Green Gus the 68 shortbed convert

[Low Elco]

Diggin' on the story.

[jim-bob]

~ scribed~

[tommys72]

Nice truck here...ill watch this

[Bennett68C10]

Nice truck your starting with! Sounds like a good plan you have for it! I'm in to see how it turns out!

[cknfrmr]

neat story. trying to get my 69 on the road.

[GR8-68]

Looking great Corey, thanks for keeping us updated. This is going to be one bad ride

[Mapearso]

subbed

[Bubba4spd]

I'm just getting caught up with this thread. Awesome story behind your love of these trucks. You made a incredibly good buy (wish I had it) love everything about it. Probably the only thing I would do is clean up under the hood to match the exterior. Your a very blessed young man with a beautiful family. Can't wait to see what the future holds for your build.

[flashed]

Great pics ,cute kids too.

[Advanced Design]

Great pictures, adorable kids, solid upgrade plans and I will be tagging along!

Curious, what do you do in the nanotechnology field?

[hewittca]

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Great pictures, adorable kids, solid upgrade plans and I will be tagging along!

Curious, what do you do in the nanotechnology field?

Thanks!

I am a research scientist/lab manager at the Wake Forest University Nanotechnology Center. Our main focus is on energy scavenging technologies like thermoelectrics, piezoelectrics, pyroelectrics, and solar. We basically work on modifying materials at the atomic level to improve overall energy conversion efficiency. We are also equipped with quite a few high resolution microscopes that let us image these materials on the atomic scale. As lab manager, I am in charge of keeping the microscopes running and repairing them when they go down (which is quite often!).

[Advanced Design]

Originally Posted by hewittca

Thanks!

I am a research scientist/lab manager at the Wake Forest University Nanotechnology Center. Our main focus is on energy scavenging technologies like thermoelectrics, piezoelectrics, pyroelectrics, and solar. We basically work on modifying materials at the atomic level to improve overall energy conversion efficiency. We are also equipped with quite a few high resolution microscopes that let us image these materials on the atomic scale. As lab manager, I am in charge of keeping the microscopes running and repairing them when they go down (which is quite often!).

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing. Yes, my shop is stress relief for me too.

Enjoy the build!

[cornerstone]

Love it love it love it! i want mine to look the same but im leaning toward a patina'd blue.

[Low Elco]

Dude, you should get off this site RIGHT NOW! We'll slow you down like you were eatin' paint chips! Cute kids, the boy looks like a pistol!

[hewittca]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Dude, you should get off this site RIGHT NOW! We'll slow you down like you were eatin' paint chips! Cute kids, the boy looks like a pistol!

Haha! Work burns me out. Working on these old trucks is stress relief for me and this forum is the first thing I peruse online in the mornings.

[Woodnears]

subscribed

[Bubba4spd]

Absolutely beautiful pics of the family! Thank you for sharing.

[Ekliptix]

Beautiful family. Great planning for the truck. Sub'ed.

[Dieselholic92]

Looking forward to seeing more!

[hewittca]

During the summer months I put the truck to work doing jobs around the house, but I finally have a window of opportunity to get the short bed conversion done. I am in the process of doing that work right now, but will withhold updates on that until I am finished and can include the entire process and results in one post.

In the meantime, however, I do have one small update to share. The brakes were in serious need of refreshing, made especially evident when I had to lean on the brakes a bit more than normal and ended up skidding about 10 feet into an intersection where the light had just turned red. After this eye opening experience, I drove the truck straight home, parked it, and started gathering what I needed for a brake job. Ultimately, I stuck with the 4 wheel power drums for now and replaced wheel cylinders, drums, shoes, springs, and all brake lines. While the wheels were off, I figured I would try out a new wheel color as well. This is left over anthracite grey from when I thought I was going to repaint my Beetle. It was a standard brake job so I won't bore you with details or pictures, except for one I took during the successful test drive.

[NewType72]

Great looking color if I must say. Most would probably just assume it to be a flat version of the color on the body. I felt that same death experience in my 72 one day when the left right locked up on me and sent me one lane over to a merging lane off an old highway. Thankfully my background in offroad riding helped my reaction time tremendously and kept me from freakin out. A plus that the lil woman wasn't with me that day or else the truck surely would've been sold lol

[rusty76]

Cool truck and great story. Late to the party as usual for me but man I dig your truck. I can't wait to see where this goes.

[hewittca]

Shortbed Conversion, Part 1

For the last two months or so I've been working on the shortbed conversion and thought I would share an update on the progress. Originally, I wanted to include the entire conversion in one complete post, however, the process is taking much longer than I hoped since I don't have that much time to dedicate to the project. That being the case, I thought I would split it up into two posts. This first post will document the overall plan for the conversion, disassembly, modifications, and fab work. The second part will document paint and reassembly.

My plan from the beginning was to do a static dropped shortbed truck with ~2" of tire tuck. To get there, I would need a few additional inches of drop over the standard spring/blocks/spindles static drop recipe. Therefore, I decided I would incorporate a 2.5" step up in the rear frame during the frame shortening process. This would be just enough to get the fenders down over the tires without going crazy with a full drop member suspension. The overall plan was simple, then. Use original GM shortbed sides, shorten/step my frame, and shorten the bed floor, driveshaft, and brake lines.

First, I disassembled the bed and cut 12" directly off the front of the bed floor. I chose this route instead of sectioning it so I didn't have a seam in the bed floor. I lost the flat front edge of the floor, but it still looks factory when reassembled.



For the back, I ultimately decided to section 8" from the floor instead of cutting it directly off the back like 65standard did in his shortbed conversion. Reason being that I do not posses the metal working skill to be able to rework the rear edge of the bed floor without beating it to death with a hammer



This is where I started to lean on my dad for help by welding up the bed floor.





Next up was to modify the shortbed sides that I got from Gr8-68.



In order to accommodate the 2.5" step up in the frame, I had to drop the bedsides 2.5" in relation to the bed floor. I did this by cutting 1.5" up from the original mounting flange, and then bending over the remaining 1" to make the new mounting flange. In this way, the bedsides retained their factory look.





At this point, I reassembled the bed to mock everything up and check alignment. Not pictured above was the 8" I cut directly off the rear of the frame.









My kids were excited to have their truck back together for a few days.



Next, the bed and all suspension came off in preparation for the frame shortening process. If you've been following along from the beginning, you may notice the '75 crew cab in the background. This is the same truck pictured from the 80's in my project introduction post. Over the years, my dad eventually converted it to a dually and it went through a few different paint jobs.





The first thing to do was move the crossmember forward 12". I chose to shorten the truck behind the cab so I had room to incorporate the 2.5" step up in the frame.



My dad has back halved and built full chassis for many cars before, ranging from personal and customer drag cars to Cup cars in NASCAR, so he made this look easy, but without him I could not have completed this process. We temporarily mounted angle iron to the front frame section to serve as our reference points for when we hacked off the rear frame.



This photo illustrates the cuts we made to shorten the frame 12" and raise the rear section 2.5". The colored marks on the rear frame section match up with the marks on the front section after cutting out the extra piece in between.



After cutting the frame apart and removing the excess material, we simply slid the two pieces back together, and then aligned and clamped them for welding. Pictured here is my dad measuring the frame.





While my dad was welding, I was busy taking a photo for Instagram...



After my dad finished welding, we double checked everything and it was spot on. We also welded up the insides of the frame. We do plan on adding in a brace plate to strengthen the area further.





From this point on, it is all finishing work and reassembly. In Part 2 I will show the brace plate we added and the completed and cleaned sectioned frame area, along with painting of the bedsides and reassembly.

[cornerstone]

^^^ Nice work man!

[Advanced Design]

Nice work very well documented. Pat on the back for Dad! I like that shop too with the pattern floor.