First project ever

[marcolara]

So here is an interesting story. My father used to have a 68 long bed that was passed on to me and my brother during our teen years. As any teenager not really realizing the value of things, we gave the truck (yeah, in running condition) away to some dude that was really happy to get a truck for free. now I'm in my mid 30's and realize how clueless I was back then.

I bought a 68 c10 long bed about 2 miles away from my place. right on my driveway, the passenger front spindle snapped broke and the truck slammed hard to the ground.

I suspect that the bearings were bad and the friction cause the spindle to heat up and break the way it did.

Once I was able to push it back to my backyard using a floor jack, and took the broken spindle off the truck, I realized that the frame had cracked. After further examination, I also found out that the engine block broke off a piece that holds the starter's bolt and is currently using some Mikey-Mouse (my way of saying half-ass) trickery with some frigging wooden shim to hold the starter in place. It was then when my moral just dropped the same way my truck did on the driveway. I can't blame the guy who sold it to me, but the guy who inspected the thing before buying it (me).

Anyhow, Life goes on and I just forced myself to see the potential on the truck. I had the option to weld the crack, buy a new spindle and just move on but I decided to go with a more ambitious idea. I found a rolling short-bed chassis with a nice looking bed in Arizona and hauled it back to my place in Cali.

My idea is to disassemble the bed, clean the chassis (perhaps sandblast), clean the rear-end, buy new 2.5 drop spindles with drop springs, and start moving the parts from my truck to the new frame.

This is the first time I'm doing this so I really have no clue what the heck I'm doing and I learn as I go and the reason I joined this community.

I'm looking for inspiration, answers, guidance, mentoring and to share my experiences for any individual with similar undertaking.

The other problem is that I just moved to a new area (Murrieta California) about a month ago, and I have no contact information for any good shops or people that can do most of the services I require for the project such as sandblasting, body shop, glass, electric, mechanics etc... Luckly for me, Brothers is only 30 minutes away and I can save on shipping.

I don't have much budget so I'm planning to do as much as I can myself, but I'm no mechanic, electrician, body shop expert and by no means am I an expert on trucks. Any tips, comments, feedback is highly appreciated.

Thank you and I hope I can be a good fit here among the experts.