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Saturday
Feb. 3, 2007 - Got to spend the whole weekend in
the shop, and got a few steps closer to getting the front
sheetmetal reattached.
I started out
Saturday morning by getting the cab bolted down to the frame.
The previous owner had repaired the front cab supports by
welding larger washers on the bottom where they attach to the
frame mount, as well as welding similar-sized washers to the top
of the frame mounting brackets. Therefore, since the holes in
the washers were smaller than the standard holes in the cab
supports, I wasn't able to use the factory bushing setup. I had
a new pair of front bushings I'd gotten from LMC for the '67 but
decided to not use them on that, so with a few minor
modifications they were used on the choptop (Fig. 01).
I then got to
work on the firewall. I spent about an hour cleaning and
roughing it up a bit to give the POR-15 something to bite into
for adhesion, and then applied a liberal coat of POR-15. Once
that was tacky, I applied several coats of Krylon Semi-Flat
Black (Fig. 02).
I then finished
up with the installation of the aft-axle fuel tank. I had to
weld some retaining nuts onto the frame crossmembers to allow
the skidplate to bolt up from the bottom (Fig. 03). The tank is
now completely mounted, except for fabricating a filler neck,
but that'll have to wait until after the bed is reattached.
A while back I
picked up a radiator support and a pair of inner fenders from a
'79, and was planning on installing them on the choptop for the
learning experience. However, I decided against that, choosing
to just use the pieces that came with this truck, due to present
time constraints. The left inner fender is in great shape, but
the right side piece was rusted-out under the battery tray.
However, I decided that once the inner fender was painted and
then a battery tray reattached, the rust-out would be hidden, so
I decided to just use it. I spent the rest of the afternoon
cleaning the inner fenders up in preparation of the POR-15. |
Fig. 01 - You can see the larger washer that
was welded to the top of the front cab support bracket.
Fig. 02 - Here's a shot of the finished firewall.
Fig. 03 - The fuel tank's skid plate mounting nuts welded to
the frame's crossmembers.
Fig. 04 - The inner fenders mostly cleaned up. A few minutes
with some sandpaper and they're ready for the POR-15. |
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