American in Austria 83 Build

[44boggers]

Hi guys. I’ve been looking but can’t seem to find this small part for the hood cowl. It’s the rubber clip that attaches the cowl to the cab. Anyone know where I can find this or have a few extras they can sell me.
Here is the picture for reference.

Thanks Paul
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[superdav]

Originally Posted by 44boggers

Hi guys. I’ve been looking but can’t seem to find this small part for the hood cowl. It’s the rubber clip that attaches the cowl to the cab. Anyone know where I can find this or have a few extras they can sell me.
Here is the picture for reference.

Thanks Paul
Posted via Mobile Device

I would like to know as well

[44boggers]

Made some progress on fixing the gaps on the hood cowl. I still need to metal finish it a bit cleaner but the gaping is just a touch bigger than 3/16 (leave room for filler and paint).

Next step will be to spread some fiber glass filler over the welded areas, strip the rest of the cowl and get it into epoxy, then shoot it with slick sand. The cowl is in very good shape so it should not take so much body work to get it perfectly straight.

These pics are of the driver side. Used 1/8" welding rod, then welded the back side so it all flows together on the back side as well.

[44boggers]

Pics of the passenger side.

[LT7A]

That's good work man. That's going to be a very sharp ride when it's done. Nobody expects to see gaps that consistent on a truck.

[44boggers]

Thanks, just letting my OCD flow.

[JoeinT.O.]

Hello 44boggers,
I still am very impressed with your build. Mine hasn't progressed very much this year. Keep posting and thank-you for taking the time to do that!

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by JoeinT.O.

Hello 44boggers,
I still am very impressed with your build. Mine hasn't progressed very much this year. Keep posting and thank-you for taking the time to do that!

Thanks bud, its not easy to find the time to work on our rigs. Just chip away at it a little at a time.

[44boggers]

Little more progress in the last week. Stripped down both sides of the cowl to bare metal, 3 coats of epoxy and then today I laid down 4 coats of slick sand. Other than where I welded on the cowl it should be very straight, so Ill sand it down to 180 and if everything looks good, then it will go to high build.
I also successfully broke all of the mounting pins on the cowl, so now i really need to find a new set!. I tried being careful taking the last few out but the plastic was to brittle.

[44boggers]

Its been slow going but picked away at a couple pieces. I got the hood cowl in final primer and figured out a solution for the cowl locating pin things. All of mine broke off on the inside where it holds itself to the cowl (expanding side).

So I got some self tapping 4mm screws, cut them to the right length and then screwed them in (pictures attached).You will need to trim the "arrow" looking insert on the top to fit, since the self tapper is now coming from the bottom up, but It worked like a charm and you can leave them a touch loose so you can adjust them while the cowl is on the truck. But it was hopeless finding replacements, so this is a great solution for anyone in this situation.

I have had the bed's "headboard' not sure what it is actually called, in bare metal for a year now with all the metal work done. So finally I have time to get it into epoxy and throw down some body filler on some of the imperfections. I will put a bed liner on the inside anyway, but you can still see even small dents through the bed liner so I wanted that as flat as possible.

The next step will be to put the hood back on and start getting the gaps correct and then get to body work. I will get the bed sides and tail gate sand blasted and get all of that into epoxy so I can put the bed back together and get going on the body work.

We are about to start building a house next this month, so time wont be on my side, but I am also building a 50x30 underground garage for my house with 14' ceilings, so this will help when it comes to final body work and paint.

[44boggers]

Headboard pics

[LT7A]

Honestly, I think this will be the straightest truck I'm aware of. It's been a long time since I read the beginning of the thread. Did you say what color or colors you are going to paint it? I noticed that someone else in your household also has a pickup that is two tone. Maybe you want to consider matching it?

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Honestly, I think this will be the straightest truck I'm aware of. It's been a long time since I read the beginning of the thread. Did you say what color or colors you are going to paint it? I noticed that someone else in your household also has a pickup that is two tone. Maybe you want to consider matching it?

Thanks, that is what I am going for. Been a life long dream to build a truck like this. I only have a few months per year to work on it, that is why I am going on 6 or 7 years right now. But I am hoping it is done by next summer and on the road.

No one else in my house has a truck, just me. Unless my 4 year old and my wife are holding out on me

My daughter is already excited for our new house and garage to be built so she can help me. Right now I am in a small one car garage, so it makes everything much more difficult to get done.

the truck will be gloss black, inside and out. In Austria they have strict rules on everything. So the truck needs to be an original color.

[LT7A]

Wow, they can tell you what color to paint it? That's kind of a mind-blower. The pickup I'm referring to is in the upper left hand corner of your picture that I reposted ;)

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Wow, they can tell you what color to paint it? That's kind of a mind-blower. The pickup I'm referring to is in the upper left hand corner of your picture that I reposted

You have no idea man how difficult it is over here. I need to get an engineer to ok my wheels since they are not original and Vossen doesnt make a specific 1983 c10 wheel.

Ah yes, the pink hot rods. Our driveway is littered with hot pink hot rods

[LT7A]

Originally Posted by 44boggers

You have no idea man how difficult it is over here. I need to get an engineer to ok my wheels since they are not original and Vossen doesnt make a specific 1983 c10 wheel.

Ah yes, the pink hot rods. Our driveway is littered with hot pink hot rods

I thought the pink bucket was attached to the tricycle, hence a pickup. The colors went so well together...

I'm not sure their stack of rules is any crazier than the fact that we can do almost anything to our vehicles over here. The fact that they can dictate color though... I would bet good money that when they made that law, somebody said, if we don't, our roads could end up with all sorts of crazy looking stuff like in America, haha.

[44boggers]

Actually yeah it is a pick up then. I forgot that mode has a bed on it.

I would bet my life they said that, can’t be like those friggin Americans. Meanwhile every kraut wears a Yankees hat.

There is for sure a fine line with being crazy strict or like in the us, basically anything flys.
I remember back in the day flying through town with my 87 k20 with an 8" suspension lift and 2inch body lift on 44" boggers, no inspection and just waving to cops and they waived back. Oh yeah with 5 buddies in the back.

Originally Posted by LT7A

I thought the pink bucket was attached to the tricycle, hence a pickup. The colors went so well together...

I'm not sure their stack of rules is any crazier than the fact that we can do almost anything to our vehicles over here. The fact that they can dictate color though... I would bet good money that when they made that law, somebody said, if we don't, our roads could end up with all sorts of crazy looking stuff like in America, haha.

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[LT7A]

Hahaha, so true. I don't spend much time reading the comments on YouTube videos anymore, but I used to get a kick out of the clowns from various countries that took the time to comment, solely to try to bash the US. And you just know that they're wearing Nikes, listening to hip hop, and drinking a Coca-Cola. One cat in Australia was bashing us for not using the metric system like they do. I basically said I didn't realize that using the metric system was such a big part of their national identity. I thought there were a lot of things in Australia that were way cooler than millimeters, haha.

[44boggers]

Knocked out a bit of work today on the driverside fender. I thought the fender was basically good to go for final primer, but I noticed that the driver fender was not at the same height as the passenger side fender. The front needed to come up a bit. So once I got the fender equal height, all my gapping work went to waste. Moving the front of the fender up gave me a big gap from just above the body line all the way down to the fender. From the body line down I needed to add 1/8". So I pulled the fender and got to welding. I have it roughed in, meaning its all welded and welds ground down, fiberglass over the welds and tomorrow i will hit with epoxy before I do a round of body filler. After the first round of body filler I will put the fender back on and see where my gaps are at. From the body line down my guess is that it will be very very close. I just hit above the body line with tack welds, so I will need to file fit that part. Then I need to do more filler work to get the panel flat/even with the door again.

[44boggers]

couple more pics. Using the welding rod, it was easy to recreate the body line. Just cut the rod at an angle, then on the other side I just tack welded to the rid, almost no grinding needed.

[44boggers]

Alright guys, please try to calm my OCD and craziness. Short story before I get into the main question. After fixing the gaps on the fender, doing some body filler work to get the gaps spot on I started sanding the rest of the fender to get it ready for final primer. Everything was blocked down to 180 and looking great, including the body lines and i was ready to move onto 220. Then I noticed at the front of the fender near the body line, right where the fender has its tightest concave part leading into the bodyline, there was a small line. So I stared at it for 20 minutes telling it, that it better not be a crack. Finally I pushed on it with my finger and it sprung back at me. Mudda F........! I hit the crack with some air and pop pop. Little by little i was taking chunks out. The slick sand in that area somehow lifted. So after a small freakout I decided I need to start sanding all of that back and make sure the rest of the fender didnt have the same issue. Everything feathered out nicely and all was good. But now I stepped back a few years when I last primed it. But at least I knew I was safe.
So now that was taken care of, I laid down some new body filler on the sections I sanded out and got it all nice and flat and actually much less material than I originally used to get it flat.

Now here is my question. What is the best method to get the fender body lines straight. What do you trust? Tape/eye or a straight edge? Is it even possible to go off a straight edge since the fender bulges out in the middle, my guess is that you should be able to but just here me out and look at my pictures. For example when I lay down tape on the door using my eye ball, it matches perfect when i put the straight edge along my tape line, so check on that!
But with the fender, if I put the straight edge on the bottom side of the fender it is telling me that I need to move the body line down in the middle of the fender.
Then when I lay the straight edge above the body line it tells me I need to move the body line up.

BUT pretty much every time I use my eye and tape, no matter if it is masking tape or fine line tape. I hit the exact same body line every time.

Just for reference, the straight edge I am using is 3ft long. One end is lined up with the back edge of the fender and the front of the straight edge is lined up with the body line. So basically everything in between those two points are not lined up.


So what do I trust? I know I am driving myself crazy but I dont want to get this thing into paint and then I step back and the body line looks all whacked out.

My guess is that I should trust the tape/eye, because I think the curvature of the fender will not allow the straight edge to actually make a "straight line top and bottom because the straight edge "bows out" when the fender bulges. Right or wrong?


Here are some pics for reference.

[Lokin4AReason]

Any update s ?

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by Lokin4AReason

Any update s ?

Hey

Oh man, life has been way to busy the last two years. I built a house and had another kid. The project has been on the back burner but I am planning on getting back into it. Have a new great garage with a lift so that makes life a lot easier.
The next step is to finish off the bed sides and tailgate. After that I need to start on fitting the hood and getting that gapped correctly. But the hood and bedsides are in good shape so it won’t take much.
After that it is paint time.

Attached a few pics of all the other crap I needed to get done after I built the house, built fences so the kids don’t fall onto the ramp going down to the garage, built a back yard from nothing (the grass is the ceiling of my garage and after two years I finally build stairs going from my garage to the basement. Been using stacks of insulation since we moved in for stairs.

When I get going I will update the forum

[rick1956]

Now that is a garage...

[44boggers]

Hey guys, small update finally. I decided its time to get going on the bed. So after 7 years I have the bed finally bolted back together and body work has begun.
Got the metal work done as good as I can, threw down epoxy primer on it and shot a few coats of poly primer just to see how much filler work will be needed. For the most part its in good shape. So I will skim both bed sides next and get to sanding.

I need to adjust the rear bed rail a bit as the driverside is flared up a bit as you will see in the pictures. And with the driverside I am not really sure what I can do to get the top of the tailgate to match with the top of the bedrail. Cause right now the body lines are where they should be but the top does not lay flush. But all of the pictures i have seen online, it seems almost every tailgate sits a bit lower than the bed rail on the passenger side with the body line lining up.
Any suggestions?