Cheating The Reaper

[DRIVEN]

Well, my dad was here for 2 days and got quite a bit done. First thing he did was get a coat of sealer on all the bed and tailgate pieces.

Then he stripped the running boards and parts of the doors. Also visible is the repair at the bottom of the passenger door.

Lastly he turned his focus on the cab. The main job to be done was the removal of the passenger B-pillar. It was badly mangled when my fat *ss forced the door open while being ejected. This part proved to be very labor intensive as the seat base was in the way and needed to be removed first. Next, the rocker was cut away followed by drilling a few dozen spot welds. The pillar itself is a multi-layered puzzle. Took a good half day to get the pillar out.

 

[1evilregal]

nice to see progress again!

 

[DRIVEN]

This project is now on indefinite hold.































Dammit!

 

[ssn696]

You and your family OK?

 

[DRIVEN]

Yeah, thanks for asking. My brother is at the tail end of a really nasty divorce and has been staying with me for over a year. Can't seem to get him motivated to dig into this project. There were a couple false starts but they didn't go anywhere. I think if I were in his situation I'd welcome the distraction but we all cope in different ways. I'm trying to be patient and understanding. Both are wearing thin. Figured it'd be best to just shove it in the corner so I don't stew about it until the time comes that he wants to make good on his end of the bargain.

 

[ssn696]

BTDT. Hang in there. We're enthusiastic fans of The Compound.

 

[DRIVEN]

Surprise! Something happened.
For the first time in almost 17 years the cab is square enough to accept a door that actually opens and closes. The finish welding still needs to be done. Then the rockers, then the cab corners, then the lower cab, then the seat base. Then it only needs everything.
I really managed to **** this thing up when I wrecked it.



Not almost done.



A couple weeks after that...





He did some more fitting to the doors. Below the tape line and in the upper rear radius had to be slit open and spread over and rewelded to get the gaps right. The rockers are partially welded in as are the lower cab corners. The patch panel across the bottom of the back will come last.

 

[DRIVEN]

Oops, wrong spot.

 

[DRIVEN]

Small post to bring it up to date. Last October my brother and I drove a couple miles SE and bought a few pieces for out pickups. I grabbed a nice passenger door and another pair of front fenders. He bought fenders, hood, grill, headlights, etc.


Machined the front bearing retainer and installed the A833 in place of the Muncie that was there for mock-up. When I went to install the driveline I discovered that I had the wrong Ujoint so it got replaced too.



Also finally got some new bumpers and brackets. I'll need to mount the rear bumper so that I can place the tips when I do the exhaust.

This thing sure has gotten dusty just sitting around for the past many months.

No progress whatsoever on the body work.

 

[DRIVEN]

All the brackets are here so I did a test fit. Still need to drill 2 holes in the rear crossmember because there was never a bumper on the back before. No biggie.


Also, it's really flippin low in the front. Like, 1.75" low.





If I twist the brackets all the way up I can get just over 3" and previously the front crossmember was the low point at about 4.5". Looks like I'll probably need to twist up the coilovers before I'm all done to keep from kissing every speed bump and driveway I attempt.
Technically this is a '35 passenger car bumper and I wanted to run it because that's what I had before and I just think they look better. I could go with the correct straight bumper, identical to the rear, and gain some clearance. I'll just wait and see how it plays out in real life.