so back on bickle. trying to put a front end on you have never had on (this was a two ton can remember, and I replaced the drivers cowl) is a fiddly chore. getting it pulled back enough is hard, getting the holes lined up is even harder. this is also why I advocate leaving the front end together, a lot of aligning and holding your tongue right is needed if you blow it to pieces.
I needed a good pair of hands to hold things in place. luckily my wife was home so I used some ratchet straps to help and did it myself.
looking better, but not right yet.
when you are lining things up, I am a big fan of using existsing monuments. for example if you want to know if the bookcase you just assembled is straight and level, you could step back and compare it to a door frame. the human eye can "see" a mismatch of 1/16", so I like to find things to look at for alignmenet. for example you could squat down and line the top of the core support up with the line on the top of the firewall to check side to side level. in this case I wanted to see how "square" the front end was on the frame, so I looked down and lined up the bar I tacked in, to support the bottom of the core, with the sway bar, which is absolutely perpendicular to the frame.
you can see it, so did I, the front end wasnt even. I dont have bolts in the cab mounts yet, too early, and I always leave a 1/4" leeway for adjustment in the holes of the mounts so a quick shove sorted it.
after that, I added some bolts. another tip, getting the holes lined up is frustrating, doubly so if that front clip had never been on this cab, but my advice is do the top one first, its the hardest to reach, then focus on getting the fenders level and the other holes will magically line up.
more tomorrow, I am on a tear since its raining again. next saturday (not this saturday) a friend is bringing his ext cab frame by to shorten, me and my big mouth told him how easy it was. ( I am not complaining, hes a good guy)