[izzy_Britton]

Z-71 UPDATE!

The wifes truck has turned out to be a major pile of crap... body wise. at my last update for this truck i was hoping to get the cab corner off and start working on getting the new one installed so that i could start the body work and get that much closer to paint work... I had totally planned to slam this truck together and give it to my wife for an anniversary present. that was oct 31.

so here is what really happened.

I got the replacement cab corner all stripped down in preparation to trim it up and install it once the old wrinkled up cab corner was removed. i marked out the old corner with some tape and a sharpie and thought just for fun i would install the doors to make sure that nothing was out of whack too much. After installing the doors of coarse it would be second nature to CLOSE the doors right? yeah well, that didnt work out so well. the back door rubbed so bad in the jamb that i could only scratch my head. ya see i have worked in body shops in the past and i have done several panel replacements so it wasnt all that big of a job to me. this dumbfounded me so bad that i could only call over a body shop friend of mine for a moment of consultation and a second opinion.

So dude shows up, i show him what i have and ask him about where i had planned to splice the old corner with the new corner. I also asked him about the rear door hinges because i thought maybe they were bent. anyways he stuck his head in the truck and proclaimed that i was wasting my time. he pointed out that there were some issues that i never even saw. the cab corner was hit hard enough to kink the roof, bow out the back wall under the rear window, and wrinkle the inside of the cab corner to a point that it looked like someone had taken tin foil, crumpled it up into a ball, and then tried to straighten it out again... yeah, thats what it looks like. anyways dude says 4-6 hours on a frame rack and he can get it close.

next day i call one of the salesmen at work and using my employee discount i bought another cab that was in mint condition for less than the 4 hours frame rack charge. THEN the unthinkable happens. 20 minutes after getting the cab delivered to the loading dock so i can get it hauled home, the loader operator runs into the cab corner with the tip of the fork, screwed the corner up fairly well but not nearly as bad as the other cab was. beg the boss for a discount and bam! i got this mint condition with added smallish dent for about half of what a 4 hour labor charge on the frame rack would cost. SCORE! now i just have to find the time to get the cab home and start prepping it for paint since it is GOLD and the truck will be dark metallic blue.

-Izzy