I figure it's about that time..

[skoffice]

Ok it's been a while but time for a few updates. I'll post pics next week when I get back from my camping trip.

I got my doors and hood back from the body shop. I subbed them out because it was wayyy over my head and I am by no means a body man haha. They turned out pretty good.

I picked up my passenger side rocker panel today (finally). I ended up having to go with the full rocker instead of just the patch piece but oh well. Anyone have a link to a how-to thread for this process? Not too sure on how that's going to go..

I found a KILLER deal on my rear tires, 335/35/ZR20 Michelin Pilot Sports, and got those mounted today. They are HUGE!!! Pics to come next week.

Time to go sight in the rifle before deer season gets here.

[markeb01]

Originally Posted by skoffice

I picked up my passenger side rocker panel today (finally). I ended up having to go with the full rocker instead of just the patch piece but oh well. Anyone have a link to a how-to thread for this process? Not too sure on how that's going to go..

This thread should provide some insight:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=271066

[skoffice]

Hey thanks for the link that's exactly what I was lookin for!

Well haven't gotten too much work done lately, I've been really busy at the machine shop. I got a good donor short bed off craigslist last week though.
I also got my rear tires mounted

[scotts62]

Big ol meats back there! Looks good

[skoffice]

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the cab forward shot in primer. Going to get started on body work on the bed next week. Well I'm off to go mask the cab off now. Heres some pics of the bed just set on there. Looks like I need to cut about 3" off the front.

[skoffice]

Bed is cut down, fits pretty good. Time for some serious hammer and dolly work and get the thing sandblasted, then lay on the mud. Hoping to get it painted before the end of the year, then it's all downhill from there. Got the front wheels and tires on too. Not too sure about the center caps yet but we will see how it looks when the truck has some color. Little by little, this painting process is killin me but I've learned a lot so far hah.

[edflores]

The wheelbase looks too short, but damn your truck is BADDDDD

[skoffice]

Been hot tanking parts of the bed, did some hammer and dolly work on the one bad side today. The parts have been coming out super clean, like brand new metal. One more bed side to tank and a little blasting of the rust inside and I'll be ready to start putting mud on. Need to find a roll pan and build some wheel tubs next. Oh and welded on my repair corner cap and will be leading the seams this weekend as well. This is not at all my favorite kind of work, but at least it's progress. I feel like I'm spending wayyy too much time in this body and paint stage lol.

[Captainfab]

So do those repro bed end caps fit the shape of the original bed sides okay? Looks good in the pic.

[skoffice]

Thanks Captainfab. I didn't focus a whole lot of attention to what the bedside did when I cut the old cap off, so I'm not sure if it moved much after it was removed. It did however take a great deal of pressure (my 160 lb. friend stood on it) to get the actual bedside to line up with the new cap at the body line. Like I said I don't know if cutting that old cap took away the integrity but I'm assuming that's what happened because it does line up pretty well now.

[Captainfab]

Thanks for the feedback. If they matched up without extra cutting and welding, that is a good thing.

I forgot to mention about the special gun needed for the panel adhesive. I didn't think about it since I have friends that I just borrow them from. But even so $250 sounds a bit extreme. I've priced them before and they were around $100, which I thought was a bit much. Sounds like this will work out just fine with the stitch welds and lead. I'm anxious to see the lead work.

[skoffice]

Hey no problem. After getting past the one tough spot it was a piece of cake. Though if I were to have left the seam, it would have been very difficult to get it to hold there long enough for the adhesive to dry. I would have had to pay my buddy to stand there for a while haha.
I am pretty excited about this lead work too. I'll get pics up as soon as it's done, hopefully tomorrow.

[markeb01]

Nice progress and workmanship. I'm looking forward to seeing it all together. The altered wheelbase with the huge tires is going to be very unique and attention grabbing.

[skoffice]

Thanks Mark! This is my first time doing any kind of sheet metal/body work so I'm still learning. Yes I just wanted to do something different, maybe catch another shortbed owner by surprise one day when we park next to eachother haha.

[SCOTI]

Wow! I'm guilty of not keeping up w/this one. Very nice work.

I'm not familiar w/the center-cap on those wheel so post up some decent shots so we can see how they look. For the wheel sizes & fairly decent offsets, ~1K is a great deal. With the savings & your access to a machine shop, I'm sure an alternative could be done if you don't like the supplied center-caps.

What front tires did you end up with?

[skoffice]

Thanks for the compliments SCOTI! I'll get some pics of the center caps tomorrow night. They are starting to grow on me, but they still might just be a little big. The front tires are Falken FK452's. I went with 255/35 but I definitely should have at least gone 265. The sidewall is dead even with the lip of the rim. I'm new to these metric tire figures so now I'll know for next time. The front is a 9" rim by the way.

Also no lead work was done yet, we melted some bars down into workable size sticks but I had trouble finding anyone in town that carried flux. He is going to order some type of "Butter" flux tomorrow so we will have to wait until that arrives.

I picked up the roll pan on Saturday from a local company called Street Metal http://www.rollpans.com/ The owner Steve is a great guy and the roll pan is very well made. I was extremely impressed. I talked to him about making some custom wheel tubs as well and he was all for it. So hopefully I'll be figuring that out in the near future as well.

As for the rest of the body work, just more guide coat and sanding. Another coat of primer should be needed pretty soon. Does it ever end!?

[skoffice]

Ok so far no lead work yet. The tinning butter came in just before xmas, but both of us have just been so busy there hasn't really been time to focus on it yet. I'm hoping this week we can get some time in on it.

As of now, I'm actually starting to have fun with my project again. The cab, doors, front fenders, and cowl pieces are all blocked out and ready for paint. The hood, needs to be poly-primed yet but I have to wait for good weather to be able to prime that, and the bed once I finish the mud work..

The last few days I have been working on the interior, getting my "dynamat" down in the cab, and putting some interior pieces in such as defrost hoses, glove box, radio.. and I got a lot done with my wiring harness tonight. It is a factory harness converted from DBW to DBC. What a PAIN! But it should save me a $500-600 chunk by doing it myself.

Agenda for this week:
Hopefully prime the hood (looking like some "decent" weather)
Finish engine harness
Make some notable progress on the bedsides
Keep tinkering at the interior

[Laz]

Looks slick! This thing is going to be killer when completed. Can't wait to see more progress!

[skoffice]

It looks like the harness might be ready to get thrown on the engine tonight and finish some last bits of soldering. I hope I can have the whole truck wired by the weekend. Found a better deal on primer the other day, so it's cominig in the mail this week. I'll get the hood shot this weekend at least. The boss man has been sick all week so no progress on the bedsides yet. I also tried to put my new carpet in that I had left over from my 67. It's too short, anyone wanna trade haha?

[skoffice]

Mounted the computer, got the harness through the firewall, and now it's time to start trimming some connectoins down and get the injectors and grounds hooked up.

[skoffice]

It's getting there. Had to tear the column down and switch a washer around since it was binding up. Got started on the chassis harness and mounted my fuse blocks today. Also got a gas pedal out of a '71 from pick n pull. Dash is all wired up too. I start school this week so hopefully I can focus on that and still keep my progress going!
\

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by skoffice

It's getting there. Had to tear the column down and switch a washer around since it was binding up. Got started on the chassis harness and mounted my fuse blocks today. Also got a gas pedal out of a '71 from pick n pull. Dash is all wired up too. I start school this week so hopefully I can focus on that and still keep my progress going!

School for ? Share the info....

[skoffice]

Just going back to Jr. college and getting my accounting certificate slowly. I was in a car accident a couple years ago and got my back and neck messed up pretty bad so I had to stop doing the work I did. I used to work at a machine shop building race engines and a fab shop building rock crawlers. They were right next door to eachother and it was like living a dream, then WHAM! Someone rear ended us on the freeway doing about 110. So I figure if I get my accounting cert. I can still work in just about any industry and it's not like money is going to go away any time soon so I can do it when I get really old too haha.

[scotts62]

Looking good

[skoffice]

Thanks Scott! With all the mess of wires it's hard to even tell what color it is!