Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

They are so stout I was very careful not to drop them on myself when bolting them up, lol. Allows you to go stock spring location or in my case run 52” rear springs

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

So the garage has had a family vehicle in it that does not park outside. So the chassis hasn’t been in there. Well I strung out the air hoses to the yard and decided I could do just a little bit. Need to notch the crossmember for the sway bar and crossover clearance like when it was all on my other truck. I’m hoping I have time before work tomorrow night to make the shackles and the it’ll all be bolted up. I plan on using 1/4” square steel tubing and notching for where it wraps around the frame and clearancing for the flat of the spring. Figured this way they will be strong and have lateral bracing more than any store bought units. Ofcourse I’ll post up a picture when I’m done.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Got the shackles made up today and bolted up, didn’t want too much height being the frame is flat right there they didn’t need to be real long. Every cut and notch is for a reason, complete stroke in both directions just touching frame and body mounts. Seriously doubt I will ever use this much articulation but you never know. Note I also had to notch the frame as the 157” frame is wider. Notice the lower half of the shackle has a complete box around it which should help any twisting and sway with the longer springs. Also if I ever broke a shackle bolts or say lost a nut, The shackle would not come completely loose until the bolt walked all the way out

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Decided since the shackles are only 1/4” on the inside I will weld another layer to the shackle to stiffen it up. But today being as I’m sunburnt I’m not doing much. Just made a simple jig to relocate the rear cab mounts. The frame will be slightly sloped up so this will allow me to keep every thing in line/level. Now just to remove rivets and do some drilling. I figure this way it should help with sitting the cab back in place when I redo it

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Well I decided that wasn’t enough, the jig worked like a charm combined with the tape measure. Exactly 33” rearward and at the same height relative to the frame as factory. Weird how many numbers I keep finding on this frame, I swear I’ve never seen any of these on the smaller frames.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Wee itty bitty updates, so I removed one bedside from the longbed and going to break it the rest of the way down tomorrow. Did realize it’s easier to treat the floor carriage bolts like frame rivets and just drill the heads off instead of risking stripping the square holes in the panels since I’ll be going with new hardware anyways. Plan is to do some half assed bodywork to make the panels look decent for my Cummins daily driver/work truck. Since my daily puts in hard work and gets scratches I’m not concerned with perfection, just want it painted uniform and prefer the steel floor. Going to take my longbed wood floor bed off my daily and shorten it for the crew cab. Doing this to make the bed easier to move so I can hopefully get the chassis under the body this week. Side not the steel floor bed I got from “Uncle” has a solid floor and wasn’t expecting it to be so nice

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Being a one man show, I’m exhausted so yesterday I got the bed tore apart completely and the only rust I found was one small spot on the driver wheel tub and the rear crossmember/support that is damaged and have to repair anyways.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

And for today’s whoopin........

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Old girl gonna be a big girl. And yes I need a lot more room

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Feels weird to visually be going backwards yet still saying I’m making progress

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

So I already was thinking I’d trim the burb floor flush with the factory left to right support and stitch weld it to keep it from moving at all. Then tie the front to back truck floor supports to the burb support, lastly I was going to trim the truck floor flush with the burb support, then use vertical sheet metal to fill in the gaps. Sitting on the couch it dawned on me I shouldn’t have started trimming the burb floor yet, so I went in the garage and proceeding to do the following. Use a piece of straight square steel and fold the sheet metal over. Now I’ll just buy the truck floor to it and trim the height. Then weld. So stronger floor support than a stock rear burb floor and the seam will be under the seat. Also the outer three inches or so I’m overlapping the truck floor over the outter edge of the burb support to make sure I’m perfectly level and centered. Tomorrow I’ll hopefully get all the trimming done and come forward a few more inches and be done with the back for a while

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Got it pretty close today, have to work the next five days so I said to hell with it. You can see what I was talking about with notching the truck support to make it interlock and then I’ll weld it.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

So I’ve been jumping around and today started with the door. Since I have a spare 3rd I decided to swap the center section. The panel is too tight to weld so I tacked it together for tonight, tomorrow I’ll run my cutoff wheel between the panels so I can do a proper weld between the metal. It was pretty easy as I used the door panel holes to help me with alignment and left the window stop:brace in its factory spot since it’s close to center and nothing will interfere. Now my thoughts are suicide 4th door with no exterior handle like I was debating on before. So now the previously front will be the rear and I’ll utilize the factory reinforcements to tie into the new hinges. I was thinking use the factory burb passenger C-pillar flipped around for the driver side B-pillar and then the factory door will already have the latch setup for it. But I’m kinda liking the idea to see if I can put the actual latch in the B-Pillar and striker on the door. Doing that I can put the 4th door handle in the driver front door open in like an early 2000s extended cab Chevy and no one can accidently open it going down the road. Ofcourse no exterior handle to give the 3 door appearance

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

So I picked the weld location as it was the easiest to line the panel up and it would be where you’d never see it. Let’s just say grinding welds in a recessed area isn’t so much fun especially in the corners. But I’m just gonna make it not have any high spots and mostly smooth and it’ll be alright.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Just read through your build thread, Glad to see you didnt have to sell it and are making good progress on the build. Major props to you, thats alot of work! Its looking good!

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Ok so I know I’ve been spotty but with the Cummins eating an injection pump, the 9-7x destroying a 4L70 let’s just say it was rough lately. So anywho today I got off my ass and did some final measuring and welding. Nothing fancy or exciting but it’s progress. The drivers side door jamb is barely welded since I’ll be cutting it back out to build the door jamb. Welded up my recess cuts in the roof also, I think next week I’ll try to cut the front off and swap in the truck section to fix a lot of the rust in one hit. Oh and to get my ac firewall in place also.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

That it is. But I work 4 on 4 off so it’s mostly time. Some building, some selling spare parts, and mostly thinking.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

To add to what I did in the previous post. The floor is about 80 percent done and welded it together right on top of the floor support. The upper door jamb openings are plated up top so no worries about strength. Pretty happy with the gaps too

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

This week was a bust, been doing running around and got a few parts acquired. Also the Cummins eat another pump so I have to figure out why all of a sudden it’s having such a bad time. Either way I acquired an 87 harness and will be building off of that instead of buying an aftermarket that still isn’t tailored to what I want. Thank you to board member “Wgesnerjr” for hooking me up yesterday, I know have all 4 square body power window regulators to modify for my crew, door lock actuators, and front door harnesses. So the plan is to wire the truck as if it’s an 87-91, including the A/C since I’m going to update it all to the 87-91 configuration also getting rid of the POA setup. So I’m going to use the squares headlight switch as I verified it fits the dash already and will either rep in or splice and heat shrink all connections to match the 72 cab. And you guys get one picture since wiring is mostly time consuming than anything else.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Looks like a chore! Keep up the progress.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Indeed but I’ll be able to reference a stock 87 wiring diagram for everything. So long term and money wise I’d say well worth it

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Clever idea using the later wiring harness!

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Rainy day here in Athens so I’m back at it in the floor. Mine may not be as glamorous as Ironcanine’s, but hey it’s still less stressful than dealing with game day traffic. My helper isn’t happy with the weather either

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Accidental discovery but a very good one. Since I’m using a square body harness the column plug is actually correct for my tilt column I have. So I don’t have to use the adapter or repin the dash harness connector. Lucky me I caught on before taking that section apart.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Stopped off at uncles place on the way home last night. Picked up a door that’ll give me everything to finish the 4th door. Go figure the outter skin is in pretty good shape so I’m trying to save it to take care of my front door. More to come, hopefully.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Well let’s just say a tire iron is a very helpful tool to removing a skin without damage.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Nice dissection. Boy Uncle sure has some nice stuff...congrats on the score. Looking forward to seeing this thing realized. It's going to be awesome.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Well the bottom of the door shell is junk but this time I just got lucky. With everything else going on I’m surprised I’m getting anything done to it. Maybe one day it’ll be making heads turn in town

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Been doing wiring at night and being lazy about it so no visual updates but I do have my front light harness finalized with the square body harness so I will have side markers that actually blink and the light portion is a completely seperate plug from anything else but the horn. Went to the junkyard today and got a few pieces. Got back late and didn’t think to take any pictures till I put one seat up. But I got 99-06 full-size Chevy seats for the front(using original bench in the rear). Thanks to an Astro van a wiper motor that you can see shouldn’t be too hard to mount and will give me my pulse wipers. The center flip down console I have to go back and pick up as I didn’t plan ahead with having enough room today.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Well I’ll be working the next 8 nights so again no real progress. But I did go pick up my console and while I was there I got Honda door seals for all 4 doors and lucky me 90 s10 blazer rear harness including the overhead console wiring and all rear door harnesses so when I put in the roof console I’ll be all stock wiring once again.
Oh and only $25 for the seals and wiring

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Nice score.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Exactly my thoughts. I may go back for one more as I think the fronts may come up short when I’m done since the burb door corner is straight and slightly longer. So I’m gonna cut 2 45 degree corners and super glue then together like I used to when making O-rings. I’m happiest about the wiring though, now everything will be 90 something gm wiring so I can use a factory wiring diagram.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

So sitting at work for the 12th day in a row I’m looking online at colors. Just something about all white that you never see. But here are all the options I’ve been weighing. Doing upper and lower trim no matter what. Perhaps all white with red instead of black in the center of the upper mouldings.......
If I go 2 tone with white in the middle, the front fender between the grill and wheel opening will not have color on the bottom but instead white with no moulding, making it kind of blend right into the chrome bumper.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

OK so the only update we have would be spare parts getting converted. I do believe I’m either making wall art to go in a corner, or a headboard for the spare bedroom

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

So in my quest to get the front cab section swapped out I moved to other items first to make things easier. Next will be repairing/building the B-pillars. But today was getting it back to a roller with the rear suspension. I’m calling it the “Po’ Boy shackle flip” which to me looks like it could have come stock except for the beefy DIY4X shackles. When I put the 4wd front hangers on I was planning on using the old hangers for the rear shackle flip and well hear ya go. It was nice though since 1 hole lined up with the overlaid bracket holes so making things even was a breeze. Shackle angle when I get the bed on and interior in should be perfect.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

So today’s updates are as follows:

Just showing how it sits with the rear suspension in its final position.
A simple tool that works wonders, a lot smaller lip than factory but this truck is far from stock and only I’ll ever know. Punched my holes for welding later this week.
And mocked up the lower B-pillar for the suicide third door with a clamp up top and bolted in the stock floor brace hole. Took it off and wire wheeled and sanded everything that’ll be covered after welding. As it sits right now rust converter is doing its job and it’ll get some paint tomorrow night.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Awesome build. absolutely love all the pictures. I am for sure following this one:metal::metal::metal:

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Well I feel pictures tell a better story, than and it’s my way of keeping records of what I’ve done and how also. Never know when someone might have a Lincoln to trade.

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Looking good!!

Re: Another Crew Cab, {72 Denali style}
 

Well here is an update but no progress, which will probably be a while before any real progress now. They found a way to screw me at my job and finished firing me from 9 months ago. Taking the opportunity to move back to my home town and have work lined up but not spending much time and money till I get back settled. So a picture of Sanford’s son, lol