August 4, 2012 - When the decision was made to get the '67 out of storage, I had several important decisions to make. Now that I had my '75 F250 I had a very nice vintage Ford truck to drive, so the original plan for the '67 of making it a very good restoration wasn't as important. Plus with my growing family and my Olds 442 project, money to spend on my car/truck projects was not only getting harder to come by, but was simply irresponsible of me to try to get at this time.

Therefore, I decided that if I were going to keep this truck, I would have to essentially try to make do with what I had...that is, do my best to assemble it with the parts I'd saved in storage. The focus would be to now just turn this truck into a decent daily cruiser / shop truck. This will be my work truck...one I'm not worried about leaving out in the weather or getting dirty or dented. I still wanted it to look presentable, but I figured I could clean up the used parts I already had and scrounge up whatever else I needed from the junkyard.

Fig. 01 - In this shot, you can see the gap left at the top of the cut-down windshield when set in place on the choptop cab. The width was correct, but the person who chopped the cab neglected to consider the compound curves on this glass. The most important thing to consider when chopping a vehicle is ALWAYS cut the glass first, and then fit the sheetmetal to the glass, not the other way around.

OK...so...now which cab do I use? I mean, I have a very nice '67 cab which just needs the bodywork finished and then painted, and I also have the choptop cab. At first I was REALLY leaning towards the choptop cab, since it would just be so freakin' cool to drive! However, after spending nearly two weeks running the pros and cons around in my mind, I decided to use the good '67 cab. The deciding factor was the lack of front glass in the choptop. When I purchased it, the owner told me he'd chopped it "right", meaning that I simply had to cut down a stock windshield to fit. However, after trying this, I found that he was wrong...a chopped-down windshield wouldn't fit (Fig. 01)...meaning I'd have to either go with a custom windshield (VERY expensive!), or cut a Lexan windshield (which would be easy, but it's not street-legal and Lexan tends to scratch easily) or completely rework the cab to accept a cut-down stock windshield (which isn't an option since our one-car garage doesn't have a 220V hookup for the welder, and would seriously add to the time invested). Therefore, the stock '67 cab won out. (The choptop cab will go into the storage unit for now.)

The next major thing I had to do was find an engine/transmission for this truck. At first I was thinking that I really needed to find a 300 I6 and a manual 3-speed. I started scouring Craigslist about two weeks ago...and last week found a listing for a 240/3-spd from a '66 F100. The seller stated it ran and was only asking $150 for it. I went ahead and sent him an e-mail asking a few questions, but never heard back. Several days later I found another listing for a '76 F250 with a 390/C6. He was asking $500 for the whole truck, and while it was a little more than I wanted to pay, I figured that if it was complete and running, it would be worth it. So I drove up last weekend and after looking it over, I told him I'd take it.

The story was that he was driving this truck back in the late-'80s/early-'90s when he installed a crate motor in it, and then after racking up about 30,000 miles on it, he drove the truck into his garage in 1996 and decided to start fixing up the body. He removed the doors and fenders and gutted the interior, and started on rust repairs on them and the cab. However, as projects often go, he got sidetracked with other projects and never got back to this truck, and finally lost interest in it. The only thing really worth salvaging was the engine and transmission, since all the body panels were rusted out. Since the truck hadn't been started in at least 12 years, I decided I didn't want to mess with trying to change all the fluids, pulling the distributor to prime the engine, etc., so I took a chance that the engine was still good and just bought it.

Fig. 02 - Here's a shot of the engine donor truck after loading it onto the trailer. The seller is removing a few items from inside the cab, which is covered with 12 years of garage dust.

Fig. 03 - The dentside is in the driveway after hitting the carwash. I did powerwash the engine while in the truck, but will visit the carwash again for another engine cleaning after it's removed.

Fig. 04 - The 390 has been disconnected and is ready to pull out.

I went up with my trailer on August 4th to get the truck. He'd driven it into his garage 12 years earlier, and since it wasn't running, I had to back the trailer up into his driveway and we had to winch the truck backwards up onto the trailer. Since I didn't want to make the hour-long drive back home with all the weight of the trailer at the back, we took it to his shop on the other side of town, so we had room to push it back off the trailer, flip the truck around and then push it back up onto the trailer. Fig. 02 above was taken right after pushing it back onto the trailer.

Fig. 05 - The front clip is removed and the engine ready to pull. It was on the ground 15 minutes later.

However, I knew that once I got home, I'd have to back the trailer into the driveway, which would mean the truck would be backwards. Since I wanted the front of the truck towards garage at the front of the driveway, that meant once I got home, I had to flip the truck back around. I drove out to a friends farm and enlisted his help in getting the truck off the trailer, flipping it around (again) and then pushed back onto the trailer (thanks Ray!), and then drove home. My wife got a 'fun' ride when unloading the truck...I knew the brakes still worked, so she got to sit inside on the floorpan while I pushed the truck off the trailer, and then she hit the brakes once the truck was off the ramps. I then immediately got started disconnecting the engine and transmission. I decided it would be easier to remove the radiator support and inner fenderwells than trying to lift the engine over the support, so the front clip was removed (Fig. 05), and then engine and transmission were on the ground by the end of the evening.

...and now I'm about ready to get the engine cleaned up and my '67 out of storage!

August 5, 2012 - I got out of bed this morning and hit the ground running, since I knew it was going to be an extremely busy day. First on the agenda was getting rid of the '76 donor truck. My friend Ray is into the dentside-era trucks as I am the bumpsides, so he said he'd take the carcass. It did, after all, have four 16" wagon wheel rims on it, which he needed. So I winched the truck up onto the trailer and drove it back out to his house, where he used his tractor to pull it off the trailer and push it into place next to his barn. Then I headed back to town to load my new engine/transmission onto the trailer, so I could take it to the carwash for another good cleaning (Fig. 06).

Fig. 06 - The engine and transmission are back from the carwash looking much cleaner.

Fig. 07 - My truck is finally home...and ready for a new engine.

Fig. 08 - I decided to remove the radiator support to install the engine.

Once I got the engine home and off-loaded into the driveway, I headed up to the storage unit to retrieve my '67...and brought it home. Once the truck was in the driveway, I was ready to install this engine (Fig. 07). Since all the bolts holding the radiator support were new and thus easy to remove, I decided to spend a few minutes removing it, which would make engine installation much easier, and probably prevent me from scratching the new paint on the bottom of the cab too (Fig. 08).

Fig. 09 - The engine is almost in.

Fig. 10 - The engine and transmission are now bolted up. I'll put off hooking everything up for now...other things are more important.

Fig. 11 - A final shot at the end of the day. You can see the '67 Olds parked in the garage.

One thing I was pretty surprised to find on this '76 donor truck was a one-piece driveshaft. It's always been my understanding that all long-wheelbase trucks had a two-piece driveshaft with a carrier bearing between them. However, it doesn't appear as if there were ever a carrier bearing on this '76. While I'm surprised, I'm also very pleased, since it'll make installing it into my truck much easier. I'll have to get it shortened, but that's a task any competent machine shop can handle.

Anyway, I did have to drill a couple holes in the frame for the transmission crossmember, probably due to the fact that this was a long-tailshaft transmission. Other than that, it dropped right in.

I was kinda impressed with myself and how much I'd been able to get done over the past few days, between getting the truck that was 100 miles away, getting it home, stripped and hauled off, the '67 hauled home and the engine installed...all in about 48 hours.

I've decided to hold off hooking the engine up for the time being, choosing to take advantage of the warm weather and concentrate on getting the bodywork finished up so that I can get the truck primed and painted, and the glass installed.