1987

[cvbear]

Wecome to the forum.  This is a great group of people, you can get lots of help here.  I love the wheels on your truck!

[VileZambonie]

Cool. The Mexican beds are neat

[lownuff]

Wecome to the forum.  This is a great group of people, you can get lots of help here.  I love the wheels on your truck!

Thanks, they definitely need a good cleaning.

Cool. The Mexican beds are neat

I'm still undecided on the bed honestly.

[lownuff]

Well, the more I looked at the bed, the less I liked it. So I picked up a beat up stepside.

Slapped it on and I love it already.

Need to remove those homemade drop shackles, they're hitting one of the bed supports. Going to swap back to stock ones and do a flip kit.

[lownuff]

It's about to get real junky before it gets pretty.

Pulled the front clip off last night.

[JohnnyPopper]

Looks like fun!!

What was the original color?

'78 had a couple of colors that went by 'Camel', there were dark and light versions, ones with metal flake were termed 'Poly" 

[lownuff]

Looks like fun!!

What was the original color?

'78 had a couple of colors that went by 'Camel', there were dark and light versions, ones with metal flake were termed 'Poly"

It sure is. Original color was two tone russet metallic and tan. You can see it on the back of the cab also. Someone must've really hated the color, because they swapped all the interior over to blue/gray.

[lownuff]

Front clip is completely off and sold. Going to need a deep cleaning this weekend.

[lownuff]

Well guys, this thread is about to take a pretty radical turn. What started as just a simple cleaning up and lowering has snowballed.

I was looking for a hood for my front clip swap and I ended up with a whole truck. Frame has been notched and is set up for a stock floor body drop...so I guess I'm putting together a bagged truck. Tune in for updates.



Now my backyard is a mess.




Tomorrow, I'm going to pick up the rest of the truck tomorrow. (Bed, bumpers etc)

[lownuff]

Well picked up the extra bed, its not in good of shape as I hoped. I'll put it up for sale or maybe turn it into a bench.

Here's the frame I'm swapping everything to. Pancaked front crossmember, z'd and a big notch out back. Last bodydropped truck I had was a '97 Tacoma and it was traditional which meant zero room. This will be fun.



Cleaned up the backyard and moved the truck around, figured I'd stage it a little so I can start doing the swap.




Then I pulled the engine/trans out.






Next I want to pre-run all the brake lines and fuel lines in the frame before I set the engine in there.

[lownuff]

Didn't get much done this weekend.

Got the cab off and the frame painted, also snaked in the rear brake line.  Also mocked up the rear axle, going to have to build the wishbone part of the 3 link.

[lownuff]

Got hit with a nasty cold so I've been down for a couple days. Ruined my weekend, but did manage to knock out another bench.

[lownuff]

Well no updates, I'm trying to keep myself from getting burnt out and have reached a point where I'm trying to nut/bolt resto this and I can't do that to this truck. Did that on my last project and it took 3 years!

Did manage to take a couple hours on the bench though.

[lownuff]

No real updates, been using my weekends to run around collecting parts.

Bought this suburban


And here's what I bought the suburban for.


Pulled the engine/trans out. This was a huge pain.


Then I sold off what was left of the suburban.



I also built a ford bench somewhere in between there.




So now I've got the basic parts to start putting it together, need to do a lot of mock ups, but time to start moving forward now.