68 C50 Looongbed pickup build

[rkn463]

Took time out last night see Blackberry Smoke in concert at House of Blues in Dallas. Awesome show, if any of you are in to classic southern rock I encourage you to check them out!

Now back to the truck, I hope to get the front sheet metal pulled today.

-Richard

[rkn463]

Another weekend with less accomplished than I had hoped. So when I had said several posts back that I had all of the rivets out that I could get to, prior to pulling the cab there were actually still 5 holding on the front shackles for the rear springs. Each shackle has two connectors coming in from the bottom, for some reason the one on the driver side had one rivet and one bolt. And then there was one on each side that the leaf spring was in the way of. I decided to go ahead and completely finish that end of the truck prior to pulling sheet metal. So I pulled out the big guns and lifted it up and set it down on some jack stands:

[rkn463]

I must say that drilling the rivets from underneath was most unpleasant, those metal shavings are really hot and it felt like I was trying to bench press the truck! Anyway, I finally got them out and went ahead and bolted everything back together with grade-8 bolts and took it for one last drive as an 89.

[rkn463]

So I'm finally ready to start removing the body. I got it backed in the shop, I pulled the hood, bumper and grill. Then I drained the radiator and called it a day. This was Saturday (night). Sunday started with another 3.5 hours of "recreational mowing" and then I got some time to get back on the truck, not much happened, I pulled several bolts holding the fenders on and got the wheel wells pulled and the front wiring removed from the wiring block. I forgot to take a picture of that, it is pretty cool. I'll try to get a shot of it next weekend. If I'm really lucky I will get the rest of the front clip off next weekend and start removing the cab.

I'm absolutely horrified at the amount of smog crap they put on this truck, you can't even see the motor. Once it is back together as a 68 I will have remedied that.

Thanks for checking in!