Seems like my build is stuck in bull low... ugh
My luck with the box all but ran out once it got to body work. I was recommended a bodyshop (won't say which one... yet) by a friend that had his truck painted there. So I dropped the box off with them and they said they would get it into primer for me no problem. They were busy at the time but I told them once they've gotten a chance to go over them, let me know and we can discuss what should be done. Well a couple weeks went by with no word so I decided to drop in on them. They still hadn't had a chance to look at them, but said they would get to it the following week and let me know. The following Tuesday I get call saying they are ready to be picked up and that'll be $1000. I was kind of shocked and annoyed that they hadn't conferred with me before starting, but I figured they must know what they're doing and if its done and done well then I guess $1000 isn't soo bad. So I went to pick them up, and thats when my blood started to boil... no work done on the cross sills, they were just shot in undercoating and called good even though a couple had rust holes in them. The end sill was the same story, no body work and shot in undercoating when its a part that will be PAINTED! The front panel had a bunch of pock marks and some pitting that weren't fixed. Then the box sides, still had pitting, waves in the bottom edge, they had filled drill holes in the rails with bondo instead of welding them, and just a lot of shoddy bondo work throughout. Needless to say I was pissed, and I'm not very good in those situations. I started to call them out, but it was 5 against 1 and they were citing things like $250 a gallon for primer, and they had to pull a bunch of dents, and bodywork is hard... blah blah blah. I got to the point where it was either get out of there or get in trouble. I decided to take the hit, so I paid them and grudgingly loaded up the parts. At least then I could get my parts back.
After stewing about it all weekend, I went back there the next week and told the owner how unhappy I was. He just went on the defensive but agreed to take a few of the smaller parts back and do them properly. That was a few weeks ago and I haven't heard from them. Going back for another visit this afternoon hopefully it goes smoothly and I can clean my hands of these bozos.
I've now decided I'm going to tackle some or all of the bodywork and paint myself. Going to set up a poly booth in my garage. I'll try doing the inside of the fenders, doors, cab, and if that works out I'll go ahead and do the rest myself. So we'll see how that goes...
Other than that, I've done a bit of work here and there. Fuel rails polished and installed along with the injectors (pictures will come). There were a couple more frame mods to be done to complete the leaf to coil spring conversion. One was adding the mount for the track bar which I still need to do, another is the addition of what I guess could be called reinforcement plates for the trailing arm cross member. Here is a picture of the xmember as it is with leafs
Here it is after drilling out the rivets and installing the plate (done on both sides).
There are also reinforcements that go above the coil springs (or bags in my case), but the ones I have are in rough shape and I was thinking of designing something a bit different, or perhaps even boxing the frame there. Reason being, it is the location where my original frame had the bowing issue (as shown in one of my first posts). So we'll see what happens there.
Also, I'm going to be picking up my latest order from the states hopefully within the next couple weekends. This order includes (but limited to):
- Amereican Autowire Classic Update wiring harness
- TechRods LT1 Engine wiring harness
- Pypes race pro stainless exhaust system. 2 1/2" with x-pipe their race pro mufflers
- Cut to fit spark plug wire kit (no more short wires for me!)
Hopefully I can put a bit more work into thing soon, I hate not seeing progress. Almost done my bathroom reno though so that will free up some time. Summers are hard though, why sweat in the garage when you can suntan on the boat?