1987 R10 Build

[big bear]

a belated welcome to the site from northeast ohio. love the truck man. great project. keep up the good work.  hope the wife is recovering.

[Captkaos]

Any chance of you ever selling a pre-made conversion kit? One that converts the burb seats to fit the trucks, that is.

Skunksmash, you talking about a bucket seat conversion?

[foamypirate]

Long time, no post. The wife and I have been really busy paying down some debts (she wants kids, and my "condition" was no debt besides the house, since she will be staying home with them...but I digress). I finally scraped up the dough and bought a cherry picker, engine stand, and a Hobart Handler 210MVP welder. Within the last 2 weeks, I've gotten the engine out, cab off, and pulled all the lines and brackets off the frame. I either be rebuilding the suspension next, or stripping and coating the frame. How hard is it to rebuild the suspension off of the frame? Seems like it would be easier still attached, since I can use a jack to lower the control arms and get the springs out, etc.

[bake74]

     I guess it depends on how far you are planning on taking the rebuild, weather it is easier to totally strip the frame or leave suspension on.  Either way it is doable, both ways will yield better results than you have now with a rebuilt suspension.

[foamypirate]

I'm going full out on the rebuild (truck and suspension, hehe). All pieces will be powder coated, so I'm tearing it down as far as possible.

In other news, I got bored tonight and decided I didn't like the gaps on my 6x9 speaker brackets, so I busted out mah' welder and fixed em' up. This was my first try on sheet metal, kind of a primer to bodywork, if you will.

[foamypirate]

Boom!  My front suspension exploded into a million pieces. Got it all torn down to the individual components for the most part. I still need to remove bushings and the like. After that, I need to order my drop spindles, and then it's off to the powder coaters with a bunch of stuff.

[bake74]

     No pics of the exploded parts ?

[foamypirate]

Holy crap, can't believe I forgot those, haha. I'll go get some really quick!

[foamypirate]

This is the pile of stuff waiting to go to the powder coaters. I've got a bunch more in the shed out back that are going as well, I just need to dig them out. Almost every bracket or small metal item will be getting coated. I'm a big fan of subtlety, so I'll be going with a color and gloss that is very close to the OEM frame coating for most of the parts. I know, "How boring!". I'm going for a factory look with just a little bit of pizzazz.

[bake74]

      I actually thought about trying out one of those home powder coating systems.  My problem is I like to do something right the first time and not have to worry about it for 20 years, I am beginning to rethink my 74 build.
      I might switch gears and get it all together first and mechanically perfect, then tear it apart again and coat everything.  I am still on the fence but I am leaning that way.  At least after coating everything you should not have to worry about it.
     Keep up the good work and pics, very interesting to see where this takes you.

[foamypirate]

While I am waiting for some money to come my way to do the powder coating, I decided to tackle the cab seam, which I am shaving.

I got the cab seam cleaned out of all the gunk, but then discovered that I suck at sheet metal welding. I was a little too hot on one part of the cab and those parts warped a little bit, but nothing I can't fix later on when I do body work with a stud gun and a hammer. The second half of the cab I did went much better, had the heat turned down and figured out what I was doing for the most part. Pictures below!


Here is the warping I was talking about. I was kind of pissed that I messed it up, but it can be fixed, no point being mad about it.




Here is the second half of the cab. The welds are much neater, and there was ZERO warping, since I was cooling the welds immediately after I completed them with compressed air.










Here is a comparison of the first attempted welds on the left (which I've started to grind down a little in this photo) and my second try, on the right. As you can see, my second attempt was WAY better and more consistant.



Here is a shot of the nearly complete cab seam, showing my 2nd attempt again.



My 2nd attempt after wire wheeling. Looking good! A few blips and whatnot here and there that aren't perfect, but pretty decent overall.



Here is the cab band and corner moldings I scored from the JY.

[bake74]

     Way better on the second try, practice makes perfect.  So by the time you are done you should be able to do it again with no problems.