[bobs409]

Lots has happened over the past week. I've been working full steam on the tear down. First off was to pull the engine and transmission. Engine is now in the garage on the engine stand and will soon be taken apart for inspection. Seems to be way too much grease and grime to be 49K original so it's probably 149K after all. (not that it matters too much to me, I love it just the same)

Transmission will not be taken apart. I will put it on another engine stand and completely degrease and detail it. I will also have to fix a hole on the bottom of the case put there by the junkyard loaders forks.

I removed all the parts bolted to the inside of the cab such as speedometer cluster, dash pad, glove box, etc and parts on the outside like brake booster, oil gauge line, heater parts, etc.

All parts that are to be sand blasted and refinished were placed into one box and parts not needing attention at this time were placed into another box and stored. Through all of this work I am slowly chipping away at all the small parts that need to visit the sand blast cabinet.

First the parts go to the parts washer, then to the sand blast cabinet, then outside for a coat of etch prime. I will not apply any finish coats until I'm ready to install these parts. That way I don't have to worry about scratching anything while in storage. Oh yeh, after the prime coat they get put into box #3, "the DONE parts."

So this leads me to yesterday when I got about 6 solid hours of work in. This day I started to get the cab seperated from the frame. To my surprise, the rear body mount bolts simply turned right out! Front ones were not so kind so I introduced them to the business end of my sawzall. lol

The windshield unfortunately is milky at the bottom so not good enough for a restored vehicle. Very sad as there are no stone chips or wiper marks in it and it's a fully tinted version matching the rest of the glass. While I won't be reinstalling this one, I used it as a practice piece to try and remove it without breaking it. Success!

Next I next removed the emergency brake and the clutch/brake pedal set up.

Now it was time to winch the truck into a good position to remove the seat and gas tank. Not easy working in my new carport, a bit tight side to side with my 69 Chevelle in there too but I will make do.

With the help of my engine hoist and a few jacks, I quickly got the cab up to get some doubled up 2X4's under it. Notice the custom holes I cut into the rear cab corners to feed the wood through. I won't have that luxury for the re-install so will have to devise a new method for when that time comes. That's where I ended yesterday.

Today I will continue to lift the cab until I can roll the frame back out from under it. The cab will be lowered to about 12 inches off the ground for safety and I will then remove the rear window and start a bit of metal work. I sure have my work cut out for me on this cab! I've decided to fix it come hell or high water and once I set my mind to something...

Here's 5 pics. 3 more in next reply.