68 C50 Looongbed pickup build

[rustytruck50]

I've been there and back.....its frustrating but when you slide in behind the wheel for the first time and get it out on the road, all of that goes away in a big hurry!

[rkn463]

Originally Posted by rustytruck50

I've been there and back.....its frustrating but when you slide in behind the wheel for the first time and get it out on the road, all of that goes away in a big hurry!

If things go really well with reassemble then that first test drive may not be too far away. I can hardly wait!

-Richard

[rkn463]

Weekend update:
First on the agenda was to finish hooking up the clutch. When I pulled the clutch rod out the previous week I noticed that the rubber boot in the firewall was disintegrating. While I didn't have any expectation that the light duty and medium duty would use the same part I ordered one from LMC. As soon as it came in I knew it wasn't a match, you can see from the second photo it wasn't even close. That meant that I needed a plan B. With nothing to lose I set out to remove the old boot from the cab without finishing it off. I ended up using a blow dryer to heat it up to get it soft enough to remove it from the cab without destroying what was left. Once out I cut both apart and then grabbed some tire patch material and bonded the two together. It is a crappy looking temporary fix at best but for now it will keep air from blowing in. If anyone happens to have an old GM parts book I'd love to get a part # so that I can search for an NOS piece. Once It was back together I heated it with the blow dryer again and reinstalled it. Then I popped the clutch rod in and pinned it top and bottom. Clutch functional, check!

-Richard

[rkn463]

Next up was the steering column. As seen in last weeks photos the 89's column was the correct length. The shape of all the parts was a perfect match as well. I did need to swap the bracket that holds the column to the dash structure as well as swapping the floor gasket setup. I was able to work the floor gaskets off both and knocked the metal part of the brackets loose but I ended up cutting the rubber part of the bracket from the 68 column (forgot to get a picture). Anyone that has ever put a van column in a pickup is familiar with having to make a new hole in the column for the bracket to index in to. This one was no exception. I did not want to take the time to disassemble the column to do the drilling and cutting so I rigged up my shop vac over the existing slot so that I could drill, cut and suck all the metal shavings out at the same time - worked like a charm! First I drilled a 1/4" hole at each end I stepped the hole up to about 7/16 and then used my angle grinder to cut the part between the two holes. I swear I took some more pictures but they weren't on the camera so this is all you get, pic 1 is the vac hooked up, pic 2 is the completed hole, pic 3 is the bare metal painted. I installed the column and popped on the 68 horn button. The 89 button would be cool if it weren't for the silly little horn icon at the bottom. Column installed and functional - check!

-Richard

[rkn463]

Time to deal with the floor hump. The shifter doesn't come through in the original place so I need to move the hole. I also decided to go with the oval shifter boot from the 89, so I need to change the shape as well. I knew that the hole needed to be farther back so I started by cutting out the back end to get the shape right. Still way off. I did lots of measuring and figured out it needed to be roughly 3.5 inches farther back. I masked off a rectangle that I determined I could cut and rotate 180 degrees an weld back in. This would move it the proper distance back as well as moving it to the right about a quarter inch. I spent a lot of time measuring and masking and got my rectangle "in square" but when I cut it I got off the marks! I taped the piece in and test fit it and it looked perfect. Theory, spot on - execution, not so great. That was all for Saturday, the welding would have to wait till Sunday.

-Richard

[rkn463]

Sunday morning I dug out the nifty panel clamps that I bought from Eastwood back when I welded the bed up. Next I ground the paint from the top and the undercoating from the bottom and then clamped the pieces together. The gaps from my bad cut were terrible! I popped across the road to my brother's shop where our wire welder is and got started. The wind was howling and the doors were all open and I was in too big of a hurry. Possibly the worst looking welding I've ever done. I hate to show how bad it looks even ground down but I swallowed my pride and took the picture anyway. The too big a hurry also resulted in massive warpage. You can see how it sits on the floor now, fortunately it will still bolt down. So I hit it with a coat of rust reformer and bolted it down to keep the critters out. I still need to spray some undercoating on the underside and paint the top with some satin and keep looking forward to the day when I cover it with a mat to hide my shameful welding job.

-Richard

[rkn463]

At this point I had still not torqued cab down and also the connection where the pitman arm connects to the steering linkage. I looked them up, torqued everything down and put the cotter pin in the linkage. Two more pictures for you, the fist is how worn the clutch linkage was on the 68. How many times do you suppose that pedal got pushed to put that much wear on it? The last photo is my attempt to show the gap between the floor and the hump. This happened when we had to lift the cab back up to square up to the frame when we were placing it. The shifter knob caught and bent the floor. I still have some hammer and dolly work to do make those mate up properly again.

That is about it for last weekend, next weekend I have company so there will be no progress for at least two weeks.

-Richard