1968 C40 to K40 pickup project BlueMule

[Old_Green]

1968 C40 w/ 12' flatbed turned into long bed 4WD pickup
I'm hoping to match front fender flares on bed. Stretch cab or make 4 door cab.
I picked this up last year, so some work is done, I will make several posts to catch this up to date

[Old_Green]

Picked up Last year 80Kmiles 250 strait 6

[Old_Green]

appeared solid except for some rust in floors in the footwells and along the rocker seal area.

[Old_Green]

I was looking for a parts truck to snag some front fenders. I found one I wanted, but was a little too much to bite off for a parts truck.
72 C60 Bucket truck they used for setting telephone poles in the mountains. It had the Napco 4WD package, a 427 and had the wider fender flares, but it had a lot of rust too.
I wanted it for the Napco, but it was really heavy duty. 11K lb front springs and 28K lb rear. The price also put it a a little over the top for me. He sold it for 5K, but it was an interesting truck.

[Old_Green]

Still searching, I found one I liked that was in decent shape. My buddy Dave pulled out his Truck and we hauled it home. Its a 72 C50 Fuel truck with an older fuel tank on it. was kind of a cool looking tank, but I couldn't find a use for it. Found a guy that is going to use it to store diesel. He took the parts I didnt need. Frame, axles, Tank, pumps, hoses. All I really was looking for was the fenders, but kept the whole cab & engine, a running 350.

[Old_Green]

So, back to the BlueMule. I got it into the garage, and picked up a couple of truck beds from Facebook Marketplace. First one looked nice, but ended up having a lot of bondo. Since I was going to be doing a lot of cutting and welding on it, I wanted to find one with better metal. The 2nd was a little rough, but mostly where I was going to be cutting material out, and it had Zero bondo on it.
I pulled the wood off of the flat bed, which was rotted, and sold the bed frame. I then placed the pickup bed on the frame and lined it up over the axle and put some temporary spacers under it to line it up to the cab lines. I didn't mount it solid since I hadn't decided on the frame shortening method yet.

[Old_Green]

About the same time as I got the beds, I Picked up a tall deck 427 as a possible builder for it. Also took the cab and engine off of the Tank truck to scavenge the fenders. Set the rest aside as parts for future use.
I took the Tank truck fenders and cut out the wheel openings to patch into the bed wheel openings. Notice the fancy duct tape holding the extension on. Yep.

[Old_Green]

Jumped right in and started cutting. I wish Id taken more pics here, but only have the cutout then the patched in flare. The last 2 are welding the wheel well back to the factory inner panel.

[special-K]

Looks like your plan is coming along nicely. The tank body would be nice on another classic truck

[too much stuff]

Coming along nicely. Any more price or info on that napco?

[Old_Green]

Originally Posted by too much stuff

Coming along nicely. Any more price or info on that napco?

It was a cool truck, ran great too. I updated the post above. He sold it, I think he got 5K.

[Old_Green]

Picked up some emblems and hood vents off of Facebook.

[Old_Green]

Tried to do some work with the stud puller. The one next to the light worked pretty well. the one near the bottom edge ripped a little before I got it all the way out. Welded back up ok though.

[Old_Green]

Originally Posted by special-K

Looks like your plan is coming along nicely. The tank body would be nice on another classic truck

I thought it was a cool looking tanker too, just couldn't figure what I would do with it.

[LT7A]

This is a cool project. It'll be cool to watch the progress.

[Old_Green]

I have found that I didn't take a lot of pictures during some of the work, and a ton of pictures during others. I installed that patch into the fender. I took pics of the patch creation but not the welding or body work. I also missed out on the cleanup under the patch. I treated inner panel with rust mort, and then a rust resistant primer. I followed that up with a cavity wax to hopefully seal off any areas I might have missed.

[Old_Green]

since I ended up with 2 full cab and front ends, I started checking for which pieces are in better shape. The blue cab floor and both kick panels are rusted out pretty bad. The grey cab was in a little better shape. It has some rust in the rear drivers side rocker area, and some in the inner rocker area of the footwells, but overall the floor was in better shape than the blue cab. The blue cab also has a beat up back panel from hauling things on the flat bed over the years.

[kwmech]

If I ever decide to take on one of these as a project, I'd be inclined to put a turbo diesel in it. Like maybe a 4bt

[Old_Green]

I put the grey cab on a rolling cart, but it was a little unsteady. My friend Dave brought over his cab body cart, and I moved the cab over to that. It has a pretty ingenious idea. The cab mounts the cart at the stock mounting locations, and then the cab can be rolled around as needed. If you need to work on the topside, there are two "legs" that can slide into any of the four sides of the cart. You can then roll the cart and cab either 45 or 90 degrees onto the legs.

[Old_Green]

After tossing around a lot of ideas, I want to attempt to do something a little different. I've seen 4 doors and extended cabs. With the size of this truck I think it will look good with the cab a little longer. This will means I'm going to be stretching the cab, and the doors by six inches. I'll start by keeping the roof off of the extra cab. I like the tear drop lights better than the little rounded ones on the newer cab. Then I'll cut some sections out of the cab to use in the stretch area. (some rusted areas will have to be replaced by extra metal)

[Old_Green]

First I put in a lot of support in the cab to keep its shape, but I left space between front and back sections so that I can separate them. I used all-thread at all 4 corners with locknuts on both ends to control movement. I placed the brackets exactly 2" apart and welded them to the body in order to ensure when I moved the sections apart that I was moving them evenly, and I could fix it in place with the lock nuts when I was in correct position. I made my cut on the roof thru both panels about 3 inches in front of center. I then trimmed the outer panel back 3 inches to center, leaving the inner panel cut out in the open, On the donor roof, I left it long so I could patch in wherever I needed to. The floor was cut just in front of the seat mounts. Its pretty flat there, so I can use flat sheet metal where donor pieces are rusty.

[Old_Green]

Here is the cab pulled to the stretch distance, locked into place at all 4 corners. Then tacking sections into place. Some tapering will need to be done on the roof inner panels, as the roof tapers in toward the front.

[Old_Green]

I missed taking pictures during a stretch while I was welding the stretch sections. It didn't seem to be progressing, while doing that, but now looking back, I wish I had some documentation on it. During that time, I added strengthening angle iron between the front and rear sections, finished welding in the stretched section in the floor and inner rockers. For the outer rocker, I welded a couple of rusty sections over the gaps temporarily to add rigidity since I would be replacing them with new metal. The roof inner panel was welded up and I left the all-thread bolted into place. I then put the cab back on the cart and sent it off to have the entire thing wet blasted. It came back all clean.

[Old_Green]

I put a coat of epoxy primer on the cab everywhere I could reach. Everywhere I couldn't, I used cavity wax on a long spray nozzle.

[Old_Green]

I cleaned up the roof as best I could, and fit the roof front panel from the blue cab into place. I tried my new flange tool on the roof panel, to fit it under the rear roof panel and clamped it into place. I used some Cleco fasteners to fasten the 2 panels together. I tacked it into place, but the panels are pulling down at the seam, so I need to figure that out before I finish welding it down.