The Super Duper Haggis Hauler

[Paul Y]

Hopefully this is the end of the 'surprises'!

Looks like I have got away lightly...

Nice work On the chassis repairs, currently looking at mine and debating on how to strengthen it. An advantage of the 'X' frames.

P.

[MacQuigley]

May be a wee bit OTT but it should do the job and hopefully there will be no more surprises in store.

[ibrown50]

I agree with everyone, nice job sorting the chassis, I hope you have uncovered all of your suprises, I think I have one or two left to go. It's just like Christmas but in a s**t way

[Grizz1963]

Im-pres-sive

I love gussets, they do work really well in reinforcing spots that need it.

Great progress once again.

[MacQuigley]

Got next to nothing done tonight. First I had to go and fit a radiator for youngest daughters boyfriend. Then I had to clear space in the garage so I had somewhere to put windshield. Im paranoid about it getting broken, but thanks to a mate its well wrapped in bubble wrap and now out the way - I hope!

Hopefully tomorrow I will get back to that dash.

[CRGRS 66]

Excellent progress, and real, real nice to see the UK connection growing!
Cheers Mates!

[MacQuigley]

Well my replacement front clip, spare back axle, wheels (need the 5 stud pattern now) and steering pump all turned up today in the UK, Soit would have been rude not to have driven straight over to get them.







Guess I know what I'll be up to this bank holiday weekend

[MacQuigley]

Oh and I may have cost my mate £8K as he shook on a 49 panel van! Thats what he gets for coming with me.

[MacQuigley]

Oh and I also scored a pair of front seats from an Audi for exactly the right price ZERO £ and ZERO P. Exactly my price

[Grizz1963]

Looks good.

Sounds good

Gotta be good.

[65sub]

Good progress so far Bill. All those parts should take up a weekend or two.

[MacQuigley]

Got the axles out the trailer last night

The rear is about 3" overall longer, mostly due to the bigger brakes (the one that was fitted is also a 12 bolt but obviously from a different year)



The front I will hopefully start stripping tonight/at the weekend. Nice big set of disc's on it for lots of stopping power



These are the seats I picked up. Not in great condition but Id be recovering them anyway and for £0.00, Im not complaining

[MacQuigley]

After humphing those bloody heavy axles all over last night it was getting late so I decided all I could make a start at was drilling out the spot welds holding the dash in place.

Not the easiest spot welds Ive had to drill out. They are less a "spot" and more like some kind of weird "smile" meaning I have to chain drill them out. Plus some are so close to the edge I thing I will have to try and cut through them with a cutting disk



But It is starting to separate, I will just have a little extra welding to do when I put it all back together

[ibrown50]

I think the same guy did the spot welds on my truck

Nice score on the axles, you should be able to get around the additional length of the rear axle by playing with the wheel off-sets

[MacQuigley]

Well I got all the spotwelds drilled out and all the various attachments removed and the bolts in the corners out but Im buggered if that dash will come out. Its just holding in at the corners.

Gave up 5 minutes ago and decide its time for a beer! I'll get back to it on Saturday.

[MacQuigley]

Made some good progress today, though the intermittent rain was a pain.

Got the new front clip stripped. Stripped it till I was left with just the cross member which I finally got bolted to the frame.



Only 2 holes lined up where they should and unfortunately it looks like this was already bolted to a different truck as the frame had already been altered so it wasn't much use to make a template from. But Im comfortable its in the right position based on the fact the 2 holes for the upper control arms line up.





I also got the dash out. Not as easy as it would seem but its out (I'll do a separate write up later on how I did it and the problem I came across)





Found this inside the door frame. How it got there is anyone's guess.



Got my work cut out fixing this. If the weather is bad tomorrow, I'll make a start. If its good I'll continue on the front clip. Though if today is anything to go by we will have at least 3 seasons in the day and none of them summer!!!!

BTW the butchered lip round the window frame will be easily fixed (Will explain that later as well)

[MacQuigley]

Went ahead and fitted the rest of the front suspension today. Realised that I needed to fit it all in order to get the correct position for
the shock mounts and the fixed portion of the steering gear.



BTW did I ever post a picture of the PO's mods to the instruments? Here they are!

[Chevy Apache]

Looking great Bill
I beginning to wish I had done the same.

[MacQuigley]

Cheers Pete. It was a lot easier to do than I'd expected but it did take time.

I'll PM you again re the old front clip.

[MacQuigley]

Anyone any tips on how to get the correct position to weld the mounts onto the replacement axle?

[Chevy Apache]

Hi Bill sent you pm I can help you with that as well axle I mean

[ibrown50]

Front suspension looks good Bill, you're making great progress (pleased one of us is)

[MacQuigley]

Well I got the rest of the steering system mounted to the frame and the shocker mounts moved today. Happy with the weekends work, though without the excellent info on this thread I think it would have taken a whole lot longer:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=366828

I was going to make a start repairing the dash centre but to be honest I thought a beer was a better option than trying to tackle this!



Maybe tomorrow night!

[DakotaKid]

i almost think it would be easier to find a replacement dash, wow, thats some hackery there.

[MacQuigley]

It may still come to that, but I have a patch panel here so I will give it a go.

Of course the difficulty will be getting one all the way over here.

I have no idea what the PO was trying to achieve, but yes some serious hackery!