Without Warning

May Long Weekend 2010

As the title implies, I walked up to the garage in the morning, and suddenly had this bright idea that I would strip the truck own to the frame; with the exclusion of the bed since it's welded on.

As a brief update from what the truck was when I bought it, you'll notice i've swapped the bumper for one off of something I found in our scrap car pile in the woods (all old farms have one). I did this for my sisters' wedding, to pretty the truck up a bit. otherwise I have done some light engine work, and tidied up a few things since i bought it, but it mainly remains untouched.

In a frame off restoration, you strip the vehcle to the frame, completley removing everything so it can all be separately treated and revamped. I however, do not have the time, patience, or desire to do that with this vehicle at this point in it's life. It is at the point where rebuilding it to original, although doable, seems rather pointless because of all the mods on it. Also, in keeping with a farm truck appeal, keeping it in the tow truck state ups its usability. The hood came off in about 30 seconds with 4 bolts, and I then moved on to the fenders, attached by bolts at the front and back, with only a few things meagerly zip tied onto them.

The grille was not too bad either, since by the point i got the fenders off there were only a few bolts remaining. oil seepage allowed these bolts to be free of rust too, so that was a bonus.

its a big rad for that engine, but the engine still runs a bit on the hot side (though recently the thermostat guage packed up). a few things in the engine bay will be stripped out and/or redone; namely the wiring, which i will completely rerun in nice looming. Also I should be able to strip all that blue paint from the undercarriage and repaint it satin black or something less conspicuous.

lastly, i unbolted the cab, by shearing 3 of the 4 bolts. no matter, i am rebuilding those portions anyways. The champion guys had grabbed whatever steel they could find and jammed it into the old body mount areas to dispurse the weight, and then made some prime bushings from old tires. the upside is they used more recent bolts, so the heads had enough grab to at least shear (i have no power in the garage for cutting, that's on the to do list). I unhooked all my old wiring, which surprisingly consisted mostly of dead end wires, along with my heater hoses, steering, pedals, and other various linkages/shifters. the doors are immutable at the moment, affixed with poor slothead and philips screws that are more or less stripped (no torx back then i guess). some short chain should allow me to remove the rest of the cab soon.