Got the new seat upholstery installed! It came out great! Love the way the interior is coming along. The templates from stockinteriors.com was near perfect fit. A couple of minor issues but I’m pretty sure we can only blame ourselves for those. Just need to reattach the sliders to the seat bases and they should be ready to bolt in.

Spent an hour this morning before work test fitting the new carpet. We splurged a little and got the plush pile with the mass backing. Really impressed with the quality; I wasn’t sure how good it would be after reading a few online reviews. The mass backing marks all of the cutouts for seatbelts and other mounting areas, all you need to do is cut them out. We had to fabricate a replacement rear carpet as the old red carpet simply wouldn’t cut it. I used the Kilmat material and applied two layers onto the back of the carpet to resemble the backing that was on the OEM carpet. It’s pliable enough to shape it to the contours but stiff enough to hold its shape. The new seat upholstery and sun visors also arrived today even though we weren’t expecting it for another 20 days or so and I hadn’t received a tracking number. But WOW! So impressed with the quality of the seats. All the carpets and seat upholstery was ordered from stockinteriors.com. Will definitely be leaving positive reviews for them once all is said and done. Can’t wait to install the new upholstery.

Spent some time working on the cab and doors today. Removed all the old window hardware (motor, regulators, harnesses, etc.) and ordered new replacement parts which should arrive this week. Added some sound deadening insulation today. Almost had the exact perfect amount but ran out just before being able to complete the forward foot wells. I will probably order another box to complete the remaining pieces. Was pretty impressed with the Killmat product. Inexpensive and likely made in China but it does just about as good of a job as Dynamat for a fraction of the price. It’s a little thinner than Dynamat which makes it a lot easier to work with.

Made a little more progress today. Dropped the transmission off to be inspected and new seals. Hopefully they don’t find anything major. Made a lot of progress on sanding the cab and engine bay. They are now about 90% and almost ready for body filler and primer. Test fit the bed and got a good first look at the final height of the truck. It’s definitely coming in a lot higher than stock and I’d say it’s sitting about 7” higher overall. Once we have some color on the body I think it’s going to look really good. We will be having the bed media blasted this week so that should save us a lot of time on sanding. Probably should have just bitten the bullet and did the cab as well.     

Installed new 15x8” American Racing wheels with BF Goodrich All Terrain T/A KO2 in 30x9.5x15 sizes. Also added a new spare tire and refurbished spare wheel. Wasn’t able to fit a KO2 in the spare area so just went with a basic car spare in 215/70/15. Truck is already sitting a lot higher. Looking forward to figuring out the final ride height once the body lift is installed. 

New wheels and tires are going on tomorrow. I think they are going to look perfect. Tonight I decided to mock up the refinished dash parts. Still need to sand and body fill the original dash pad to give a good foundation for the new dash cover. Will also paint it black before installing the dash cover. Going to replace the wood grain gauge cluster as some of the clips are broken. I’m also fabricating a metal insert to go over the gauge cluster. Thinking of powder coating the cover in a bright silver to offset the black dash.