84 c10 stepside

[jpnh]

oh ya, while the cab corner was off i decided to undercoat the inside of things i could see when the cab corner was off so the inside had some rust protection. needless to say with some quick thinkin i was able to put the fire inside out with the air hose when i welded the the corner on scared the s*** outa me started cookin coulda been bad.

[jpnh]

Next,i found a deal on craigslist 84 c10 parts $150 bucks. went n checked them out didnt even argue on the price. the guy was so cool gave me a good stock hood, good passenger side door. complete-glass inside door panel w all pieces/ mirror. a good passenger side fender w/o the antenna hole. and a brand new passenger side inner fender well. had thoughts of shaving the antenna. i usually do on my projects makes it so i dont have too, but thats not gonna hold me back from anything. future project to swap m out all i was lookin for was the hood to make a cowl hood out of it, but for $150 ill take it. i noticed he had the cab n chassis still. he had parted out a truck where the frame was bad cab was real rusty too. someone already bought the drivers side stuff.he was lookin to move it before the snow. gave me the rest of the truck for another $100, that was awesome because i was able to replace the hacked suspension on my truck plus i used the rearend. gotta thank Paul Kimball out of Deerfield NH for hooking me up for sure.was gonna use a newer z71 rear with disc brakes 373 gears but it turned out to be 6 lugs on the wheel so i used the money from selln the bed/junkin the rest of the parts truck to set up the 84 rearend with new everything seals brakes ect. worked out good.so while the rearend was being re built and set up for the spring under the axle conversion i started on the hood. took the paint off the sides to past where the scoop sits/ground the e.d.p. off the metal hood scoop on the edges so i had clean metal 2 metal for proper penetration. bought the scoop from airbagit.com they said to weld it every inch to make sure it werent goin anywhere before skimmin it in. after i measured 2x/squared it up i welded it every inch skippn around as to not warp anything decided to weld it every 1/2 inch then ended up goin about every 1/4 inch its on there.after i cleaned it up {ground down the obvious high spots and then used a wire brush wheel to clean it up real good.} i skimmed it with 3 coats of evercoat rage body filler, getting sucessively wider with each coat. sanding with 80 grit in between coats then i coated it with 3 coats of ever coat polyester glazing compound the same way before it filled in enough so it didnt show thru the epoxy primer.

[jpnh]

Had to put the hood back on for fitment. i found that you gotta make sure the gap at the back of the hood remains consistent, even the overlap of the scoop on the back towards the windshield can make it rub on the wiper panel if your not careful. i was able to keep the hood up and sand down the filler on the back of the hood till it didnt hit the panel when you open/close the hood. then i started masking and sanding the cab with 180 grit then with 320 grit paper. had to skim a couple places but nothing major for body work on the cab mostly the cab corners and rockers had to be skimmed/leveled out. lots of sanding i had to sand off mostly all the most recent paint to get to the original finish and blend the places that the last guy just sprayed over checked every panel with the light {crucial}. hit a few dings here and there.

[jpnh]

Then i blew the place out with the air, i ended up wet sanding using a spray bottle and a sanding block/320 grit. gotta try n use a sanding block on the bigger areas but some things you have to sand with just the paper then i cleaned the cab real good with clean rags/glass cleaner a few times changing the rags to new ones every time.then i sprayed the cab with epoxy primer.it took skimmn it again with the polyester glazing compound sanding it with 180grit and successive coats of primer with wet sanding 320 grit in between to make the coats from the scoop finally dissapear gotta feather the edges and keep m thin.-jeff