The 68 after a year of body work (on the road) pics

[dantheman71]

That truck is amazing. I can't stop looking at the pics!! I love the shaved drip rails along with the shaved door handles, and the custom metal work on the hood, and the color, and the dash, and the.....................OK ALL OF IT!! Truly an inspiration for others!! It is also cool that it is a long bed (like mine), gives it that long, low and smooth as silk look.

[td]

mnagatani,

man i didn't even know you had it together, i was absent for a few months and missed all your posts. congrats on a job well done!! its alot to be said for acomplishing somthing like you have, even if most people have the funds to do it they don't have the stick-to-it-tiveness to finish the job. i love the wheels man, they look killer!! and the interior is, well i don't have a word for it, but i love it.

[mnagatani]

Good to hear from ya TD! Yea this ended being a three year project that seemed to take forever. I hear ya regarding the motivation factor. A big part of the drive for me was the wife pushing to get her garage space back. No joke. A good part of the build forced me to take all three spaces of our three car garage. These trucks take so much space especially when they are all blown apart. The first pic here was taken at a "mopar" sponsered show. Guess what? I took best custom at that one. It was open to all cars, but I got a kick at winning that award. Im going to try and enter the grand national roadster show coming up in the next couple months. Wish me luck they let me in.

Mike

[67nukeford]

That is one fantastic truck! Beautiful job, and definitively worth 3 year of work! I hope I can get my 67 done in about the same amount of time.

[67 ford f100s rule]

Hey mnagatani that is one beautiful truck. Good job. Keep on showing up them mopars and chebbies.

[mnagatani]

Finally took some pics with a good camera. I borrowed my dads cannon and what a difference. Here they are:

[bbfhnj]

WOW the only way this could be better is if the bumper was sectioned so that it was smooth all the way across and not have that place for the tag in the middle, that what i wanted to do to mine.

[mnagatani]

I was really thinking about doing that one! Maybe next time.

[ForingaMex]

one tick is to loosen the hardware outside of the cab in the engine bay namely the saddle clamp clamping the column to that little metal cover thing just under the brake master cylinder/or booster.

then just slightly loose the under dash bolts and pull up on the outer part of the column.

once you get a gap you like tighten it all back down and double check the location of the lower bearing in the engine bay end of the tube.

rjewkes I have to take issue with you on this. You are not completly wrong though. If you want to fix that gap with the column still in the truck you would have to loosen all the things you mentioned but you missed one thing. There is a collar around the shaft at the bottom of the column that needs to be loosend up (there are two kinds I think, on has two set screws in it and the other I'm not sure), than you slide the shaft trough the column untill the gap is the way you want it and than you slide the collar up agains the baering and tighten it back up. Now you are ready to tighten all the rest of the column. In my opinion it would be easier to take the column out completly to do this adjustment. Just my
Jake

[jzjames]

mnagatani, really nice pics, did you take them? Looks professional.
You did such a nice job, you could probably recover most of your investment if you were to sell. (Money, not time )
Hows the auto door latches work on it?
Engine bay is s w e e t !
Have you had any requests to put your truck in any magazines?

[tybob81]

How did you make the one piece sise window glass? I thought the hinges interfered with doing that.

[ForingaMex]

He didn't. The truck has the vent windows still intact and that was already addressed earlier in this thread.

[mnagatani]

"You did such a nice job, you could probably recover most of your investment if you were to sell. (Money, not time )
Hows the auto door latches work on it?
Engine bay is s w e e t !
Have you had any requests to put your truck in any magazines?"


Been holding off answering the last question until I got real confirmation. I talked to the head editor at "custom classic trucks" today and it looks like we will do a magazine shoot of it next week. Been going back and forth for some time, but it finally will happen! In terms of the return of investment I should be fine. I spent about 12-15k on the build, but thats doing almost everything myself in the garage. Three years of weekend work and any spare time adds up. I couldnt afford to pay to a shop nor would I want to. My passion is doing the work that I can do. Four things I didnt do on the truck: transmission rebuild, redo the seat cover, polish the grill, and have the color and clear sprayed in a real paint booth. Everything else was done at home. I know now that a two car garage is too small to rebuld these.
The door latches have been working as they should. I have not had any problems with them. Keeping my fingers crossed!

I've said this before and I'll say it again, this site has been so important to me in building the truck. It truly kept me inspired to finish it. The members on this site have been first class and I cant say enough thanks to all that participate here.

I'll post pics of the magazine shoot next week.

Mike

[brandon.k]

Congrats mnagatani! I cant wait to see the mag. when it hits the stand. I'll buy that one fo sho.

[td]

yes, congrats!!! i know it feels good to be enjoying the fruits of all your hard labor, when its all said and done its really hard to conceive all the head scratching and back breaking labor that has to go into a project such as yours.

job well done, job well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!