Now hear this

You might wonder what that is in the photo above.

But if you are Rick, you surely know that it is speaker wire. Good for tying windows back onto Chevettes or in this case, I found it strapping the license plate bracket to the bed of a 1968 Chevy.

Re: Feeling Strong or Stupid?

That was the subject line of an email I sent out to the guys in the neighborhood. At least the ones that I thought might be willing to help me lift the fleetside truckbed onto the truck frame.

Waiting to meet her rear end transplant

The view from the backyard

After some discussion and measuring to see if the truck would fit back out of the gate with the bed mounted, after one of the guys reminded me that we brought the bed into the back yard on it's end panel, not flat, like I remembered, I backed the truck into the yard with 6 inches to spare. But because of the mirrors, that was only about an inch on each side when I backed up far enough to get out of the truck.

It took me several tries to get lined up on the narrow gate.

It only took us about 15 minutes with 4 guys. I backed the truck right under the bed while the other guys held it up. About 10 minutes later we were done bolting it down and ready for a quick ride to the front yard.

There was one other guy around, but he is a lawyer and for legal reasons, I don't want his picture on my blog.

By the way, The Talker skipped out on the work, but he was sure ready for the ride...

The bed floor. Not perfect, but much better than the old.

I think this is her best looking side, now.

Front Half, meet Back Half

In a couple of hours a few buddies are stopping by to help heave the fleetside bed onto the truck frame. The cost? A few beers per man. This bed has really gone through a lot of beer since I got it.

Pictures later.

Progress pictures

I am getting really close to installing the replacement bed. The driveshaft is back in. The shop even painted it black for me.



And I am wanted the cab to look a little better before I install the bed, so I pulled out the paint last night and covered a little more sheetmetal and rust with a decent looking Pacific Blue. I know it is a short term solution, but if the crappy paint job can buy me a few years without having to fork over $$$ for body work, then it is fine with me.







I still have some painting to do on the cab. But I don't really consider the replacement to be a permanent fix for the bed. One day I would like to put another stepside longbed on the truck. The replacement bed is still mainly in the original gold and white paint, but one outer bedside is primer grey. And it may stay that way while it is on my truck.

All of this is OK, since I am trying to fix this truck up to use around town, not to have a show truck. A lot of guys build good trucks that look awesome from 10 feet away, a "10 Footer". Lots old trucks look really good from further away, they might be "20 Footers". I am hoping my truck at least turns out to be a decent looking "20 Yarder"

An aside: After all of the work yesterday, I could not resist taking the truck for a spin around the block. No bed, no tail lights of any sort. But you know I was laughing all the way.

One step closer

The driveshaft is back from the shop and already installed. After I finished the install, I got the transmission filled back up with gear oil. Is there any stinkier stuff in the whole world?

I checked all of my fluids and topped off the tires. In the next couple of days I hope to drive the truck into the backyard and not come out until there is a bed attached to the back half of the frame.

Next up, a new battery and rear brakes.

The worst $19.90 I ever did not spend

This afternoon I am picking up my driveshaft. When I called originally, they wanted $185 to tear down and rebuild the entire thing. But I decided to do it myself. After a dozen hours or so of pounding, I finally got the old universal joints out. Then I spent another few hours trying to get the carrier bearing off. After all of that, I gave up.

When they called to tell me it was finished, I found out that I had saved $19.90 by taking the u-joints out. But considering the time spent and that I still have a thumbnail that hasn't healed from hitting it with a hammer while trying to push one of the joints out, I now wish I had spent that money and saved my thumb instead.

When I want something done right,

I hire the job out.

For the first time since I started messing around with my old truck, I am paying someone to work on it. Which is surely breaking the number one rule I set for myself when this all started. Back then I wanted to learn how to do everything to get the truck back on the road.

Now, I just want all of the pieces and parts that once made up my driveshaft to be put back together. And I gave up a while back on getting that job done myself. Technically, the shop is working on PART of the truck, not the truck itself.

I dropped the driveshaft and extra parts off today, hoping they would be back sometime before the truck or I turn 50 years old. And it SHOULD be back tomorrow afternoon. A nice surprise for my 36th birthday.

Now I can tell everyone that I really got the shaft on my birthday!

Driveway Dreaming

I hopped in the truck the other day and started it up just for grins. And it worked. Every time I hear this truck start up, usually on the first try, I just crack a huge smile.

I don't know if it is wise to run the engine without the driveshaft in place, so I kept it running for just a few minutes. Now that I have had my fix, maybe I can wait a few more months to actually leave the driveway.

Better frame pictures

In these shots you can better see the progress I made on the frame last weekend.

Blackout

I recently have gotten tired of looking at the rusty truck frame in the driveway. So today I rednecked a frame paint job. Thanks to a half dozen cans of primer for rusty metal and a bunch of Rustoleum flat black spay paint, I got a half-assed paint job on the truck frame. I'll throw another can or two at it before I declare it DONE.


Does it look great? No. Does it look better? Yep. Does it look like it was done with a $20 budget in one afternoon? Indubitably.

But I think it looks better. And this was never planned to be a big budget restoration, just an effort at slowing down any further rot and deterioration.

Will it work? Don't know. Ask me in another 40 years and we will know for sure.

Easiest repair ever?

I have given up on the driveshaft. It is going to a driveshaft shop or a machine shop to get a new carrier bearing and universal joints. I took back the parts I bought, minus one u-joint that I think I damaged, and got a refund.

This week my self imposed deadline will pass. I wanted to have the truck road worthy to drive in the neighborhood July 4th parade. Maybe next year.

I am still trying to make some progress on the truck this summer, so I picked up a set of rear shocks and new mounting hardware this afternoon. Within 20 minutes of getting home with the parts I was putting tools away. Hopefully I installed them right, 'cause I know I installed them quick.

Drive shaft work

I finally got the old universal joints out of the drive shaft. Yesterday I bought the new joints and a new carrier bearing, but now I just have to figure out how the heck all of this stuff goes back together.

Tractor Trading

The tractor is on it's way to it's new home. It was hot out there and getting everything loaded took a lot longer than I thought it would. Luckily, the kids were not with me, or it would have taken even longer.

A neighbor offered to watch the kids while Uncle Lemon, Pops and I went out to load the tractor. They played themselves stupid with the neighbor's kids while I was out having a heatstroke and getting Pops a good deal.

Tractor Rescue

I haven't taken any time to work on the truck in the last couple of weeks. Instead I have been trying to clean up my garage and get everything reorganized out there.

Today I get to do a little bit of wrenching, but not on the truck. Instead I am heading out to start the rescue of a 30 year old tractor. Pops is buying a 1976 Kubota L225 from my Uncle Lemon. So today I am going out to get the battery installed and I am going to remove the front wheels so that we can replace the dry rotted tires.

Sometime next week Pops, Lemon and I will be out there hopefully driving the tractor onto a trailer for it's 200 mile trip to the coast.

The best part of this deal, I get to play with the old thing and don't have to spend any money on it.

Finished the rear differential

Yesterday afternoon I got a new rear pinion oil seal in place. This morning I noticed no leaks on the driveway. Hopefully that trend will continue once the driveshaft is in place and the truck moves under it's own power again.

The kids and I are off this morning to dump the oil that I drained from the transmission and rear differential. Since the drain pan got rained on, the oil has to go across town to the hazardous waste drop off site.

Since this place is across town and only open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I am gathering every unused chemical I can find in the house. So far we are still short of the 30 gallon limit individuals can drop off.

If the steel scraps from the stepside bed will fit in the trunk, we will stop on the way and drop them off at a recycling center

Not much truck time

Between dealing with insurance adjusters and contractors to get our new roof installed and dealing with insurance to get the wife's car totaled out, I have not touched the truck this week.

I am hoping to clean up a little bit more of the rear frame on Saturday. And today I have called around to find a deal on having the u joints replaced in the driveshaft. Best I have found is $185 for all new joints, the carrier bearing replaced and the whole thing balanced. A lot more than I expected.

So I may go back to the original plan and try to remove them myself.

Or so I thought

Not Done.

This morning, while waiting for the insurance guy to give The Boss Lady's car the once over, I noticed the rear differential oil seal is leaking again. I removed everything and noticed that I dented it when I was installing it yesterday. Now it is not sealing the oil.

One of these days I'll install another oil seal. Hopefully for the last time in a long time.

Done!

The new rear oil seal is installed, after a neighbor took pity on me and brought out his impact wrench. I tried for half an hour to get the pinion nut off by hand, so that I could get to the oil seal.

5 minutes with the impact wrench, and I was ready to install the new seal that I bought at AutoZone a while back. Too bad it was the wrong part. Since I had to run over anyways, I picked up the rear differential gasket, so that I could close everything up on the rear end.

I may tackle the tranny oil seal this afternoon. Then I have to remove and reinstall the u-joints in the driveshaft and install a new carrier bearing. After getting the driveshaft back in place, I'll need to refill the transmission fluid and reattach the speedometer cable.

If I can get these leaks stopped, then I'll only have the oil pan dripping on the driveway.

Disassembly day

I don't really know why, but I decided to start removing parts from the truck this afternoon.

The driveshaft needed to come out so that I could replace oil seals in the rear differential and the transmission. So I drained the tranny and the rear end. By the way, gear oil stinks to high hell and 38 year old gear oil will make you lose your lunch.

The driveshaft came out easily. The retainers for the u-joints came out with a little effort, but the u-joints won't budge. Time to make friends with someone who owns a hydraulic press.

Before I replace the driveshaft, I want to replace the oil seals and all of the u-joints and the carrier bearing that supports the joint between the two sections. But I can't remove the old carrier bearing from the driveshaft until I get the u-joints out.

I also decided to try to remove the rear shocks, since everything is easily accessible with the bed off. With a lot of force, some kicking of the socket handle for added leverage and a little bit cussing, the bolts finally broke free and I got the old shocks removed.

Turns out the shocks are one of the few non original mechanical pieces I have found on the truck. I guess grandpa had a set of shocks put on at Sears at some point many years ago. They are so rusty that I just assumed they were original to the truck.

After several hours in the driveway, I had an impressive pile of parts removed from the truck. Now I just have to get it all back together before I forget where this stuff goes.

Not bad for a couple of hours

The wood slats from the bed are in the neighbor's trash, thanks to a bitter divorce that has left the house uninhabited and the trash can unguarded. The strips that held down the wood floor, the end that held the tailgate, the bedsides and lots of little scraps are destined for the metal recycler and the tailgate, steps, the behemoth of a bumper, the front bed panel and the support bars underneath the bed are all stored nicely in the shed.

I think the bedsides are really trashed, so I am just going to cut the fenders off of them. Once I get that done, the stepside bed will be gone like a six pack on prom night.

Actually, all of the sheet metal would probably head to the recycler, but I just can't toss it yet. When I rebuild the step bed, maybe I'll be able to reuse something. The pack rat in me is strong.