quality time with the family today, and I got to spend a little time working on the reverse light buckets and bezels.

I wire wheeled the buckets to remove the rust, but unfortunately, rust has worked itself through one of the buckets. Tomorrow I'll be slapping on some JB weld to fill the holes and make it work. It doesn't have to look pretty, just has to be functional.

I also cleaned up the bezels using the aluminum trick. They aren't the nicest pieces, but they will work and match the rest of the truck :lol:

I should have some more updates tomorrow.

Re: Frankentruck
 

Got a lot of stuff done on Frankentruck today. I repaired the reverse light bucket that had rusted out with some JB weld, stuck the antenna back together with some JB weld, painted the buckets with some rust reformer paint, and made the bracket for the washer/coolant resivor. I painted the bracket when I did the buckets.

I pulled the heater controls out so I could grease up the defrost cable and discovered that the controls have a light socket provision to illuminate the controls when the dash lights are turned on. I robbed a light socket from my old cluster and wired it up.

Last thing for the night was taking the Christmas lights off

Re: Frankentruck
 

Awwww yes :metal:

Re: Frankentruck
 

Do you have a full set of those caps ? I may have a couple more til you find the ones youre looking for .

Re: Frankentruck
 

Hey John, I didn't see this until just now. I have 5 of these, but 3 of the 5 are in poor shape

Re: Frankentruck
 

So this happened yesterday as well. Got a new tailgate from John that is a heck of a lot straighter than my old one. I think I'll turn the old one into a bench until I find a different bed for the truck and use it on the trailer I have.

Re: Frankentruck
 

Got a lot done over the last few days of the decade.
I was tired of the red letters in the grille, so I repainted them black. While the paint was out, of course I had to paint the tailgate letters. Yes, I used the same black house paint that my bedroom was painted with many years ago.

I finally got the windshield washer and coolant reservoir from the Ford mounted up for good. I like where it sits, and I didn't have to drill any additional holes in the firewall. I also still had a spot for the overdrive relay.

I swapped out the old dome light housing with busted clips to the $5 junkyard find with great clips. No more tape holding the dome light in.

Re: Frankentruck
 

I've been bad at taking pics while I was working on them, but I've got the reverse light buckets repaired with some JB weld and painted with rust reformer and painted the inside of the bucket gloss white.

I got the holes drilled in the end caps, but couldn't complete the install because I'm waiting on the seals and such to show up, and I need to get the clips that hold the buckets to the body.

A NOS backup lamp switch is on it's way from California. I decided to go NOS for 2 reasons: one, Frankentruck deserves some NOS goodies and two, I don't have a whole lot of faith in the aftermarket switches especially when I could only find it from LMC. The NOS switch was about the same as the repop one from LMC after shipping.

Some other NOS goodie is a single speed wiper washer switch. I'm keeping my factory wiper motor, but wanted a proper switch in the dash to make the Ford washer pump work like the GM one would have. Also, I like keeping fluids out of the cab, so it made sense to use the Ford stuff with a pump in the bottom of the reservoir.

I also pulled some parts off the other core support I have so I can figure out what I want to do about getting it repaired. I need to sell the stuff I'm not using because I'll probably end up paying someone to fix the bottom of the support. It looks like it just needs corners as the center piece is surprisingly solid.

Happy New Year y'all!! :ennyd:

Re: Frankentruck
 

All this rain has hampered my progress. I was also waiting on parts to show up, but our house is one of the last couple of stops for the UPS route, so they didn't arrive today until 20 minutes ago. Too dark and wet outside to do anything about it tonight.

The rain made progress slow, but I was able to finally fix my horn. Turns out the wire to the button had melted and split long before I got the truck. I replaced the wire and robbed a connector off my old wiring harness so everything would work as intended again. I got everything back together and honk honk, the horn works again!
First time everything has worked on the truck since I've owned it

Re: Frankentruck
 

At least you are making progress . I got the 65 Service Truck off the trailer at the Truck Farm and went yesterday after work to grab that free square body but it was falling a flood when I got there . Another time soon I hope . All this rain stinks but it beats Snow .

Re: Frankentruck
 

Slow progress is still progress, and yes, snow would be worse :lol:

Re: Frankentruck
 

The swap meet ended up being a bust. Probably no more than 30 vendors and not that many other people. I'm just glad I didn't bring anything to sell.

Once I got home, I started working on the reverse lights again. Got everything screwed together and then the bucket that I had to repair broke again. I guess I'm on the hunt for another bucket now. At least the driver's side went together nicely.

I also got my first NOS part for Frankentruck. New reverse light switch showed up today, but I don't know what size screws that I need to bolt it up.

I'm headed back to school tomorrow, so the truck will sit for a bit, but I'll get back to it eventually.

Thanks for following along y'all

Re: Frankentruck
 

I'm new to the forum...part of the reason I joined was your thread. I spent a LOT of time reading every single post and I must say that I really enjoyed your entire thread. Thank you for sharing your story!

I look forward to seeing more of your journey.


Side note; I live in San Diego but I have a lot of family in Augusta, Athens, Cumming, Greensboro and also in Alabama.

Re: Frankentruck
 

Welcome to the forum! Thanks for following along, I appreciate the kind words. If you ever want to see the truck in person, let me know next time you are visiting family here in GA

Re: Frankentruck
 

Reverse lights are working :metal:

I had to take the socket out of the bucket to work out the puncture in the socket, but it is fixed now and works great. Ran the wires today and zip tied the switch to the column since I dont know what size the screws are. It works, but not sure how long it will hold.

I also got a glove box light, but I haven't been able to figure out how the spring goes so that the door will pop open just by pressing the button.

Re: Frankentruck
 

I picked up another 63 grille this morning. I didn't need it, but I got it for a decent deal and I got to see part of north Georgia that I've never seen before.

I also was able to pop in the new cancelling cam for the turn signals

Re: Frankentruck
 

Just dropping in a pic that shows how the reverse lights look during the day. I guess I ought to polish the tail light trim to go along with the chrome on the reverse lights :waah:
Classes are about to be my main focus, so probably not going home any time soon to work on the truck some more. I'll still be hanging out here with y'all on my study breaks :D

Re: Frankentruck
 

Swinter hit here in Milledgeville today. 73 degrees but no c10 to drive around in :whine::waah:
It was nice to drive with the windows down and the music up though

Re: Frankentruck
 

Hold on to your hats folks, I've got a pretty neat update for y'all :lol:

I went home yesterday to do an interview for a possible summer internship. Of course, since I was home, I went to meet my buddy for breakfast at a place called Martin's (better food and cheaper than Chick-fil-a breakfast). While we were eating, some white stuff started falling from the sky.

It snowed at least 2-3 inches in North Georgia today!!! I've never driven in the snow before until today. It's a lot like driving in mud, but sketchier. Thankfully, it was above freezing the entire time I was out driving, so the snow on the roads was more slush than snow, but still was kinda fun. I went real slow and kept plenty of space between myself and the people in front of me.

Anyways, Frankentruck did great on the trip to and from Cartersville in the snow to pick up some more parts that I found on Facebook. Originally went for the hood and grilles that the guy had for sale, but left with much more :crazy:

I only had one thing go wrong today. The passenger side wiper arm broke at the mounting point. This was one of the junkyard arms that I pulled and I'm thinking that it might have been cracked and I just didn't notice it. At least it wasn't the driver's side that broke!

Here's some snow pics for ya

Re: Frankentruck
 

Now on to the parts I scored!

A 60-61 GMC hood that is in nice shape with only a few, small issues of rust. It only has one dent that I noticed and that dent is smaller than a penny. The turn signal lenses are cracked badly, but they'll work for now.

I bought 2 more grilles that are both in great shape. One is a 60 with the headlight bezels and the other is a 62. Of course, I forgot to take a good pic of the grilles.

61 Chevy hood turn signal pods with light buckets that are in great shape. Definitely the nicest set of pods that I have seen myself.

A much nicer grille support panel to replace my dented and rusted out one.

A surprisingly straight fleetside bumper that had a trailer hitch cleanly installed through the middle of it. Not sure if it is 60-62 or 63-66. I didn't think to check the measurements of the bolt holes.

Another 60-63 radio delete plate that is in much nicer condition than the other one I have.

A passenger side 60-63 sail panel trim piece that isn't in the best of shape. Might end up becoming wall art.

Also, a nicer horn button that has fewer pitted spots and nice paint on the bowtie.

Re: Frankentruck
 

This hood is almost too nice to put on my rust bucket :lol:

I would rather have a 60-61 Chevy hood, but this GMC hood was such a good deal that I couldn't pass it up, even if that meant driving in the snow for the first time.

The guy I bought it from saved the hood from a truck that was getting sent to the scrap yard after a tree had fallen on the cab.

Re: Frankentruck
 

Nice score on the parts for sure.

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Thanks! I went to look at the hood and the two grilles, but got all the other stuff in the deal as well. Did I need it? No, but I wanted it :lol:

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Its better than Money in the bank right now Christian .

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That's probably true. I didn't even have that money in the bank though. I keep my truck parts fund separate from my bank account at the moment

Re: Frankentruck
 

Had a great time last night at the C10 Club Georgia wing night.
Lots of good trucks, but I only took this one pic


The six lug steelies I picked up a couple months ago came off of the red truck in the pic when he swapped over to 5 lug

Re: Frankentruck
 

As a study break today, I finally replaced the parking brake cable that snapped.
I had replaced the two cables that run to the wheels back when I did the disc brake swap, but didn't have an issue with the frant cable at the time.

The new front cable was around 15 bucks or so after shipping because it shipped with the replacement Jeep wiper arm (junkyard arm broke at the hinge). The length is almost spot on to the original one, but the only issues I have with it is that the attachment piece at the handle isn't wide enough and the 2 adjustment nuts at the other end are 13mm. For the price though, I can't complain too much and my parking brake works again :metal:

Re: Frankentruck
 

Some people probably think my truck should be in a junkyard, but instead, I drove it to the junkyard :lol:

Re: Frankentruck
 

I took a 4 hour round trip today to pick up a trailer hitch for Frankentruck. It was a bit of a drive, but for the price, I couldn't pass it up. Looks like I've got a lot of stuff to do over spring break :lol:

Re: Frankentruck
 

Just got back home for my Carona virus extended, 2 week spring break. Of course, I had to stop by the local junkyard and grab some parts.

Gonna go pull the old steering gear off :metal:

Re: Frankentruck
 

Got some good progress done today. I'll say it, rivets suck. It got dark out, so I had to stop for the night, but I'll be back on it tomorrow morning.

After grinding the head off, I had to drill into the rivet so my punch would stay in place and actually knock the rivet out.

Hopefully I'll be able to finish it up tomorrow

Re: Frankentruck
 

Progress from yesterday wasn't too much because of the rain and running into a question about if the bowtie piece on the rag joint should be replaced or not.

Hopefully some more progress will happen today!