Truck temporary assembly & cab acquisition

DSC_3240

DSC_3239I put some of my junk parts on the truck so I could use it. I have to admit it looks pretty cool like this. I drove it up the Boston to drop of some shelving that has been sitting in the truck since the fall, and I got more thumbs up and compliments with the truck like this than in any other trip.

DSC_3242

 

 

I put the hood on shortly thereafter, as having the engine exposed while the truck was parked outside seemed like asking for trouble.

DSC_3248

 

 

 

Got my “new” ’66 cab home the next Saturday. I ended up paying only $400 for it, and the guy threw in a beat up aluminum grille for free.

 

 

DSC_3244

Rounded up 3 of my friends to load it in the truck and unload it into my garage. The unloading was full on 3-stooges madness trying to get it out of the truck inside the garage without smacking it into the roof beams.

DSC_3254

 

 

Once it was in my garage, I finally was able to dig deeper into the new cab and see whet I now had.

DSC_3251

 

 

It came with the full dash(lessheater stuff), AM radio, steering column & wheel), and a set of nice blue sun-visors(the center mirror looks nice, but the ball & socket is rusted solid). I’ll be keeping the wiper switch as it appears to have a washer switch built in, other than that everything else is getting sold to help put some money back in the truck fund.

 

DSC_3252The biggest selling point for me is that the roof is perfect inside & out. No dents or rust(the rust at the front edge of the inside roof in the sun visors pic is surface rust from where the scraped the paint getting the windshield out). All the roof should need is a quick sand & re-prime for some tiny surface rust spots, new sealant in the gutter and to be painted.

DSC_3259

 

 

The bad now, there is rust in the floors at the outer edge, though not much.
DSC_3261

 

 

 

The cab has also had cab corners and rockers done, but they put the new rocker on over any issues under there, and made the inner rocker out of scrap steel and barely welded it to anything. So the outer rocker is coming back off so I can re-do this area.
DSC_3262

 

 

There is also this mystery patch, so that has to come off to find out what is going on there.
DSC_3273

 

 

The only rust not in the floor I’ve found so far is in the driver’s drip rail(but non in the passenger side, weirdly). Once I remove the rusty one, I’ll either scavenge the one off my old cab, or cut the rusted section off the drip rail and weld on new metal.

Bumper? I hardly know her…

DSC_9737

The front bumper on the truck looked like hell when I bought it, when the truck was all battered it fit in well, but once I planned to re-do it, I knew the bumper was going to need help.

DSC_2921

 

Back during dis-assembly, only one of the eight bumper bolts simply unscrewed. Of the rest three snapped off and four had to be cut off.

 

 

 

 

 

DSC_2997So once the bumper was off, I stripped it of several layers of white paint, and ground down all the surface rust. I was pleasantly surprised to discover it doesn’t appear to be bent, and doesn’t have an dents in it.

 

 

DSC_3087Before I could start the repainting, I had to address the gouge I’d made with the cutting wheel when I cut the various bolts off.

 

DSC_3088

 

 

First I filled them in with metal using the mig welder, then ground them smooth. This sometimes took a few rounds to fully fill them.

 

 

DSC_3093

The end result was something that, after primer & paint would show no sign it had ever been damaged and would be a stronger part of the bumper than if I’d just used filler.

 

 

 

DSC_3124Once that was done the bumper was coated in MasterSeries & primer like all the other parts.

Thrills & Grilles

DSC_3118

Despite being in very good shape for their age, the GMC grille from the swap meet and the grille support panel from Arizona were both still going to need work.

DSC_3119The first order of business was to unbolt everything from them and get to work grinding all the paint off. The grille panel has this odd spot of rust. Which, given its location, was probably the result of battery acid from a battery leaking or exploding, fortunately it was only surface deep and came right off.

 

DSC_3123

 

 

A few hours work gave me a shiny and largely rust-free grille panel. There was no rot, but there will be a lot of little dents & dings to fix.

 

 

 

 

DSC_3168

 

The grille was stripped of its little headlight trim & headlight buckets. These will be rebuilt & painted before going back on the grille.

 

 

 

 

 

DSC_3200

 

Then the grille was similarly ground clean. I found one old dent that will need a skim of filler to be smooth, but there were no nasty surprises hiding under the paint.

 

DSC_3207

 

 

 

 

Both were given two coats of MasterSeries anti-rust paint.

 

 

 

DSC_3214
One surprise I did run into was that despite having come with a GMC grille on it, the Grille panel from AZ was actually for a Chevy, which meant two of the mounting hole per side were in the wrong place.

 

DSC_3212Fortunately this turned out to be an easy fix, the brace on the back had a cutout where the GMC grille hole was supposed to be, so I just had to drill them out and I had the correct holes needed to let the GMC grille bolt up.

DSC_3228I painted the backs of both with Rustoleum, then sprayed the back of the grille panel with truck bed liner. I think it was because I didn’t dust the parts with primer when the MasterSeries was still wet, but when the bedliner went on it crinkled and lifted most of the Rustoleum off the back of the grille panel.

DSC_3231

I power-washed it the next day and was left with the result at the right. I’m going to need to sand this down to get any other unattached paint off, then re-prime & paint this again. Not a huge setback, but very annoying.

Giving the truck a bit of structure again

(Yes, I am finally updating this, this is all work that was done shortly after the work in the prior posts)

DSC_3140

After spending a  week getting all the layers of paint & bedliner on the rebuild radiator support, I finally re-assembled the re-done inner structure of the front end.

DSC_3070

 

I painted the inner fenders with truck bed liner and installed them.

 

DSC_3076

 

 

The engine got a quick repaint just so it wouldn’t look terrible in the redone engine compartment. It’ll get a better job once I actually re-do it.

 

DSC_3141

 

 

Then the radiator support went in. The “new” radiator support is definitely bent, and despite my efforts to straighten it, it is still not right. However it is still an improvement and will suffice until I find an good one.

 

DSC_3148

 

 

I cleaned up and reused the original bolts for most of it, and bought new support mount kits for the radiator support.

 

 

 

 

DSC_3145

Just after these pics were taken I put on the upper radiator bracket and was able to start & run the truck for the first time in two months. I then installed a Pertronix electronic ignitiion kit in the distributor, now it starts much easier, unlike the fight it used to be.