Hello Gray Ghost fans!
It has been too long! Ten months to be exact. Keeping things honest and real, it's been a tough 10 months, between the worldwide pandemic and my own health issues. But now it's time to get back to work...oh wait a minute...I'm now retired! So no excuses. Time to get back into the garage.
Major accomplishment this weekend! I finally got the front clip (sheet metal) off of the truck! I had actually removed all of the fasteners last fall, but never got around to separating it from the truck. Last weekend, I was able to break it free from the cab and chassis. This weekend, we rolled the truck out of the garage, removed the front clip and rolled the truck back into the garage. The front clip is now resting comfortably in that beautiful shed I built last summer.... Now, the master plan comes into focus! The truck, minus the front clip, now looks like this:
Unfettered access is now mine. With unfettered access comes a few chores.... It is finally time to degrease everything. I've mentioned before that I think this truck was driven on dirt roads where oil was applied to keep dust down. The majority of the caked on crud is a combo of red clay and oil. On the bright side, all of that oil kept the metal from rusting out. There is rust on the top of the frame rails and the cross member where the radiator mounts. I'll deal with that rust by scraping away loose rust and then hitting it with my favorite Rustoleum rust converter primer. Here is a shot detailing the level of crud that must be removed:
This is a closeup of a part of the steering assembly and frame. Just a little crud...!
Once I've dealt with the cleanup, I can move on to the real task at hand...removing the floor pans and installing the replacements. As you may remember from an earlier post I discovered serious rot when I initially went to remove the front clip. The rot was so bad, that fixing that became the priority while the engine was still out of the truck. Here's a view looking at the firewall:
Yes, that's a basketball under my truck.... One of my grands must've let it roll under the truck. Oh well. Looking down at the firewall, you can see where there is a flange that runs across the length of the firewall. That flange is where the spot welds are the I'll have to drill out. Once those are all drilled out (18 of them), I can move inside the cab and cut the floor out. The replacement floorboards will have to be trimmed to fit and I'll make a bend that mates up to the upper part of the flange and then plug weld the new parts in place.
The gameplan after that is to install the engine and reconnect the enclosed drive line. Then I'll work on replacing the sheetmetal associated with the inner and outer cowl.
Here's that lonely front clip, waiting to go into the shed:
Really looks like a face. One day, hopefully not too far into the future, we'll be putting her back in place.
So with that, I'm back in the game. Hopefully to get it moving under it's own power before the cold weather shuts down the wrenching season. Wish me luck and I'll keep you all posted.
