56 shop truck build

[dubie]

Here's a few shots from yesterday. I even got the wife tacking away on a patch in the fender. After she mastered the welding, she torn down the gauge cluster and re furbished it all. And gave the backing plate a little color to match the rest of the truck. We got the can bolted i place, the fuse panel is hung and wires are ready to be cut and the ends crimped. Today we'll hang body panels and get the front and rear section of the wiring strung out. I have to swap out my rear tires before we can mount the bed, the 275 60' are a bit to wide for the fenders

[sqrlnts]

Things are about to go into warp speed. Next thing you know you will be driving it down the road. Good job, keep at it!

[Kim57]

Looking good.
Kim

[Bierkan]

Looking real good! I'm jealous as I don't think my wife will be helping me much with my truck.

[dubie]

my wife can do a little bit of everything. I've pretty much done all of the grunt work on this truck by myself because she works shift work, but when we're on days off together she's in the shop with my the entire time. She spent most of the day yesterday cleaning up all the tools I had scattered across the shop from doing 4 different little jobs at 1 time.
I've had help from a really great hot rod friend on this project too. He built the engine for this truck and handled getting the tranny mated up and ready to install. A very knowledgable guy when it comes to every aspect of mechanics and some one I can call on for a hand at any time.

[dubie]

A bit more progress to report in with. The cab is now permanently mounted on the new cab mounts. I had them installed wrong at first and my front clip wouldn't line up properly. I made the adjustments needed and the clip lined up nicely. So I removed the clip, cleaned up the wheel wells and sprayed them with a couple coats of 3M rubberized undercoating. We got both doors hung and aligned so they latch and open and close properly. That was the first time in 25 years that they've worked properly. I have all my wires sorted out for the Rebel harness I installed. The wires are all pulled through where they need to be and now I'll work on everything inside the cab first then move forward to the engine and lights and then backwards to the fuel sender and tail lights

[dubie]

And I found some carp along the way. I used a stripping disc on the cab corner and found all these small holes of rust that were filled with bondo all those years ago. Did I mention that I found a lot of bondo on this truck?

Also, on the back of the cab, I found these 2 spots where holes were filled with brazing and ground smooth. Strange this is, is I found 2 holes, the same distance apart in the front of the hood that were patched up. Yet the holes don't go through the back of the cab or the firewall. I'm thinking that after it was hit, they used these spots to pull everything back in place.??? not really sure what the story is with this thing

[Kim57]

Looking good.
Good luck on the body work.
Kim

[Stepside Jim]

You're progress is looking great!

You mention the past and what has been done in the past. If only we could go back in time and tap on the shoulder of whoever is making our lives difficult now and give a bit of advice for our future repairs.

I guess we'd be on the Deloreon (spelling) web site for the time travel to happen.

[dug224]

I just cut about 3/4" of Filler off the passenger side cab corner and rocker. The guy actually did a pretty good job of making it look stock. Bondo sculpting! Your project is moving nicely. Keep it up. dug

[dubie]

The ody work won't be to extensive. My goal for this truck when the build started was to sink all the money and attention into the chassis, power train and interior , with the exterior of the truck being (and I hate to use this word) more of a rat rod style. That's why I went with the shop truck theme, it just suited everything about this truck
Thanks for the encouragement guys
Posted via Mobile Device

[dubie]

The painstaking task of body alignment was in order tonight. Once I got the cab set right, the front clip lined up, but the passenger door is still out a bit. I fit the bed on it and the 255 60 tires are still to wide. Turns out the issue was with the inner fender. I was contemplating tubbing it so I went ahead and measured once and cut twice.

[sqrlnts]

Originally Posted by dubie

so I went ahead and measured once and cut twice.

Hahaha, now thats funny, just my style! Where were the doors protruding out? It is looking sharp, makes me wish I had taken more time on mine. Keep up the awesome progress!

[dubie]

you can see in the 1st picture where the edge of the fender sticks out further than the door. I need to make a couple small adjustments to the door and we should be good to go.

[Kim57]

Looking good.
The nice thing about steel is you can always weld it back up and re-cut it.
Kim

[dubie]

you got that right. Having this little Lincoln gas MIG has been a savior. Anyone can weld with one of these little buzz boxes.

Man, those front tire have got to go, WAY to tall. They were a pair of freebies I tossed on there to roll the chassis around. They're 235 70' and the back are 255 60's. I'm going to size the front down to a 215 60 and that should give me the right look

[_Ogre]

nice refurb on your cluster
i'm in the same boat as Bierkan my wife won't even ride in truk
when i tubbed mine i used the same piece you cut out and 10ga steel 3'' wide to weld the tubs in

[dubie]

that's exactly what I had in mind Ogre, I just wasn't sure what gauge to use. this truck isn't going to haul anything so I'm not really worried about it getting dented up

[JML55]

Looking good

[dubie]

Originally Posted by sqrlnts

Hahaha, now thats funny, just my style! Where were the doors protruding out? It is looking sharp, makes me wish I had taken more time on mine. Keep up the awesome progress!

The alignment of the front clip is never going to be bang on perfect because of the abuse this truck suffered at the hands of it's previous owners. BUT this truck isn't all about being aligned and looking pretty, this is a hot rod pickup after all. My whole idea behind this build from the start was to put all the money into getting it lowered properly, steering properly, have a wicked power train set up and a nice interior. The outside of the truck is going to be left with some dings and dents to add to the character of the look I'm going for.

How's your fleetside coming along bud? any new pictures of the patina paint you were working on?

[_Ogre]

i think the beds are 11 or 12 ga steel, i had 10 ga left over from boxing my frame
it was easy welding compare to the lighter ga body panels

my bed angles were rusted out, i replaced them with standard 1 1/4x1/8 angle iron

[dubie]

I've come up with a different style of tub so I'll be replacing the angle iron as well as I rebuild the entire bed floor structure. I'm hoping to have time to get it fabricated this weekend

[6BT 56]

This truck is really looking good. The stance is super . Will be even better with the rubber you want im sure. You swiching to electric wipers? Mine is till vac. Worked like poop with the gas eng. The cummins has it's own super vac pump tho. Just hooked it up .. Guess what ! Still poop .... Next ...

Keep up the great work.

[sqrlnts]

Originally Posted by dubie

The alignment of the front clip is never going to be bang on perfect because of the abuse this truck suffered at the hands of it's previous owners. BUT this truck isn't all about being aligned and looking pretty, this is a hot rod pickup after all. My whole idea behind this build from the start was to put all the money into getting it lowered properly, steering properly, have a wicked power train set up and a nice interior. The outside of the truck is going to be left with some dings and dents to add to the character of the look I'm going for.

How's your fleetside coming along bud? any new pictures of the patina paint you were working on?

I tried to sand a little on the hood but it didn't work out so well. I think I will just start to wash it off each week with Acetone and a brillo pad!

[dubie]

my awesome wife spent some time putting sound deadener in the cab tonight. SHe always does such a nice job on the detail work. This was some stuff we picked up at home depot and glued it down using 3M Supper 77 spray adhesive. I also picked up the material for the rear tubs from my local petroleum dealer. Tomorrow we start the wiring process