Well, per usual with any project I seem to be involved in....it's been a while, and it's going slower than molasses! But I wanted to drop an update with what we've managed to get done and where we're at, just to keep this thread rolling and pulled out of the abyss of page 93 or the like.
We've only been able to find a couple hours out of every other week or so to get out in the garage and work on it, so progress is limited, but we are still working on it, and getting really close to making the "turn" back to the point a reassembly, which Aiden is definitely looking forward to more than anything. He will most certainly be happy if he never has to remove another frame rivet in his life!
Some random progress pics of the teardown:
We did managed to get the frame shortened with the aid of Porterbuilt's frame shortening template. I highly recommended it for anyone looking to take this task on. It takes any guesswork out of the job, makes everything line up perfectly ( as perfect as a 40 year old frame will line up anyway ) and provides for a very strong, welded, bolted, boxed, and fish plated connection at the seam.
And then yesterday, with the added day off for Christmas, we managed to finally pull the cab off the frame. We managed to do it without much heavy lifting and without using a lift ( you know.... the easy and most logical way ) We jacked the cab up, put it on stands, rolled the frame out from underneath it, and then put the cab on a little cart I had built out of some scrap lumber leftover from re doing my deck a while back. The cart with pneumatic tires worked flawlessly for rolling the cab out of the garage and across our gravel drive to it's storage spot under the carport.
We then pulled the frame back into the garage to finish stripping some odds and ends leftover on it before we take it to get sandblasted, hopefully we can get then done in the next couple months and gather up some parts to start putting it back together along the way.
And here's Aiden, with the frame nestled into it's new temporary location, sans cab. I swear that's the same kid from the first pic in this thread, 2 years has made a HUGE difference!
That's pretty much the update for now, nothing spectacular other than completing the teardown, but we're rolling along! Still love every second he and I get to spend on the project, and he's starting to get pretty handy considering where he was when we started this endeavor!