Very much in the planning stages/collecting parts still. I have some cool ideas am looking for suggestions and so wanted to post.
cab size / configuration
Thanks to Trevor for some measurements. His crew is about 106" front axle to back of cab. That is 7" shy of what I need to match up with my frame and still use a standard 8ft bed. The 04 cab is 113" as previously mentioned. I am tossing around ideas of different configurations to come up with the extra length.
1. The easiest solution would be to use front-sized rear doors. That would land me where I want to be and be the least fabrication, can get trim to fit, etc. Just not sure I like proportions.
2. Next option would be to use burb rear door size and add 7" to the c pillar. That might get complex in the floor/rocker area and I would have to fill the seam at rear of roof or do a really good sectioning. Probably wouldn't look right proportion wise. Struggle to get side cladding correct lengths.
3. The max fab method with probably best result would be custom length rr doors and c pillar, i.e. +3.5" door, +3.5" pillar or any combination of lengths to suit proportion. This is the all out, lifetime sentance to fab school. Might take some pieces of old upper and lower trim and experiment with shortening/modifying
4. I could shorten the frame in the middle 7" and build a traditional burb rear door crew cab and have a shorter wheelbase for better maneuverability. But its BIG Red, not lil' Red. And I would really like all that extra cab space.
Thinking earlier about using a new style floor. I am worried that marrying to a new style floor would prevent me from fine tuning cab location and height and also my donor cabs are so rotten it takes away any reference points. I'm also turned off to the idea of 99-06 seats, really want to get the truck further away from its original self.
Will probably repair the burb floor from b pillars forward because it has the buddy bucket bracing in it and is repairable towards the front, and use the rear portion of a new complete floor unless the truck cab has a repairable floor which is unlikely.
For the roof skin I'm thinking of snipping the a pillars and sectioning in the front of the truck cab in the compound curve area with the remaining truck roof going to the back. And contouring sheet steel or leftover burb roof to fit the middle.
instrumentation
Looking at ideas. Of course I could use the 04 cluster and graft it into the metal dash. But I feel like a lot of the experience of an older vehicle is the original instruments.
I could make all the 69' gauges and senders work. it is a lot of adapting for antiquated and inaccurate equipment. I also seems redundant because the ECM has all of the accurate info in real time.
I could purchase a $600-1300 modern retrofit instrument cluster. Most of these have 8,000 rpm tachs and no wait to start signal. Not budget friendly and anyone could do it (I have issues needing to be unique).
What I think I will do is use an idiot light base model cluster, and modify the dash for a 2 din android headunit and use an app like Torque. I would retain the factory indent by sectioning two dashes and eliminate the ash try so I wouldn't have to move the hvac panel down like rtech does. While trying to leave room for center AC vent.
Big Red already has a NP205D that has a mech. speedo output. I can connect the 67-72 cluster and drive around in Red to check accuracy and make speedo gear changes vs. the electronic cluster in the dash.
The gas gauge would need to work with the newer sending unit. After some research I found this thread
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/elec...ml#post6267569
Red has a 40-250 ohm sender. The 67-72s use a 0-90 ohm range.
1. replace 90 ohm resistor in gauge with 220 ohm (~$1)
2. remove needle and refit so that it indicates 'empty' at 40 ohms.
(the 220 ohm resistor should cause the gauge to overdrive at 250 ohms making up for the 40 ohm initial offset and hopefully read near full)
This is something I can test by tapping into the signal wire on Red and comparing the two clusters at various fuel levels.
Wait to start indicator: Sacrifice the oil press or generator idiot light and modify it for my glow. Whichever is on top? I can't remember. I could get a clear glass section from a 7 hole cluster and just use a vinyl window sticker "wait to start". Or try to remove the white paint from the back of the glass in the lettering and fill the engraved letters with clear epoxy. Then use a vinyl sticker on the outside. Swapping the bulb lens from red to amber would be nice too..
paint scheme
There is no originality concerns here. I'm not even sure what year to call this thing. A real identity crisis. That being said, there is no paint scheme off the table, it just has to have some, you guess er, RED!
At first I was thinking a 71-2 two tone paint scheme red/maroon. That's probably hideous.
Now I am leaning towards solid ruby red body color still using full upper and lower deluxe trim, with the roof being a different accent color. Options that I like are off-white, silver, matte black, and tan.
I will attach some pics of my inspiration. A lot of which is from rtech. Thanks for the inspiration atvpro.