Well, I'm a little past the start of the rebuild, but I figure starting late is better than not starting at all? Bomp asked if I was going to set up a build, I figured it'd be a good idea to record what I can. I have taken a few pictures a long the way, I'm just not usually one to bust out the camera until after what I'm doing is complete.
I guess explaining what happened with my truck would be a good place to start. When I first bought my pickup, it had the straight six in it, which was on its last leg.
Seriously, it didn't even have the umph to go up the ramps on my dad's trailer. So we had to push it up. Ripped that out not too soon after, and tossed in a motor my dad had built some time ago, a 355.
Still mated to stock tranny, it became my daily driver. I ended up doing a couple modificatons as time went; a nicer stereo (seeing as it didn't have one when I bought it), LED 3rd brake light I had found on this forum, adding door jam switches, etc. I was very inexperienced, that motor swap was 95% my dad, attempting to show me what to do but I was so lost. Anyways, one of the last few modifications I did was brake drum rebuilds. I did take a couple auto classes in high school so I did know some of the basics, including brake drums. I was having issues with locking up on hard braking, go figure.
Few months later, still running great and kinda stopping okay.
I had been working at a gas station so my income wasn't too much, but I was offered a job getting into heating and A/C install, which I honestly didn't have a clue what it was about. But i heard the hourly wage and said I'm in. 2nd day of heading to my new job, and I come around a blind corner (just rained the night before as well) to find a bus stopped picking up children, as well as a car directly in front of me (about 300-500 feet); i.e. needed to stop quick. Truck said no way. Locked up just like before and I was sliding toward a 10 foot drop on my left. I quickly readjusted my direction as I did not think that would go "over" well, and aimed toward an embankment and hit it dead on at about 50 miles an hour. Hit so hard I came back out onto the road, dead middle. My face hurt and I was bleeding profusely, but all I cared about was how my truck looked.
(once bleeding stopped. popped a blood vessel in my nose which finally clotted)
(after 6 stiches)
I remember getting irritated all of a sudden, as my horn was just blaring constant. popped the hood to find that my alternator had chewed through all the wiring and must've completed the circuit for the horn.
Ripped the wire off the horn and started assessing the damage. My dad showed up not too soon after and we got the truck out of the road (rag joint held up long enough for one more turn off a sideroad before breaking!)
Wasn't in a place to afford to fix it and needed a vehicle fast, ended up selling it to my dad to fix and bought my self a V6 Mustang. The Mustang did good for what I needed it for, but something on it was missing. A spoiler! (There's a point to this story) searched CL for a while, found a guy selling Mustang parts. Gave him a call, he had one! wrong color, came back 2 days after buying it to find out he had recently gotten one that matched. Ended up never leaving as he says. Made a good friend, and got me into the automotive world, I've been learning a lot from being around him and helping him with misc. projects and tare-aparts.
Got rid of the V6, bought myself a 5.0 supercharged Cobra, been another fun project but I do love my car.
Enough about the F@!d, sorry I had to share it!
About 2 months ago I was thinking it over and decided I wanted to tackle getting my truck back on the road! As after 2 years, my dad hadn't gotten far with the truck itself, did find a rolling '63-66 frame (have yet to check the vin for the year)!
My head on with the embankment ended up shifting the front of the frame over quite a bit. He figured a new frame would be a better task, and easier to start at the bottom. I agreed and picked up the frame as well.
While delivering it to my house he reminded me about the crossmember swap so many have done before and I figured that would be a great project for me to tackle!