1968 C20 Build

[dagnabbitt]

Originally Posted by 68Gold/white

Put the front 67 tenders on it and drive it!! Who cares!!!??? Your other pickup has a diesel unit, who cares!!

Well, you have a point, there.

[68 C10 Driver]

Originally Posted by dagnabbitt

Arriving this week is the cheapest NOS part I have ever bought, this handbrake boot on ebay which was $12, and another $12 in shipping. Some time ago I picked up a NOS retainer for it, in hopes that I would find the boot. I am sure I paid a hundred Canuck bucks for that one, so good deal for me, finally.

It is possible that it was cheap because it is so old and brittle that it will fall apart in my hands, I will be looking into ways to preserve that rubber. I am afraid to use tire conditioners on it cause many of those just make the rubber look nice for a week while leeching the moisture out.

There is a way to preserve this boot, I think it is a mix of mint oil and mineral spirits (not absolutely sure about the mineral spirits), or something like that...hopefully someone will chime in as I remember reading that on one of the threads here.

Cheers-

[dagnabbitt]

Using a 3/4 inch impact gun I removed the cab bolts and shimmied the mounts out of the passenger side, while using a floor jack and a 2x4 to hold the cab up.

I have no idea how a person without shop tools could possibly do this, each bolt took forever to get out and my arms were on fire the whole time: for the front two I was holding a vibrating forty pound gun with one hand and simultaneously reaching up into the cab with the other hand to capture the bolt with a wrench. The rear bolts of course have a cage nut and were a little easier.

I then stuck some wood between the frame and the floor to keep the cab suspended, somewhat, a couple inches above the height where it would be with mounts. The floor of this truck is actually not bad, just holes in the corners near the kick panels.

At that point I dug into the outer rocker, and then the inner. Ironically, although it appeared to be completely falling apart, it didn't want to come off all that easily. I owe my buddy a box of cutting discs.

Inside the rocker there seemed to be an almost impossible amount of rust and dirt, and more fell out as I was shaking the truck with the impact. I have no idea where it all comes from, but this truck definitely has about 50 pounds less of it than when I started on it.

I am hoping that this weekend I can clean it up some more and then... maybe tackle or at least mock up the repair. I have to replace the inner and outer rockers, the cab corner, and the two cab supports on each side. That's a lot of work for an amateur.

I've read many threads and watched a lot of videos, so I am going to go completely out of character and just get started on it. I expect I will learn a lot along the way, that seems to be the best process for me. I know it will not be perfect and I will make some mistakes, but I figure that I will be doing this a few more times on my other trucks in the next few years, so I will get better at it.

[dagnabbitt]

It is easy to feel, sometimes, like you are not making any progress on your project. But occasionally I feel like I am going backwards. This happened when I was surveying the cab corners and coming to the realization that the box was going to have to come off: when it seemed like I just put it on yesterday.

Instead, I removed the bumper - I don't like it, it has been tweaked at some point and I want a nicer one - along with the rear wheels. I put the truck on jackstands and removed the bed bolts, then slid the box back 6-8 inches. At that point I taped off what I wanted to remove from the cab corners and cut them out. The corners might have suffered some erosion over the years, but they surprised me by how flimsy the metal was. I think my patch panels are actually a thicker gauge.

Underneath the cab, the supports are in bad shape. I have the right front one in place - just in place, not affixed in any way - and I am working on getting the right rear one in. Surprisingly (to me) it is not very long and unlike the front one it does not incorporate the cab mount in its design. But the makers must be aware that the rear cab mounts seldom rust, so this one I just have to french into the area where I cut the old one off. What it does have is the housing where the seatbelts bolts in, and an unwelcome surprise was that it will not accept the original bolt. So I have to take the new support in to my nut and bolt place and get a couple that fit.

Although 95% of the supports are rusted away, the other 5% does not want to go. They are a real pain to remove, and I can understand why some people opt for the slip over design support. I scoffed at the idea of using a slip on but it might have been best in my application. There would be basically no harm in it if you removed as much of the rotten material as possible.

I only get a day a week to work on this so it is going slow, but it keeps me interested.

[68Gold/white]

2 words..............

Oh boy!!!

[dagnabbitt]

I haven’t gotten much done over the summer but now it’s winter and am getting back at it. I have dry fitted inner and outer rockers as well as cab corners and am ready to try to make them permanent. I don’t really know what I’m doing but I’m willing to try. This is the truck I will learn on so I expect to make lots of mistakes.