American in Austria 83 Build

[44boggers]

Knocked out a little body work the last two days. Stripped down the bumper cowl or whatever it is called, the top filler panel above the bumper. My OCD kicked in hard with this one considering you only see about 10 percent of this panel once the bumper is on. But hey you never know how close you might look and cant risk seeing a wave.

So I stripped down both sides to bare metal, hit it with 2 coats of epoxy, then 3 coats of slick sand, sounded down with 80 then 180, 2 more coats of epoxy to seal it up, then 3 coats of high build primer. The panel was pretty much flawless to begin with so I will leave it in high build until its time to paint. But one more part done!

[LT7A]

That's good work man. That's going to be a very sharp ride when it's done. Nobody expects to see gaps that consistent on a truck.

[44boggers]

Thanks, just letting my OCD flow.

[JoeinT.O.]

Hello 44boggers,
I still am very impressed with your build. Mine hasn't progressed very much this year. Keep posting and thank-you for taking the time to do that!

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by JoeinT.O.

Hello 44boggers,
I still am very impressed with your build. Mine hasn't progressed very much this year. Keep posting and thank-you for taking the time to do that!

Thanks bud, its not easy to find the time to work on our rigs. Just chip away at it a little at a time.

[44boggers]

Little more progress in the last week. Stripped down both sides of the cowl to bare metal, 3 coats of epoxy and then today I laid down 4 coats of slick sand. Other than where I welded on the cowl it should be very straight, so Ill sand it down to 180 and if everything looks good, then it will go to high build.
I also successfully broke all of the mounting pins on the cowl, so now i really need to find a new set!. I tried being careful taking the last few out but the plastic was to brittle.

[44boggers]

Its been slow going but picked away at a couple pieces. I got the hood cowl in final primer and figured out a solution for the cowl locating pin things. All of mine broke off on the inside where it holds itself to the cowl (expanding side).

So I got some self tapping 4mm screws, cut them to the right length and then screwed them in (pictures attached).You will need to trim the "arrow" looking insert on the top to fit, since the self tapper is now coming from the bottom up, but It worked like a charm and you can leave them a touch loose so you can adjust them while the cowl is on the truck. But it was hopeless finding replacements, so this is a great solution for anyone in this situation.

I have had the bed's "headboard' not sure what it is actually called, in bare metal for a year now with all the metal work done. So finally I have time to get it into epoxy and throw down some body filler on some of the imperfections. I will put a bed liner on the inside anyway, but you can still see even small dents through the bed liner so I wanted that as flat as possible.

The next step will be to put the hood back on and start getting the gaps correct and then get to body work. I will get the bed sides and tail gate sand blasted and get all of that into epoxy so I can put the bed back together and get going on the body work.

We are about to start building a house next this month, so time wont be on my side, but I am also building a 50x30 underground garage for my house with 14' ceilings, so this will help when it comes to final body work and paint.

[44boggers]

Headboard pics

[LT7A]

Honestly, I think this will be the straightest truck I'm aware of. It's been a long time since I read the beginning of the thread. Did you say what color or colors you are going to paint it? I noticed that someone else in your household also has a pickup that is two tone. Maybe you want to consider matching it?

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Honestly, I think this will be the straightest truck I'm aware of. It's been a long time since I read the beginning of the thread. Did you say what color or colors you are going to paint it? I noticed that someone else in your household also has a pickup that is two tone. Maybe you want to consider matching it?

Thanks, that is what I am going for. Been a life long dream to build a truck like this. I only have a few months per year to work on it, that is why I am going on 6 or 7 years right now. But I am hoping it is done by next summer and on the road.

No one else in my house has a truck, just me. Unless my 4 year old and my wife are holding out on me

My daughter is already excited for our new house and garage to be built so she can help me. Right now I am in a small one car garage, so it makes everything much more difficult to get done.

the truck will be gloss black, inside and out. In Austria they have strict rules on everything. So the truck needs to be an original color.

[LT7A]

Wow, they can tell you what color to paint it? That's kind of a mind-blower. The pickup I'm referring to is in the upper left hand corner of your picture that I reposted ;)

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Wow, they can tell you what color to paint it? That's kind of a mind-blower. The pickup I'm referring to is in the upper left hand corner of your picture that I reposted

You have no idea man how difficult it is over here. I need to get an engineer to ok my wheels since they are not original and Vossen doesnt make a specific 1983 c10 wheel.

Ah yes, the pink hot rods. Our driveway is littered with hot pink hot rods

[LT7A]

Originally Posted by 44boggers

You have no idea man how difficult it is over here. I need to get an engineer to ok my wheels since they are not original and Vossen doesnt make a specific 1983 c10 wheel.

Ah yes, the pink hot rods. Our driveway is littered with hot pink hot rods

I thought the pink bucket was attached to the tricycle, hence a pickup. The colors went so well together...

I'm not sure their stack of rules is any crazier than the fact that we can do almost anything to our vehicles over here. The fact that they can dictate color though... I would bet good money that when they made that law, somebody said, if we don't, our roads could end up with all sorts of crazy looking stuff like in America, haha.

[44boggers]

Actually yeah it is a pick up then. I forgot that mode has a bed on it.

I would bet my life they said that, can’t be like those friggin Americans. Meanwhile every kraut wears a Yankees hat.

There is for sure a fine line with being crazy strict or like in the us, basically anything flys.
I remember back in the day flying through town with my 87 k20 with an 8" suspension lift and 2inch body lift on 44" boggers, no inspection and just waving to cops and they waived back. Oh yeah with 5 buddies in the back.

Originally Posted by LT7A

I thought the pink bucket was attached to the tricycle, hence a pickup. The colors went so well together...

I'm not sure their stack of rules is any crazier than the fact that we can do almost anything to our vehicles over here. The fact that they can dictate color though... I would bet good money that when they made that law, somebody said, if we don't, our roads could end up with all sorts of crazy looking stuff like in America, haha.

Posted via Mobile Device

[LT7A]

Hahaha, so true. I don't spend much time reading the comments on YouTube videos anymore, but I used to get a kick out of the clowns from various countries that took the time to comment, solely to try to bash the US. And you just know that they're wearing Nikes, listening to hip hop, and drinking a Coca-Cola. One cat in Australia was bashing us for not using the metric system like they do. I basically said I didn't realize that using the metric system was such a big part of their national identity. I thought there were a lot of things in Australia that were way cooler than millimeters, haha.

[44boggers]

Knocked out a bit of work today on the driverside fender. I thought the fender was basically good to go for final primer, but I noticed that the driver fender was not at the same height as the passenger side fender. The front needed to come up a bit. So once I got the fender equal height, all my gapping work went to waste. Moving the front of the fender up gave me a big gap from just above the body line all the way down to the fender. From the body line down I needed to add 1/8". So I pulled the fender and got to welding. I have it roughed in, meaning its all welded and welds ground down, fiberglass over the welds and tomorrow i will hit with epoxy before I do a round of body filler. After the first round of body filler I will put the fender back on and see where my gaps are at. From the body line down my guess is that it will be very very close. I just hit above the body line with tack welds, so I will need to file fit that part. Then I need to do more filler work to get the panel flat/even with the door again.

[44boggers]

couple more pics. Using the welding rod, it was easy to recreate the body line. Just cut the rod at an angle, then on the other side I just tack welded to the rid, almost no grinding needed.

[Lokin4AReason]

Any update s ?

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by Lokin4AReason

Any update s ?

Hey

Oh man, life has been way to busy the last two years. I built a house and had another kid. The project has been on the back burner but I am planning on getting back into it. Have a new great garage with a lift so that makes life a lot easier.
The next step is to finish off the bed sides and tailgate. After that I need to start on fitting the hood and getting that gapped correctly. But the hood and bedsides are in good shape so it won’t take much.
After that it is paint time.

Attached a few pics of all the other crap I needed to get done after I built the house, built fences so the kids don’t fall onto the ramp going down to the garage, built a back yard from nothing (the grass is the ceiling of my garage and after two years I finally build stairs going from my garage to the basement. Been using stacks of insulation since we moved in for stairs.

When I get going I will update the forum

[rick1956]

Now that is a garage...

[44boggers]

Hey guys, small update finally. I decided its time to get going on the bed. So after 7 years I have the bed finally bolted back together and body work has begun.
Got the metal work done as good as I can, threw down epoxy primer on it and shot a few coats of poly primer just to see how much filler work will be needed. For the most part its in good shape. So I will skim both bed sides next and get to sanding.

I need to adjust the rear bed rail a bit as the driverside is flared up a bit as you will see in the pictures. And with the driverside I am not really sure what I can do to get the top of the tailgate to match with the top of the bedrail. Cause right now the body lines are where they should be but the top does not lay flush. But all of the pictures i have seen online, it seems almost every tailgate sits a bit lower than the bed rail on the passenger side with the body line lining up.
Any suggestions?

[44boggers]

Alright back on track with this thread for now. Thanks to many people helping me understand a few things and bringing light to my questions.

So moving on. I have just about the entire brake assembly put together. I can't find red loctite here in Austria!???!?!! So I have to bring some back from the US when I go next week. Wilwood suggest using red loctite to secure the rotor hats to the rotor. Or maybe I just use blue loctite and also wire the bolts together.

But this weekend I hope to clean up my leaf springs and get some fresh paint on them and assemble the rear end.

I just got some timken bearing/seal set in the mail today, so those will also being going in.

I am waiting on my inch lb torque wrench to show up, so I can make sure my pinion pre load is where is should be. Right now I have it tighten down until I coudn't move the nut anymore (all done just by a ratchet). To be honest I think the preload feels good by spinning the pinion, but I figure since I am doing a complete restoration I might as well do everything the right way.

I should be picking up a few more parts from powder coating tomorrow or friday and then the frame will be all back together with crossmembers and motor mounts.

My Boyd tank should also be here friday, looking forward to mounting that bad boy up.

Ill get some pictures up tomorrow or so of the brake assembly.

Till next time

Paul

[44boggers]

Originally Posted by Chaplain

You'll need the thread numbers as well. I came up with the following:
3/8x16x1" motor mount support to frame
3/8x16x1" motor mount bracket to support
7/16x14x1" (maybe slightly longer) cross member support

Hopefully someone will know chime in to verify. I simply cleaned up and painted those bolts to be reused.

Thanks Chaplain!

I was thinking of cleaning mine up as well. But since the rest of the frame is getting all new hardware I wanted to be consistent with the rest.

I think you are right that they are slightly longer. In my head (memory) I am thinking the 1.5" to 2". But probably not any longer. Between the frame and the support it cant be much thicker than 1/2"

Thanks again!

Paul

[44boggers]

Hey guys, I am back in Euro Land meaning I can work on my project again. Got some small things done yesterday and today. I brought back about 10 lbs worth of grade 8 hardware to finish bolting the front end together as well as permanently mounting the fuel cell in the rear.

I did the final assembly on the front brake system which entailed, loc tighting the rotor/rotor hat assembly together as well as safety wiring the bolts down. Lastly I added one more .035 shim to the front caliper to get it centered on the rotor.

Put new wheel bearings and seals in the rear end, and began to put the rear brake system together. This is where I ran into a snag. The caliper mounting bracket is to thick so the caliper can't be centered on the rotor. So I need to take it apart and have about 3.53mm shaved off it, then it should be good to go. Other than that, I have the axle back under the truck, bolted in, the carrier is bolted back up and diff cover is sealed.

Next on the list is to mount the motor back on the frame so I can figure out where I need to drill the frame for the new transmission mount. Once that is done, its time to tear the motor apart and get it ready for the machine shop.

I brought back basically an entire motor worth of parts from the US. I bought a rotating assembly with a forged scat crank, mahle pistons and rods, new bearings, rings. Going to run a Lunati roller camshaft (mild cam, about 490 lift, with 1:5.5 rockers should be around 510 total lift), so very streetable. Going to zero deck the block , bringing compression to around 10.2:1. I bought a set of Trick Flow specialties aluminum heads, 7 qt moroso oil pan with all of the goodies, deep cast aluminum transmission oil pan, double roller timing chain. Only thing left for the motor is the ignition system, fuel system, harmonic balancer, scorpian roller rockers, and intake manifold.

I am staying with the 305 the truck came with. I think with this set up I can get the power numbers in the 300s or so. Nice thing is here in Austria, they offer 95 octane and 100 octane at the pumps!

Ok just a couple pics for you guys. Till next time

Paul

You can see in the first picture of the rear brake assembly, there are three allen head bolts that hold the caliper mounting bracket to another bracket that is bolted to the assembly, It is the thicker bracket that I need to machine down, which will allow the rotor to move inboard enough to center the caliper and rotor.

[44boggers]

Hey guys,

Havent had to much time to get work done on the truck lately but I have been working on my 305 rebuild. I also had about 3mm milled off the wilwood caliper bracket and now the caliper sits centered. So the rear brake system is finished.

In regards to the 305 rebuild, I am zero decking the block, actually going to leave the piston in the hole about .005", just for safe being, or if I need to mill it more in the future for any reason. The block is at the machine shop now. I already had the block aligned honed and bored .30 over. The motor will see about 10.23:1 compression.

I did some oiling modifications to the block. I actually didnt take many pictures yet, but I have some from the mods of the 5th main cap. Pretty basic and standard procedure modifications. I ground out a lot of the extra casting flash in the lifter valley and the oiling holes that go to the rear of the block. As well as enlarged the oil holes behind the timing cover to allow better flow back.

I still havent figured out what I will do to spread the frame so the motor fits back in. I guess when the time comes I will loosen all of the crossmember hardware and see what happens. I can't tell if the driverside motor mount frame brace stand thing is bent in a bit more than the passenger or what is going on. Or maybe just by removing all of the crossmembers for powder coating, the frame settled in a different location. We will see what happens when I loosen everything.

Anyone every experience this?

Also built a nice steel work bench, was getting tired of working on the ground.
I am slowly building up my garage/shop here in austria. It sucks, because I am basically buying or making everything i already have in the US. Have a big bench vise coming in the mail along with an airhose reel. I am going to weld a plate off the right side of the bench for a bench grinder as well.