No massive backstory here. I've wanted a 69-72 short-wide for 20 years (never been a big fan of the 67-68, sorry!) and finally got fed up last week to a point that I simply went out and bought one off of Facebook.
I arrive at a town about 2 hours from home to find the truck I picked out to go look at was a Longhorn. After looking at it for a while it seems almost sacrilege to cut it down.
So here we are, building a c20 longhorn.
This started out as a project that was supposed to take a few weeks, shoe horn in a 6.0/4l80 with a few grand and lets get this show in the road. I removed the seat and carpet to access the floor to install new sound deadening and insulation to make it a nice ride. That in turn ended up in gutting the cab to freshen up the paint inside.
Then I wanted to freshen up the engine compartment. Yanno, nice clean lines, fresh paint on the firewall, fenders, inner fenders, frame, ect. Gotta make sure it doesn't look dipped so everything had to come off.
This is where I've officially lost control.
Gotta replace the cab bushings, amirite? Might as well lift off the cab so I can steam clean the frame.
Which led to removing the bed.
Good news is the frame is clean, top and bottom!
Bad news is I'm eyeballs deep in a frame off restoration that was supposed to be a couple week hack job.
Regardless, I've got a slew of parts ordered. 2.5" drop spindles, front disks, 4" drop rear springs, rear mount fuel tank with pump, fuel lines, engine and chassis harnesses, interior parts galore, etc.
6.0 is on the engine stand getting cleaned up to install, 4L80 is on the ground beside it ready to bolt up. Dirty dingo mounts arrive tomorrow to install into the chassis. Getting ready to POR 15 the frame with semi gloss topcoat for UV protection.
Still have a fairly short window to do all of this work as this one pickup is now occupying 2 bays in my already cramped shop. I simply cannot afford to have it strewn all about for months on end.