ClusterTruck; because that’s what it is

[clay68c10]

This was a lot of work, but well worth it. The passenger side should be faster/easier.

And now it's time for some etch prime and a quick top coat to preserve all this work. I've got some kitchen demolition work to do, so I probably won't get back to this for a while. Don't want any flash rust!

[Ol Blue K20]

Nice job, I have to.do the same job some day.

[clay68c10]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Nice job, I have to.do the same job some day.

Thanks.
Any more I think most of these trucks need rockers and corners. Hopefully my info is helpful to someone else.

[bigmac73]

Clay,
Do you have any more specific info on that OEM wax. ( brand, part number, etc etc...)

[clay68c10]

I will get a better pic of the can tonight.

[67C10GS]

lots of useful info for my truck...subd for sure

[clay68c10]

Originally Posted by 67C10GS

lots of useful info for my truck...subd for sure

Thanks

I took a shot of the can and the wand labels

[SCOTI]

Saw this & tagging in. Nice work thus far. Getting the young-guns involved is awesome & the memories will always remain as time passes.

[clay68c10]

Thanks Scoti. The kids are asking when it will be driving. Haha that’s a good one kids.
I haven’t gotten any truck stuff done lately, been working in the house on a kitchen remodel. I’m doing demolition and some of the finish work. Hired out the big stuff, it would take me a year of Sunday’s to get this done. The garage is taking the overflow of house items.
I hope to get back on it after the holidays.

[clay68c10]

I finally got back out into the garage today after work. It’s been killing me to not have at least a little progress at home, so I pulled my intake, valley cover, and valve covers to see what’s what.
Now, I bought this LQ4 already pulled, so I took the guys word that it was low mile. Looks good so far!

[clay68c10]

The little bit of cam I can see looks good too.
The knock sensors not so much, but the harness is ok.
Half of the valley cover bolts were hand tight. This thing was pretty dirty when I first got it. I’m sure it was seeping a bit.

[SCOTI]

Looks clean & promising. If you can, pull the plugs & put a scope in the cylinders for a peek @ the walls + piston tops.

[clay68c10]

Yeah, I need to grab the scope from work and do that. I've looked in there with my little Streamlight pocket LED and what I could see looked good. The plugs looked nice too.

I'm planning on pulling the pan this weekend so I'll see what the bottom end looks like and put on my CTS-V pan if it's as good as the top end.

[MDPotter]

That engine looks great! Do you have any plans for mods like cam, springs, intake, heads, etc?

[clay68c10]

I'll do cam/springs eventually, maybe get to 400ish HP

First I want to try my hand at tuning it and getting it to drive right with the manual trans and make the AC compressor and fans work correctly thru the PCM.

Really, it's not in the budget right now either.

[clay68c10]

I got the pan off and took a peek, still looking good! Pulled #3 main and the bearing journal and thrust surfaces are fine as can be. The lower portion of all the bores look great too.
That is nice to see.
Just waiting on gaskets and I’ll put it back together with my V oil pan.

[clay68c10]

I've been lazy about updating. I got the V pan on and everything back on a couple of weeks ago.

[clay68c10]

I've been eyeing the thread about the Hooker swap setup and I think I want to switch over to the F-body style mounts from the truck style.
Maybe I'll use those Hooker frame stands and maybe I'll make something of my own. That is down the road a bit, but first I wanted to see how those mounts clear the Speed Engineering headers.
The right side looks great, plenty of room to the tubes and no interference with the compressor.

[clay68c10]

On the left side it was a little closer, but it will work there too.
Maybe there will be a 1/16" at the top corner of the mount that interferes with the header tube, but I can live with trimming or dimpling to make that work. As it sits mocked up it isn't touching but it's feeler gauge close to the metal flange.
The pics make it look tighter than it really is.

Also, there must be a slight difference in the block webbing between the 6.0 and car 5.7. There are tabs on the back side of the mounts that you have to bend flat for these to fit right side up. They will go on upside down no problem, but not right side up. I had heard mention of this once, but just wanted to throw it out there for anyone else. Maybe it's different for OEM mounts also, these are re-pops.

[clay68c10]

Last weekend I really wanted to turn the cab around and start working on the other side. Before I could do that tho, the filler hole had to be taken care of.
I had looked into getting the patch for it, but didn't want to wait. So I just got after it and made one.
It wasn't too hard, and I'm just a guy with a set of HF body hammers.
I followed the advice of good old Dave (body guy) and set it in so it would be just a hair low. Easier to blend it with a skim coat than hammer it down and have to skim coat it anyway.

[clay68c10]

Helpful tip for all us cheap folks;
The handy magnets are Ford headliner magnets. Look for 13+ Explorers. There are 2 at the rear of the headliner (and more further forward). Very easy to grab. Bust out the plastic clip part and add a machine screw to create some fancy panel holders.

[clay68c10]

I got the braces in and took some before measurements. A bunch of before measurements.
When I hang the tape, I sharpie where it is on the drip rail AND where it goes over the lower brace. That way my after measurements are in the same vertical line. It worked really well on the other side. I also make a quick sketch or description of how I determine the end point; like is it to the wire channel, or the top of the weather strip flange, or the top bend curve of the rocker where it gaps up to the door skin. Really, it scares the crap out of me to cut all this out and not have some sort of reference for putting it back together.

[clay68c10]

About this time, my daughter came out and started asking about patching holes and things.
Sounds like practice time to me. I had her run the grinder and wire brush on a particularly crusty part of the floor, and then practice some tacks on my bracing.
Then she got to have the fun experience of blowing thru thin metal and trying to fill the holes. It was cool seeing her first fail and then succeed. Also she learned that sometimes the metal is just too thin to bother with.
The last pic is the practice tacs, and some cool "worms" she made.
It was a fun afternoon.

[clay68c10]

I've been making some more slow progress this past few weeks. Cutting out the old rust is probably my least favorite part. Mainly because the more you do, the more you find and the more you'll have to fix. Oh well, that's the nature of the game.
I took my time on this side and took it apart gradually. I didn't know what was damaged under the outer rocker since it was in better shape than the driver side and I didn't want to cut out anything good. The other side was easier since it was really trashed.

[clay68c10]

Time to tip the cab back up and take a closer look.