1967 Custom Sport Shop Truck

[rusty76]

Nice pics. I hope to make some time to go out west.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Do it! I wish I had a job where I could, just once, take like 2-2.5 weeks off. I'd love to take a big sweeping trip up through the Dakotas/Montana, then swing down through the desert states and see all of the famous sites/parks. I counted and I think I've been to 32 states and the trip I'm talking about would wipe out another 11, basically just leaving me with Al, HI, and the far northeast states.

Said goodbye to the old green floor this weekend. It's just going into storage, I have "someday" plans for it. I was going to use it with another bed when the blue bed came along. I reorganized my shed and there's almost 2 beds standing against the wall now!

[67ChevyRedneck]

While the green bed floor was very nice, straight, and "rust hole free" it did have it's share of dings and pitting.

The blue bed had a camper on it most of it's life. I've found one dent in the back section of the bed (unfortunately NOT in an area I could cut out ) and it's unbelievably straight and clean.

I'm going to literally be able to wash off the underside, scuff pad a couple small areas, and just respray with undercoating, or since it's so nice, maybe just a fresh coating of semi gloss black paint.

[67ChevyRedneck]

This floor went SOOOOOOOOOOO much faster.

I didn't waste any time doing extra tape lines, writing "cut", etc... if I put a line down, measure it 3x... that's good enough. I did add an extra mark that would be at the 12" line after it was cut. I think I took the pic at an angle, because it was dead on 12" after it was cut.

I did add tape to my "Match Line" in case it got rubbed off. Metal ruler in the background to show this baby is FLAT!

Front missing 12" and fully tacked all the way down.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I did the same thing along the back, removed 8" and measured off what should have been 70" when done as a check mark.

[67ChevyRedneck]

So, why didn't I finished cutting the PS bedside down?

The easy answer is because cutting and putting stuff back together isn't 100% perfect. There is a slot at the front that the front panel lines up into and of course the back has a VERY snug fit over the rear cross sill, so I didn't want a crooked bed, so I figured I would leave the back PS bedside uncut for now, cut down the blue bed floor, get the front tacked down good, cut the back loose, line up the DS bedside to exactly where I want it, get the floor square, then tack it all down. Then, when I mock up the PS, I'll line the front of the bed up, and whatever makes the back end line up perfect is where I'll line it back up at.

What absolutely floored me is when I locked the backside of the bed down where I wanted it and measured it... I was dead on my 70" mark I had made...

[67ChevyRedneck]

Got the backside fully tacked, nice and flat.

Remounted the DS bedside to get it up out of the way. It slid right on/off.

[67ChevyRedneck]

...and more for the carnage pile!

I'd really like to see how long it takes most people to cut one of these bed's down. I have probably way more time than I already should and I probably have an entire weekend + in finishing cutting the PS down/fitting tailgate, and probably another whole weekend on top of that finish welding the panels.

[67ChevyRedneck]

...and for the bad news. Because of an awesome trip to Cali coming up, I won't be able to work on the bed for a few weeks, and even when I get back, my 65 Mustang needs the timing cover pulled and resealed and a new radiator installed (going from 17"-24" to keep it from overheating with A/C on) so that will probably take a couple weekends too... Not really sure when I'll be able to get a whole lot more done on this... was hoping to have it fully welded by now.

[GR8-68]

It is looking real good Jesse, I could have used your skils while patching mine together.

[67ChevyRedneck]

It would have been nice messing up someone else's truck first! Doing crap a couple times sucks!

[flashed]

Im thinking you just like cutting down beds ,youre quite good at it too .

[67ChevyRedneck]

The floors are GREAT! I'd rather do 10 more floors before another bedside. You can cut them wherever you want as long as you're removing a center brace from the front and back. They're nice thick metal. You have to really really heat it up to mess it up.

It was awesome seeing the "paint lines" around the fender tub line right up when I slid the bedside on it's original floor

[67ChevyRedneck]

California was bad ass. We spent 9 days from Seattle down to San Diego. We even spent Cinco de Mayo in Old Town in San Diego.

In addition to all the fun we had on the coast I got to drive a brand new 2017 Camaro for 5 days (we started in Seattle and they had NO convertibles, so I had to switch out in LA for a drop top) and went to Chip Foose's shop, Classic Industries, and the SoCal Speed shop.

I made this album public so you all should be able to see it, it's all the pics I took in Fooses and the SoCal Speed shops.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php...2712028&type=3

[67ChevyRedneck]

...and my project ADD has kicked in. The Mustang NEEDS a radiator upgrade. I CAN NOT even sit at a traffic light cycle with the A/C on in the 95*+ SC summer heat without it climbing up to 220+ so I'm swapping the rinky dinky 17" radiator for a big ass 24" 3 row out of a 69. There is a bit of fab work, but it's a pretty straight forward swap. The hardest part was cutting 2.5" off the core support without removing the A/C stuff without hitting it!

[67ChevyRedneck]

...and in typical fashion my truck threw a ***** fit I was working on the mustang and destroyed her 11 year old starter

[flashed]

Dang Jesse ,you have my kind of luck .I been spending too much money on my new 72 4x4 so the Malivert pitched a few fits wanting money spent on it .Right now the vert is just parked til my credit card recovers a bit .Looks like you had fun in Cali though .

[67ChevyRedneck]

When it rains it pours

I would LOVE to live in SoCal. The car culture is incredible. The cost of living is just so significantly high compared to SC our "quality of life" would definitely go down.

[rusty76]

Awesome pics. I am going out west. I want to be a part of the car culture. Car culture here is so different than out west. Thanks for sharing.

[demian5]

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

When it rains it pours

I would LOVE to live in SoCal. The car culture is incredible. The cost of living is just so significantly high compared to SC our "quality of life" would definitely go down.

The car culture and ability to drive my classic cars all year long is worth the cost.

[Dieselwrencher]

Jesse, nice work on your SWB project. If you happen to have any pieces from your bed floor you cut out, i'd gladly buy them from you. I could use them for my steel floor longhorn. The aftermarket bed floor patches are not right in the rib bends.

[67ChevyRedneck]

What are you looking for size-wise? The problem is there's a bracket still attached to each section I have and there's A LOT of spot welds, like, a lot, and they're VERY HEAVY with the bracket attached. I'm guessing shipping one section complete would probably be well over $100. I shipped a stupid jump seat out of my 00 Silverado to CA and it was $160.

[67ChevyRedneck]

If anyone had noticed... my project died

I have good reasons... I'm tired of my cars getting hail damaged and my poor truck sitting outside 24/7, so I have quite a chunk of change saved up for a 24x40ish shop. Yes, that's right. I'm getting my shop this year. One problem... I promised to 100% finish the outside of the house before I build it.

I got really far by early January and hit a road block, my apparent fear of death. I did not like being 25' in the air on scaffolding, even with a safety harness, so I've been waiting on my friend to let me borrow his bucket truck for a couple months to finish. It should be here in the next week or two finally. The 25' is the garage side you see... the other side of the house is 38' from ground to peak

[67ChevyRedneck]

I have taken the opportunity to make the truck slightly cooler. I've always wanted to see what a 67/68 stepside would look like with CST trim. If you've ever paid attention to real factory 67/68 CST stepsides with trim, if you bought this truck new from the factory this is the crap you got. Say What??? Again, this is for real what you got. It's like they just forgot. Nowhere near like the "wrongbed" Ford trucks, but still a WTF GM moment.

[67ChevyRedneck]

This was my first attempt using 3M tape. It might have worked if I cleaned the truck better and didn't install it just before it rained. Long story short it started coming off.