I figure it's about that time..

[jgh64pkup]

love it
especially the 6.0

[skoffice]

Yes they are sway aways. Got them new on ebay for $300 Hopefully tomorrow night I can get on the tubing bender and make a hoop for them. Then I can roll it around again! In the meantime, lots of sanding left on the cab and hood.

[Captainfab]

Ha, I didn't realize they made coil overs that short. I thought they just made the long travel ones......but then again I've never looked there for anything other than the long travel's. That's one heck of a deal for $300.00.

Originally Posted by skoffice

Yes they are sway aways. Got them new on ebay for $300 Hopefully tomorrow night I can get on the tubing bender and make a hoop for them. Then I can roll it around again! In the meantime, lots of sanding left on the cab and hood.

[edflores]

Did you start on the bedsides?

[skoffice]

No haven't started on the bedsides yet. I'm going to be painting it this weekend I hope, and I'll work on those right after the rest of it is painted. Hate to do it that way but I need to get it painted so I can start the wiring and interior done.

[skoffice]

Got it rolling around today and boy was that a releif. Finished welding the shock hoops this afternoon and trailered it to my friends shop so I can finish out the body work and prime and paint it. Had a close call last night while cutting some stuff on the hood. The grinder flung a piece up at my face and bounced off my cheek, went under my goggles and into my eye. I immediately got the particle out of my eye but was still in a lot of pain. Got it checked out this morning and everything is ok, I guess it just burned my eye a bit. Last time, 3 years ago, I wasn't so lucky. I had a piece of metal in my eye for over a week. My doctors thought it was just a scratch but I finally went to the eye surgeon and he got it out with no drilling required!

[Captainfab]

Looks good......

Glad to hear you avoided a more serious eye injury. I've been real lucky, I've had to have metal removed from my eye only twice.

[skoffice]

Thanks CaptainFab. Ya eyes are not something to mess around with. Unfortunately I was too dumb and young and ended up learning that the hard way. Well I had a sucessful trip down to San Fernando Valley and was able to pick up my wheels. They look pretty darn good. I worked all last weekend on sanding down to the original teal color and repairing the hinge brace in my hood. I'm getting extra anxious to primer it now. Passing up a camping trip this weekend to hopefully get some major progress done. That's my buddy's 1960 F-100 were working on too. C-notches front and rear and GM saginaw steering conversion. Just trying to use the resources that we have. That thing has a 109" wheelbase! It's freakin small!

[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.

[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

[LT1 Burb]

Awesum job

[mr andrerson]

WOW!!.... nice!!!!!

[Vics63Chevy]

Your truck is sick! I'm definitely waiting for more pics..

[skoffice]

[Captainfab]

Looking good

OK, I'll be the first to ask......whatchya got going there on top of the intake? I know you have coolant going thru that tank, but what are the 2 smaller hoses?

[skoffice]

It's a heat exchanger for the transmission. It's got a cooling element inside that is super efficient.

Thanks for the power steering plate by the way. That shipped out really fast! Nice quality part and good instructions too. My buddy was very pleased!

[Captainfab]

I was thinking that is what it might be.

I'm glad your buddy is happy with the steering box plate.....I appreciate the business

Originally Posted by skoffice

It's a heat exchanger for the transmission. It's got a cooling element inside that is super efficient.

Thanks for the power steering plate by the way. That shipped out really fast! Nice quality part and good instructions too. My buddy was very pleased!