Quote:
Originally Posted by LT7A
Wow man, you're doing such a tight, clean job that you're almost a victim of your own success and abilities. I know that doesn't help much. Here's my train of thought for what it's worth. Being that 85% of the truck is aligned, I don't think I would want to put that rig on to a frame table and try to tweak that section back into alignment. If you are going to consider re fixing the fender to get your gaps where you want them, I would first fix the frame permanently. It sounds as if you might be able to cut the bent area off and either re-welded it in the correct location, or more likely, and probably better, to get the horn off of an un-bent frame, preferably longer than you actually need, for comparison's sake. Maybe all the way to the firewall? If you don't fix it now, when you do, it may once again disrupt the fine detail work you've done. Once the frame is fixed, you may feel better about whatever you have to do to the fender because you know it is permanent and the last time.
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Thanks for your thoughts. I am my own worst enemy, my OCD is taking over hard. But doing a precise build like this is something i have wanted to do for 15 years now but never had the time, place or money. Now I at least have the money, a 1 car garage and at least limited amount of time.
The biggest issue is that I live in Austria, so there are no junk yards around with chevy anything to rip parts off of and to find a frame shop anywhere near me is basically impossible. People here are not so much into fixing their cars, opposed to trading it in for something newer.
I think i am going to leave the frame for the time being and next time i get back to the US, I will cut a frame horn off a junk yard c10 and bring it back over. I just dont want to cut up my frame before I have something to compare it to. In the end that part of the frame will not effect or should not effect the driving. And I have a spare frame to bumper bracket that I can modify so the bumper is mounted properly. I feel like its a bit of a hack job, but I am confident in my OCD and my abilities that it will look like it should have come that way, or at least not be noticeable to the naked eye.
I guess my next step is to tighten up the fender gap, hit it with some fiberglass, body filler and primer and then I will be able to sand the driver side down to 220 and hit it with the final coat of high build.
Then move onto gapping the hood cowl to the fenders, body work it and then the hood. If I can get all of that done this winter I will be happy. Then the only thing left will be the bed sides and tailgate which are all in pretty good shape.
We are building a house next spring and I will have a 40x50' garage, so I will do the final sanding and painting in there. Because right now my garage is way to small to do a basecoat/clear coat job.
Anyway, ill post some more updates.
Thanks