Build that 71 402 already

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Got some good news today, the lead on body/paint will be here on the 7th so we can finish the dry run. Wholly smokes he puts in a day's work, wore me out the last time. We have a pinch more to do on the front clip and need to fit the inner fenders. Then comes the fun, 28 molding pieces to fit. Best part is I get to see my bed for the first time, he spent a lot of time on that and he's proud of it. I haven't even seen a picture yet It's ochre waiting for white and clear coat.

[IronCanine]

Alright! Can’t wait to see the pics!

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Tribulations:

I'm real happy with the bed. It's just the first stage coat, though inside of the bed is done. The underside looks great as well. Eleven hours into it we didn’t even start the side moldings. We’re convinced they'll be easy.

I’m going to have the tailgate hinges, trunnions & spare tire carrier ceramic coated black. It will break up the Ochre some, though this will have the deluxe paint job.

We finished the dry run on the body, including the inner fenders. One of them is NOS, and it confirmed what the old one already knew, GM missed the fixed nut on the RH fender pocket. They sunk a sheet metal bolt next to it, so some welding is in order. The other fender is original and slapped on easily.

Finished the lower tailgate molding and tail bezels. We brought up the lower molding a pinch. Factory calls for the holes just .66" “TRP” (TRP?) above the bottom. We ran with 8/10" instead. As difficult as the bezels might seem, they’re not. A pickle to insert the clips into the bezel though. The bezels fit on the body like a glove. Between that and the tabs on the bezel you can see where to drill.

Trials:

I purchased a LH upper tailgate molding years ago. It has a small scratch, so I found another that came with the RH side as well, or so said the package. Some SOB put a LH piece in a RH NOS package, so I have three LH pieces and no RH pieces.....Ha ha ha ha.

And finally he missed on the tailgate handle molding. It's not quite even with the handle opening, and it's not level either. So yeah, it's a do-over, he's not happy either. I take some blame, I could have easily slowed things down, triple check. So we know what not to do. He says two hours to weld and refinish. I think he’s being generous, and I'm paying him for it. Go figure the handle is off on my C-20 as well, from factory.

[Getter-Done]

That looks great.
Everything looks straight as an Arrow.

What hardware kit will you use for your bed bolts?










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[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Originally Posted by Getter-Done

That looks great.
Everything looks straight as an Arrow.

What hardware kit will you use for your bed bolts?

.

Thanks. The bolts are original.

[68bowtie]

Looking good. Keep the pictures coming. I love the attention to detail.

[IronCanine]

Outstanding documentation Tony. What a board resource this build thread is. Thanks!

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

OT:, showing my HOG C20 some affection. Really it's kind of essential, the rear cyclones currently on the truck are too wide (9.75") & tires are about $450 a piece. So with luck I ended up with a set of 8.25" Western Turbine cyclones. Bonus is this model can take a push through hub cap, so there are a lot of options that come cheap. I've yet to see a replacement nutted on hub cap that looks nice with these wheels. To me these are the best looking wheel you can put on most LWB. Just had them blasted:

[Thealien]

Wow, just read the whole thing. I am in awe of your attention to detail and documentation.

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Finally tearing down the body for paint. Some fine-tuning/prep under a dry-run.

Real trivial and probably means nothing to those handy around bodies, ever notice how the grille rubs the fender, at least on a lot of trucks? My project did before the dry run, badly on one side. With new cushions and the front clip otherwise assembled, both sides of the grille were still too close to the fender for my taste, and some of the holes didn't quite line up to attach the grille.

I suspect GM did or should have used shims to solve that, placed behind the brackets on the lower two bolts. I used just a thin washer and it solved both problems, the holes for rivets are nuts.

For what it's worth, the front of the fenders weren't shimmed before or after the dry run, and I had two sets of OEM brackets at my disposal. So I'm pretty sure the brackets should be shimmed as needed. Perhaps some brackets were made better, could tell you.

Cool tip compliments Jim, one of our cool posters. Rivet screws as opposed rivets for the grille. They take a Kep-nut, and look like they belong there. Same sheen or close the grille, better than new.

First pic is the project after the brackets were shimmed. Second is my C20. I suppose some could be contributed to body sag, but IMO it's more the brackets require shims.

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

[B]Sorry man, I had to do this again, 3rd time, but I don’t want bad information out there. The downside of pictures there’s a limited time to edit them, so I deleted the previous post(s).

We got in a hurry on some things and have to re-drill some holes. The captions indicate where to drill, and in some instances where not too as well

Some basics:

Course body lines have to be right front to back. With the 4" & 2.5" drop my ride is just a pinch of dead level, so we knew dealing with nice platform from start.

We taped the moldings for an eye-test, then marked the edges to locate center. All clips are center of the moldings.

Lower side moldings: The top of the lower moldings sit .4/10" below the body line. I've heard 3/8", close enough doesn't matter. We ran with 4/10" because that's how the bodies were assembled. It's also how I found the moldings on my sample truck, which are factory.

Upper side moldings: Start with the door molding on a level door with the door lock cylinder attached. The molding sits above the door lock just enough to allow for it’s removal & install, pinch more wouldn’t hurt. From there it's mostly the eye-test. You'll see where the front of the fender molding forms well to the body. I did not take a measurement of the front fender hole because clips may vary.

Worth mentioning, lay it all out with tape before drilling any of it.

I only took pictures of "critical" areas. We spent must be 14-15 hours, it takes a while first time out. Again, this is only a guide.

The moldings aren’t even the same, original or not. I’ll bet your door moldings aren’t the same length (ha!), for example. Unless otherwise mentioned, these measurements are in ten parts to an inch.

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

More molding holes:

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Taped on:

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

So now that I know where we were supposed to drill I measured the height for all the upper side moldings. Lowers are self explanatory and can be penciled in anytime. The uppers a little more tricky. Once painted I want to mark everything off before we attach the moldings, partially because with 3M tape along the center of most of them, once they're on they're on.

I'm happy to see both sides match, we really weren't trying that hard

Keep in mind these measurements are to the top of the upper moldings only. The upper moldings on the bed are 1/4" higher at the rear than factory, because one of moldings would have looked bad factory.

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

More

[68bowtie]

This thread could double as a drafting class.

Question - How do you punch / mark the hole to keep your drill bit in position?

BTW, this is the epitome of perfectionism right here...

[zicc1835]

great sundy morning build thread read.....been following sort of on "what did you do to your truck today” 2 words well maybe 3...... Thank you , AMAZING

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Originally Posted by 68bowtie

This thread could double as a drafting class.

Question - How do you punch / mark the hole to keep your drill bit in position?

BTW, this is the epitome of perfectionism right here...

Attachment 2005976

I'm throwing together a kit say, on how to build an old Chevy. A lot applies to vintage GM cross the board, if you get my meaning, but of course it's my truck specific. The service & assembly manuals are 1000s of pages, more wide-ranging and in-depth. My manual is more practical and offers many details they don't. It's real dry, dumbed-down etc. at approx. 180 pages.

I had to write the manual backwards, that was a challenge at first It's in assembly order, I'm editing as I build her. Then I edit one last time, thank God. I learned to hate said manual by the time I tore the truck down, more time in that than handling parts.

Dry read I can do, they're not long-winded like my posts. Turns out 16 years writing computer specs. & business process lent itself to said manual, but this beats anything I've done past. The challenge was I'm colored blind and didn't recognize 95% the parts. Now I can describe 12 aspects to a bolt if it suits, and the ends of every wire & gauge. Less the guts of a fuse box anyway, I don't go into the core on anything mech. or elect.

[Getter-Done]

Originally Posted by 71CHEVYSHORTBED402

I'm throwing together a kit say, on how to build an old Chevy. A lot applies to vintage GM cross the board, if you get my meaning, but of course it's my truck specific. The service & assembly manuals are 1000s of pages, more wide-ranging and in-depth. My manual is more practical and offers many details they don't. It's real dry, dumbed-down etc..

I had to write the manual backwards, that was a challenge at first It's in assembly order, I'm editing as I build her. Then I edit one last time, thank God. I learned to hate said manual by the time I tore the truck down, more time in that than handling parts.

Dry read I can do, they're not long-winded like my posts. Turns out 16 years writing computer specs. & business process lent itself to said manual, but this beats anything I've done past. The challenge was I'm colored blind and didn't recognize 95% the parts. Now I can describe 12 aspects to a bolt if it suits, and the ends of every wire & gauge. Less the guts of a fuse box anyway, I don't go into the core on anything mech. or elect.

Great progress.

This documentation is (Top Notch)
I would be in for a copy.
I am sure you would start a separate thread for that though.


Nice attention to the details.












.

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Had the body built only to find this today Removed the cab and bed is all, and the painter took the bed again. I may be on the road next year. So long, 6 years is a 10th of my life Three guys will be on body and paint, their shop is slow too.

I went pretty deep on the dry run. Less the upper rear bed, we had the height of the moldings near nuts on both sides without trying. Props to GM, the bodies are well engineered, we made few body alterations.

One of the upper bed moldings had bow near center, so we found a happy medium and finished 1/8" off a match at the rear. The front RH door to fender matched within 1/32" where they're supposed to be, I know why, we'll get it right at build. I'm only referring to placement of the moldings, not holes drilled.

Ended up shimming the fenders of course, basic cab cushion shims. Front RH cowl panel a whopping 3/16", the RH pillar took 1/8", mix on the LH door striker, and an 1/8" shim at the RH front bed for level and straight. LH door striker took one shim only. I think I mentioned the RH was T-boned. The body man fixed it up better than the LH side, we put 5 hours into that and he led the entire charge.

For what it's worth, with new cushions etc. there's a 1" gap between the cab and the top front bed panel. It also measures 3.9" from the rear of the frame rails to the back of the bed floor. I'm interested to know what others find, partially because I need to modify brackets for a rear bumper. Distance from the rear of the frame rails to a sport bumper would be exceptional help.

The bed is crooked and the cushions shot on my C20. It measures within 2/10" at 7/10" from the cab to front bed panel, and 3.7" from the frame rail to the end of bed floor.

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Originally Posted by Getter-Done

Great progress.

This documentation is (Top Notch)
I would be in for a copy.
I am sure you would start a separate thread for that though.


Nice attention to the details. .

Thank you. I forgot to mention my manual is two volumes of only say 90 pages each. I tend to make things small once I know em, stage 3 CDO.

I don't know what I'm doing with the kit yet, nor the software. I do plan to sell it for cheap to board members interested, if admin. allows for it. After all, this board led to a lot of the info

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Finished my leaf springs. I'm real happy with them, but not how I got here. Knock on wood they're the biggest error on this project. Dummy figured the temporary coating was good. Second mistake was probably not removing them, so tons of prep to spray. One can of epoxy primer and nearly two cans of black in 2k aerosol. Expensive stuff but nice finish. I'm just not good with a spray gun. To do over again they'd be powder coated, but I don't see that in my future.

They call it hot rod black satin. Sounds nearly flat, but it's a nice sheen satin.

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

I get excited about simplest things sometimes, and this has me good. In my youth I sprayed the engine bay when my buddy and I pulled the engine for rebuild. Very cold Jan. too, I sprayed outdoors and it took Horrible job, I didn't intend to spray the evap. box and didn't care not to, most of the RH side of it was hit and a lot of it 3-4 coats thick.

I was going to send this out for restoration to the tune of big $, they'd have blasted no doubt and had to paint too. Read up on it, you don't even want to soda blast unless you're an expert and know what you're dealing with (e.g. fiberglass).

Read aircraft paint remover was good for plastic and fiberglass. My goal was save the surface if it works, and paint remover etches a little bit so I passed. Long story short I ended up using oven cleaner for 20 minutes, that can etch a pinch too much beyond that. The oven cleaner appeared to do nothing, but it starts to flake off some with lacquer thinner, which is a very good cleaner for these as well. Beyond that lots of lacquer thinner and patience to the tune of 5 hours.

They have a general once over due yet, and I ordered some polish that sounds just right. I have to remove the paint from the metal too, which is easy. No need to take this apart there's no rust and the door is like new. I'm real happy with the condition, and glad the fiberglass doesn't have to be painted on purpose


Word to the wise, not that anyone else is dumb enough to blast these with "overspray"..........I read acetone is a big whoops on fiberglass. I can swear by lacquer thinner, but no kidding depends on the over-spray. Almost the entire exterior was painted white before I got the truck - probably a $300 paint job back in the day. A single drop took forever to come out, I had to cheat with a pinch of paint remover . Dumb luck I painted the engine bay in the winter I guess, it was automotive paint.

Upside no rust on this truck. Downside between me and some shop everything was painted, and poorly

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Early Christmas today:

[IronCanine]

Everything is looking great!! Thanks for your efforts and documentation on an awesome truck. Can't wait for more pics to come!