[GSFMECH]

Anyway, to pick up the pieces I bought this ochre and white 72 long bed. A buddy of mine bought the truck locally back in 2011 with the intention of making a SWB out of it for his son but never got around to it, his son didn’t like it and wanted something newer. He had even picked up a matching ochre and white short wheel base bed with original paint and a powdered coated SWB frame. He had lowered it with an ECE kit, new exhaust, a set of 20” Coys which were later sold, redid the interior and got it running good. Anyway, he sold it to another buddy and it sat outside in his driveway for a few years and not driven much. I bought the complete package off him and now it was time to build it. My intention was to do the SWB conversion along with my drivetrain, wheels and suspension and basically be identical to my blue truck except for the color and the patina. However, I decided to do a lot of upgrades over the blue one which you will see as I go along. Here’s a few photos right after I got it. My buddy had a set of 17” TTIIs on it which he kept but I got a set of 18 and 20” Coy’s with the deal which I didn’t use. The reason I call it “Castro” is that if it weren’t for old “Castro the drunkard” which caused this debacle I wouldn’t even have this truck. Hope he enjoys jail, it was his 4th time DUI. Here are a few shots of the truck when I got it. I’m not a huge fan of ochre but it was in good enough shape to leave the paint as original as possible and fix only the rust through, if I were restoring it I would have probably went with a different color truck. Having said that I’ve grown to love it. When I was a kid I worked part time for a man who had one the same color, so it brings back a lot of memories.