Putting in a bit of a pause on the work progress for the holiday season. However I took the opportunity to do a bit of a thorough cleaning to the garage. The floors and counters were pretty messy from all the dirt, rust, and dust from all of the old parts. Spent a good part of the day scrubbing and cleaning. Afterward we were able to re-loom the wire harness and ran most of the fuel lines and started reinstalling the secondary wire harness that runs from the front cab area toward the taillights. Hoping to make some progress on wheels and tires, exhaust system, sending the motor off to be rebuilt, and wrapping up the remaining part of the lower chassis first part of the new year.

Making a little bit of progress on putting all of the suspension and brake system back together. Got the chassis back to a rolling frame. Still need to assemble and install all of the steering links. We put the old wheels and tires back on for the meantime although we hope to have the new wheels and bigger tires put on in the next few weeks. With that we should get a better idea about the final height of the truck. We expect it to sit about 5-6 inches higher overall with the bigger/taller tires and wheels and the 3 inch body lift. Taught my brother about the mechanics of the brake system. We installed all new rear drum hardware and ran new brake hoses and cables from front to back. All new bushings and ball joints were pressed into the I-beams and radius arms. Feeling pretty good about the current condition and progress we’ve made although there is a long way to go.

Finally got all of the parts back from powder coating and we will begin the process of reassembling the rolling chassis this weekend. Also got the rear axle back this week with new bearings and shafts and an updated differential cover with fresh diff cover bolts as well. Pretty stoked to get the rear end back underneath the frame. All of the powder coating came out amazing. It’s almost a bit sad to put some of these parts underneath the truck. Another special shout out to Safeway Sandblasting and Powdercoating in Culver City, CA. They do amazing work. Dropped the driveshaft off to be polished just to bring a little extra bling to compliment all of the new parts. Here are a few before shots of the driveshaft before picking up the completed piece.

Absolutely no justifiable reason for the polished drive shaft... but did it just because.

Starting to piece the frame back together with some new parts and some parts that we could salvage and clean up before reinstalling. Still waiting on parts to come back from powder coating to be able to add the front suspension components. Ordered entirely new brake system from the brake booster, master cylinder, brake hoses, emergency brake cables, front disks and calipers, rear drums and shoes, as well as the rear drum rebuild kit with new brake cylinders. Getting excited to teach my little bro how to assemble a brake system so that he can service it himself in the future. Taking in the rear axle this week for new shafts, bearings, seals, and fresh fluids. Then will clean up and paint the rear axle. So many new parts are on the way or have arrived and are sitting in boxes awaiting install. Starting to love the progress shots. Little by little.... it’s coming along. Ready to get it back to a rolling chassis ASAP.

Once we finally had the frame completely stripped we sent it off to our powder coater to be sand blasted down to the bare metal and sent in a ton of individual parts for powder coating. They finished the frame within 3 hours of dropping it off. Big shoutout to Safeway Sandblasting and Powder Coating in Culver City, CA. They have always done a great job with all of my various projects. http://www.safewaysandblaster.com/ Some solid work between the before and after shots of the frame.