Chapter 7 Mistake No. 3
Here the truck is being moved to the new paint shop after a couple weeks of talking about what had been going on over the past 1 1/2 years with the paint. The buddy of mine says he will take care of it and wants me to bring it to him Canby, OR. While on my way out there with the bed sides one of the tie down straps flys out of the trailer and gets jerked under the trailer tire buckling the bed side. OMG! doesn't it figure!
So I show up to the new body shop with the bed sides, New triplus steel cowl hood (still in the box) and the GMC stamped tail gate.
I try not to bug people ( I hate that) so I let it ride there for about a month, After a call he said he had been slammed and that he would be getting to the parts as soon as he gets this other car out. I was OK with that so I let it ride another month then two.
Whats the deal with Painters???
After I talked to him 3-4 months after I brought my stuff to him. He assured me that he understood but he would make it up later when he got a chance to get to the parts I would be happy I waited.
Couple more months go by. I cant get ahold of him. I figure he is avoiding me. After another month I try to find the shop again that I only went to once. I couldn't find it. So I waited again for awhile hoping to hear from him or get ahold of him. I finally found his card in a box of stuff I was looking through. I tried to call, Disconnected!
I set out over the weekend to find this shop once and for all. I did finally find it. I went up to the door and talked to the guy inside. He tells me that the He and the guy I knew had parted ways and he had moved to Texas. WHAT? I asked him if he had any parts like mine still laying around. He said yeah, there was some parts he left behind along with a bunch of other unfinished work. They were out back. I went out back and found my parts untouched leaning against the back of the shop.
I went and got a trailer and came back to pick them up.
Finally, I had saved alittle money while thinking my truck was getting painted so I dropped them off at Sweere's auto body in Banks,OR 5 min from my house and let then fix the bed sides and jamb the hood and cowl.
Work was awesome! done in 2 weeks, 1600 bucks.
After waiting 8 months for the longhorn bed wood through Dan's classics in Portland to arrive and getting the bed supports powder coated bright silver along with the new bed strips and stainless bolt kit. I had all the parts to assemble the bed. We are into Early 2005 by this time. My Girlfriend and I had just bought a house in Aug 2004. So the truck will have to wait until we get this POS house fixed up a bit. After loosing the house and out of a good paying job for a couple years all we could afford was a crappy house (that had a nice shop) so we spent the next year or two fixing it up while the longhorn sat in the shop.
Here is when we were moving the truck to my own shop, (no bed because of what's going on above)
Here is the Bed wood while staining it in the Shop. The bed is most of the way together by this time, And its time to add the wood to the floor.
Here is the bed on the frame after it's assembled.
