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Old 06-20-2021, 04:38 PM   #4929
mick53
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Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: Warsaw IN
Posts: 887
Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3

Three days on and off in the hot sun and I finished stripping down my donor chassis. I'm just using the frame rails but I could not bring myself to just torch it apart. Me or someone else may need something someday. I also wanted to keep from damaging it. I tried a few things but what worked best for me was to drill the head of the rivet, 1/8", 1/4", 3/8" and then pop it off with the air hammer and flat blade. This left a nice divot for the pointy attachment on the air hammer. They were still very much stuck in there. There was no deterioration in the rivets or steel. I thought there would be rust in there. I then took the oxy torch and heated the back side of the rivet head cherry red and they popped right out. I was surprised to see when I took the rivets out of the front crossmember first that the rails were under about an inch of tension. My plan is to use the frame rails to box the chassis on my 53 3100. I bought the chassis from a nice fellow on the Stovebolt in Wisconsin about 4 hours away for $200. He kept the running board brackets. Sorry so long. Thank you for your time.
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