Project: DIY '68

[Mac93]

New member here but I have been browsing the site for a while, daydreaming that one day I could have a pickup like some of the members. I then bought my dads '68 c20 from him last year. The pickup was in great shape, minimal rust, a few imperfections but overall a clean, running, and driving rig. Since it is a long bed, I got the itch to find another pickup of the same year but a short bed. Like some folks here with not very deep pockets for a project, I struggled to find a swb pickup in my price range that was not a rock chip away from being a junk yard cruiser. My dad than gave me the idea to make the '68 I have into a short bed, so I did. I started a few months ago and am now getting to posting pictures of my progress.

[Mac93]

I cleaned out a side of the shop and rolled the truck in to begin the fun process of disassembling the truck. Nothing too tricky here. Luckily, these pickups are pretty straight forward where you don't need a mechanical engineering degree to work on it.

[Mac93]

I wont take up space by posting pictures of taking bolts out, knocking off rusted bolts, bloodied knuckles, etc. So I'll get into the cutting of the bed. For the bed, I have seen a few member cut their beds in a varitey of places, but I decided to cut in the places where a previous owned had some bed tie downs bolted to the side of the bed. I taped off the areas I was wanting to cut out while the bed was on the frame.
For this, I taped off 12 inches in front of the wheel well and 8 inches out of the rear, totaling 20 inches. A tape measure, masking tape, sharpie, and a straight edge is all I used to mock this up. And LOTS of checking measurements on either side. After I taped off the outside, I mirrored the lines to the inside of the bed and across the bed floor. For going across the bed floor I used a straight edge and a black sharpie.

[Mac93]

After taping and measuring, I decided to start at the rear of the pickup with cutting. But before I started cutting, I welded a piece of angle iron across the bed rails, in front of the area I would cut or towards the cab. This would keep the bed sides in their original location. Off the able iron, I welded a piece of square tube from the angle iron down to the bed floor, just for extra strength and rigidity.

[Mac93]

Next, the cutting began. I chose to use a sawzall for the cuts. I've seen some members use a grinder, which I'm sure gets the job done but concerns me because all the heat generated from the grinder and cut off wheel amount to a lot of heat which could possibly lead to expanding the metal on the bed sides and thus creating waves in the metal..
The hardest part was the first cut by far! The sawzall was pretty easy to keep straight while cutting, with a few wiggles in there. But I was able to clean those up using a grinder when I was getting ready to weld the tailgate section back to the main part of the bed.
Once I cut the rear section out of the bed, I took the sawzall and cut the last 8 inches off of the frame, where the bumper originally was mounted.

[tinydb84]

I would suggest moving your cut lines closest to each end as possible. The ends have much more strength and will resist warping more than the center of the panel.

Edit: Never mind I was too late lol

[Mac93]

Originally Posted by tinydb84

I would suggest moving your cut lines closest to each end as possible. The ends have much more strength and will resist warping more than the center of the panel.

Edit: Never mind I was too late lol

I absolutely agree. I was told that is the rout to go from a few people, and they were very happy with their results (based on pictures they posted, I'd say they did a outstanding job). Since I cut the bed back in September, it is kind of hard to change now.. but if I were to do it again, I would cut on the leading and trailing edges like you mentioned.

[Mac93]

After a little grinding work the cuts lined up. As you can see in the first picture, the style line near the top of the bed is a little off as well as rolled lip at the very bottom, behind the rear wheel. Not to jump ahead too far ahead but those two issues were easy to fix. I was able to gently bend on each side to mate up. Neither took a lot of force to make significant changes, so be easy.


Before going to town on the bed, I decided to weld a few practice pieces together, just to get the hang of it. I cleared off the paint surrounding the area that would be welded, and did a few practice tacks. I set my welder up at setting 1 for voltage and about 25 for wire feed which seemed to be the ticket. When doing the tacks, I was told to do a tack for about 1 to 1.5 seconds. You just want to make sure your weld is penetrating through the metal to the other side. Also when you do your tacks, jump about 6 inches up your line and do another tack. This will give the metal enough time to cool and prevent the metal from being distorted due to high heat.

[Mac93]

Continued with welding the rear end and cutting the front end.

[Mac93]

Pulling the front end off is a pretty easy task. Nothing surprising here. We were able to get the cab off using a engine hoist and a 4x4 to lift right off the chassis.

[Mac93]

Cleaning the frame off and preparing it for paint was a easy task. Pressure washer and engine degreaser are good tools.

Once cleaned, I got my lines mocked up on the frame where I planned on cutting. Like I mentioned earlier, I cut the last 8 inches off the frame at the rear and next I had to take 12 inches out of the center of the frame. I chose to make my cut behind the transmission support and in-front of the cross-member where the drive shaft goes through.

[tinydb84]

Looks great. I really want to shorten just the front half of my bed but really want to actually make forward progress lol

[dmack91]

That truck looks familiar. Now, if you would finish it up I could have my shop and garage back to work on one of my own projects.

[Mac93]

I had a neighbor who was a professional welder for 30+ years come by and burn the frame together. I used lots of clamps to hold the frame in a straight line and come-alongs as well. I cross measured many times and used a four foot straight edge to make sure the frame was straight. After he welded the frame together, I made some fish plates to weld on the inside of the frame, over the welded section for extra strength.

[Mac93]

Got the grinder out and ground down the welds on the bed so I could start the body work. Having never done any body work before, this was quite the task, and still is, but a great learning experience.

[Mac93]

Finished up on the bed, primed it and tomorrow I will set it on the frame and leave it alone till its time to paint. I started rust repair last week, when we were at -15 and snow on the ground. Thank you lord for shop heaters!

[gdavis]

Welcome and the bed and frame looks great. You want be sorry about making it a shorty. The bed turned out real sweet. George

[67c10rustbuket]

Great build. That looks like a very clean truck to start with.

[WhaJac]

Nice project Mac, thanks for sharing. Looks like that thumb took a beating recently.
Waiting for next load of pix.

[Mac93]

Originally Posted by gdavis

Welcome and the bed and frame looks great. You want be sorry about making it a shorty. The bed turned out real sweet. George

Thank you, George! I'm happy with how the bed turned out. Nice thing is, all the other body work that needs to be done is "little" things and they are much more manageable so you can see your progress for just an hour of work.

Originally Posted by 67c10rustbuket

Great build. That looks like a very clean truck to start with.

I got pretty lucky with how clean the truck is. She was a gem, until I tore her apart.

Originally Posted by WhaJac

Nice project Mac, thanks for sharing. Looks like that thumb took a beating recently.
Waiting for next load of pix.

Make sure when you are using a hammer tacker, you look where you are swinging it..speaking from experience..okay, multiple experiences.

[Mac93]

Got the bed set onto the frame for now. Today was able to work on the passenger fender and driver door. On the door, had to fill all the old mirror holes (7 of them) making sure NOT to fill the mirror holes I need this time.. Passenger fender needs the bottom section replaced from the acid coming off the battery over the years and the dent on the leading edge. Also filled the holes from the C20 emblem. Starting to learn that it doesn't require a lot of body filler.. the more you put on, the more sanding you have to do.

[Mac93]

Forgot to add pic of rust repair on the door. So far, its contained to the cupped edge on the hinge side. When I flipped over the door, under the door skin I was surprised to find these inspection marks?

[Mac93]

There were a few rust spots that were starting to show on the drivers side rocker, so I cut part of it with the intention of patching it, but the rust on the inside is just a little too much than I would like so time to order a replacement rocker panel.

In the center of the hood, on the nose, it appeared that the paint was cracking.. So I took a air angle grinder to remove some of the paint and discovered the reason for the cracking wasn't the paint, but a small amount of body filler (about 1/16" of fill). Whoever did the body work did a decent job shaping the metal back to its original position.

[seth7843]

Love the project so far. What are your end goals for the truck? Gotta love the C20s.

[Mac93]

Originally Posted by seth7843

Love the project so far. What are your end goals for the truck? Gotta love the C20s.

My end goal is to use the pickup as a pickup. I really would like to take it back to as stock as I can, minus the cut frame and bed of course. Not too interested in lowering it at all. I'm using med. metallic blue for the paint (506 original color). I'm keeping my eyes open for a set of steel wheel to go on the truck too. Plenty of C20s around to make into your own "custom" pickup without breaking the bank