"BUILD: 1970 C10 LWB--->SWB “Jumping Cholla”

[loudchevy]

I've been working on replacing sections of the window channel this past week and finally finished it yesterday. It wasn't too difficult and glad to have it checked off the rust list. Other parts of the channel have some minor surface rust that I will get cleaned off too. I got all the rust holes and missing metal (mostly on the vertical channel lip) removed and replaced on the bottom rail.

[loudchevy]

After I got the bottom channel done, I moved on to the passenger bottom corner. These were a little bit more tricky since they had radius/dished corner.
Once I nailed down the process on the passenger side, I hit the repeat button for the drivers side. It took me a bit to figure out how to do the radius dish in the corner and settled on welding in a small piece and filling the edges with spot welds. Once I had the general shape, I took a carbide burr to it and got the final shape.

[loudchevy]

Lastly, I got the gas filler neck opening shaved as well. I used the passenger side to help shape the contour of the patch. As an old trim carpenter I knew once said "Little caulk, little paint, make it what it ain't". Some body filler should help smooth all these patches out.

Passenger cab corner is the last piece to replace before sand blasting and epoxy. I cut took much off when I did the drivers side a few weeks ago. It probably doesn't need to be cut out, but there is some rusty edges, I already have the patch panel, and might as well at this point. Definitely only gonna cut out as little as possible. The drivers side gave me a bit of frustration getting it lined up correctly.

[nicklear36]

Great idea with the inner rockers

[loudchevy]

I had mentioned in an earlier post about converting this LWB to a SWB. I moved the C10 into the garage on Thursday night and I started the middle frame surgery on Friday and finished it up on Saturday. The whole process went very well and I'm happy with how it turned out. I watched plenty of videos on YT and looked at threads here on how to do it and I thought this was the best way I saw it done. I took my time laying out the cut lines and cut short of the lines to give me plenty of metal to remove to get a perfect fit. After about 8 mock ups, I was happy with the fit. The boy and I spent a lot of time measuring the frame to make sure it was straight, level, square. Once all our diagonal frame measurements were good, I burned in the welds on the outer frame, alternating between sides and only doing 3-4 inch sections at a time. I sanded down all the welds on the outer frame and repeated the same process on the inner sides. I was pretty happy with the penetration from the inner welds that came through on the freshly cleaned outer. While those welds were cooling down, I cut up some fish plates to weld on the inside. I sanded down the inner frame welds and clamped on the fish plate and burned them in.

[loudchevy]

I also go the rear cab body mount removed and the holes drilled in the new location 12" back. I love removing rivets, they're so much fun! The rest of the frame will get painted to match the front. Then I need to pick up some fasteners and bolt the mounts into place.

Aftermath of the process.....Nice little pile of frame crud/dirt, wire wheel wires, and cut off wheel and sanding disc material. Miller Lite can gave it perspective.