1970 VA Longbed Project

[VA72C10]

Finally, the bummer news of the evening. The triplus panels I've had have all fit great.........until now.....

The lower door patch isn't even close. The profiles don't match at all....I'm going to contact them and see if I have an old run by chance and if not, will be looking for another option or another door.

Here's the door with the rust cut out...


And note how the door underneath has sharp angles and details and the patch panel is just barely rounded



From the side view


Looking the other way....not exactly a true reproduction


Note it lines up at the edge... but the body line curve is off by around an inch...

[gcburdic]

Progress looks good on the cab, but man that stinks about the door bottoms!!!.....Let us know how that turns out!.....I have some 67 doors I want to practice on at some point, so thanks for being the "guinea pig"

[VA72C10]

Well, got the cab cleaning finished up last night (Thursday night) Took a long time but worth it in the end as I discovered a few more areas we'll need to cut out and patch. Going to put in new inner rockers and re-fit the outer rockers better.

Here's some pictures of the underside of the cab

A little dusty....


Little more grinding to do...


FINISHED

[VA72C10]

What's amazing about this next picture is that I had two high flow fans set up blowing the majority of the dust out of the garage. Then, I used compressed air to blow a lot more out, finally swept and came up with this pile. There's probably 5X this much that is all over EVERYTHING in the garage.

I used the inner and outer tie rods to show that this pile was 7-8" tall!!!

[VA72C10]

Found this cool date stamp...I assume this means February 20th of 1970...

[VA72C10]

Sold some parts today and ordered more so I'm plugging along. I'll be working on the front end tomorrow after going to a local show in the morning. Got some decisions to make on some of the suspension that I am researching.

[my67chevytruck]

looking good. keep us up to date on the door panel.

[gcburdic]

nice...little by little it's gettin done!....have you decided on the doors yet?

[VA72C10]

Originally Posted by gcburdic

nice...little by little it's gettin done!....have you decided on the doors yet?

Thanks....progress is slower than I'd like but church, family, and work come first. It's also a mixed blessing having help with it. While he's welding and helping me out, it's at his house. So I can't just decide I want to tinker on it for a few minutes and step out into my garage. I just started bringing parts home to work on so hopefully that will help speed up things.

In regards to the door, I'm trying to find another replacement panel that I can look at before buying and also looking for a good original door locally at the same time.

[70k52wd]

Hard to believe that's what you get for lower door metal. Not even close. I suppose a skilled body guy could beat the metal to conform to the shape it should be.

[VA72C10]

Originally Posted by 70k52wd

Hard to believe that's what you get for lower door metal. Not even close. I suppose a skilled body guy could beat the metal to conform to the shape it should be.

Yeah, I am seriously considering just biting the bullet and buying an entire good door.

[VA72C10]

Got the front suspension completely unbolted. Man I had rusty bolts and cotter pins/castle nuts on there. I will post pictures later.

[VA72C10]

Here is the front crossmember during teardown

And after....all the parts separated. I left the spindles on the drums mounted to the wheels since I won't be re-using any of these.
Funny how the picture with the flash looks really rusty and dirty (they are)


While the picture without flash looks fairly clean (it's not that clean....yet....)


Think these springs were shot?
THIS IS WHY YOU DO NOT HEAT SPRINGS

[VA72C10]

Got the latch mechanism out of one of the doors to start mocking up the bear claw latches. I will add pictures of this tomorrow when I go over there again.

Jason welded up the extra holes in my tranny crossmember...going to use these instead of the POL one to save cost and use that money elsewhere. I ground the fill welds smooth and cleaned it up really nice. Looks like polished in person. I will be painting it to match the frame and install it when the motor/tranny go back in and I can make sure it lines up perfecly.

[VA72C10]

Jason got the patch panels for the stake pockets all welded up. Also forgot pictures of this. Will take them tomorrow before and after I grind them down.

After looking at more pictures of trucks this week and seeing trucks at a show I have decided to go ahead and remove the side lights as well so I'll be ordering those patch panels to be welded on.

[VA72C10]

I got a patch piece from another bed for a few rough areas in my bed. I will be grinding that down and cutting out the bad areas/grinding around them to get them prepped for paint.

[VA72C10]

I also decided 99.9% that I am going to shave the firewall and do aftermarket air conditioning. I just love that look too much and it goes with the shaved theme. Also, I want a shaved cowl and that will get rid of any vent air into the cab and I don't want to do that w/out A/C.

[VA72C10]

Saw this today at Field days of the past in Oilville, VA....made me think about my cab....

[70k52wd]

One thing leads to another, and another. lol

[VA72C10]

Originally Posted by 70k52wd

One thing leads to another, and another. lol

Tell me about it...especially the fire wall. I HAVE TO have it shaved now....there's no turning back.

So clean off the firewall...
....match the one side to the other....
....weld shut the wire gutter...
....relocate wiring.....
....extend wiring.....
....so just go ahead with aftermarket wiring.....
....Add A/C unit....
....might as well do the billet bulkhead....
....and a chrome dryer...
....and a chrome compressor....
....and the upgraded controls....
....gotta move the booster/master for the "look"....
....need a remote fill reservoir...
....need a master set up for remote fill...
....need a smaller booster to fit the bracket...
....might as well make the dash custom with the new A/C.....
....might as well make a center console to mate up to the dash....
....might as well make a custom box to mate to the center console....
....might as well do a nice new large screen headunit in the new custom dash...
....go ahead and shave the cowl since the firewall is shaved....
....gotta get a remote antenna....
....might as well weld up the old kickpanel vents now....
....since that area has extra room now; might as well build custom kickpanel pods for speakers.....
....might as well do custom door panels....
....might as well sell a few organs to pay for all of this...

[gcburdic]

Oh yeah...the good ol' "might as well's".....I learned about those too....watch out Jonathan!!!

[70k52wd]

Originally Posted by gcburdic

Oh yeah...the good ol' "might as well's".....I learned about those too....watch out Jonathan!!!

Simple can be beautiful also.

[VA72C10]

Originally Posted by 70k52wd

Simple can be beautiful also.

Like this orange truck's firewall and a combination of the two center consoles...

[my67chevytruck]

keep after it!

[VA72C10]

That's the plan. Trying to buy the necessary patch panels and suspension parts. Then Jason can patch up the cab and I can finish up the chassis. Then it'll be down to body work!!!