71 Shorty

[Kips61]

Building a 1971 Shortbed from a junker.

[Kips61]

Looks better than it was. Owner just wanted it gone and is was loaded with rust... fun.

[Kips61]

Not sure why the photos rotate. Anyone have a suggestion on how to fix that...
So I found a shortbed frame and took it apart. Turns out the really bad paint job was covering an ochre truck...

[Kips61]

Cleaned up the frame, roughed it together, put the notch in, and got it ready for the shop. Tried editing the photos and it wouldn't let me upload them so sorry for the neck ache...

[Kips61]

Cab was rusty but thankfully aside from a new floor the rest was pretty easy to fix.

[Kips61]

Some other before and afters...
Got rid of the pinch seam on the core support and pit a tach and vacuum gauge in the dash cluster.

[cornerstone]

Looking forward to your build! More pics the better, and I was told if you are using an iphone to take your pictures with, always rotate the phone to the left so the home button is on the right side. I have yet to verify it but I hope it works for you.
Do you have any overall plans for the truck? Care to share?

[Kips61]

Then after some engine and transmission love, rolled it in the shop and started putting it together. Still had to shorten the bed.

[Kips61]

Cab goes on. New body mounts from Classic Heartbeat, new SS brake lines, and new transmission cooling lines.
Put a new copper radiator, belts, hoses, and heater hoses in it as well.

[Kips61]

Next came the bed sides.
Going to say that I got under the skin of Mark McGiver when I asked him about a price to shorten a pair of bedsides. He quoted me $2000... yeah so I thought maybe that was the "I am too busy price" which isn't really that uncommon but boy did that upset him. He took time out of his 2 month backlog to try to publicly shame me for even suggesting it...
Anyway I figured I would do it myself.
I knew that 12" has to come out of the front and 8" out of the rear. I also know there is a taper in the style line toward the back and I also knew that the center stake pocket had to go. I wanted to delete the fuel door so presto!
So I spent 16 hours on the first one and 10.5 hours on the second. I have since done 4 more at an average of 6-1/2 hours each not counting the stake pockets which don't take too long.
So I am thinking Mark's price is too high... maybe it's just me but this isn't an art project. He will always be too busy for me so oh well. Got 8 more to do...

[Kips61]

Bought a bed floor and a bed front. I discovered the difference in wood bed height and steel bed height for the front panel. Ha!
And that is where I am at now...

[Kips61]

Originally Posted by Kips61

Looks better than it was. Owner just wanted it gone and is was loaded with rust... fun.

Originally Posted by cornerstone

Looking forward to your build! More pics the better, and I was told if you are using an iphone to take your pictures with, always rotate the phone to the left so the home button is on the right side. I have yet to verify it but I hope it works for you.
Do you have any overall plans for the truck? Care to share?

Going to sell this one.
I have a bunch of trucks and I am not going all out on this one. It will have new paint, interior, frame off, zero rust and should turn out nice. We will see. If I get attached to it, well then it goes into the collection.