The truck has been a daily driver since Wednesday. The brake lights, dash lights, turn signals and fuel gauge are now working properly. It took several hours this weekend to chase down the wiring gremlins. I even took apart and rebuilt my turn signal switch.
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Tailgate is on. Tail lights are on. Cab courtesy light wired and working. Last but not least . . . . the fuel gauge is wired and working. I said working, not necessarily accurate. Time will tell. Tomorrow it goes to the tire shop for front end alignment and tire balancing.
Yesterday evening I mocked up the DS rear fender but a social event made me quit. Today I worked like mad and installed both rear fenders and steps. It's starting to look like a truck again. My wife commented, "Now your truck has hips!" Haha!
The bed is finally on and bolted down. It sits level and square but the bed wood is nothing to brag about. No worries though, it's a working truck bed.
I am amazed at how many pieces there are to a bed. Today I mounted the bed on the frame with the cross members so I could line up and mark the eight bed to frame bolts. I had to make sure the bed was square as well as properly squared on the frame. This week I'll add another coat of Behr exterior latex paint for the wood and another coat of epoxy primer to the bed sheet metal.
Welding the angle strips onto the bed sides was a piece of cake today. It was a lot of work but the Cleco fasteners held the strip in perfect position while I welded. A Cleco fastener is a really neat tool that pinches and hold two pieces of metal together.
Even though the wood needs another coat of paint, I mocked up the bed wood tonight. The rear cross sill needs minor modification. I scratched my head a few times trying to figure out where the bolts in the bed kit are supposed to go, but I think I have that figured out. The next step will be to plug weld the angle strips to the bed sides.
Painting multiple coats on stuff gets boring. Another coat of exterior enamel on the wood, then a top coat of high temp low gloss black on the bottom of the metal bed strips. For fun I installed the door mirrors. I had 2 small chrome plated bullet tips laying around and they fit nicely on the mirrors. Later, I will put the mirror nut inside the bullet tip for a flush fit.
My new order of SPI epoxy primer arrived this week so I sprayed a second fairly heavy coat on the back of the cab, bed and rear fenders today. The bed strips were lightly sandblasted to give them some texture for the KBS Rustseal to grip to. While the KBS Rustseal was drying I top coated the bed wood with satin black Behr Premium Plus exterior latex enamel.
Since my 1965 C10 truck will be a working truck, I'm gonna paint the bed wood black like it came from the factory. The MAR-K Company published test results comparing different bed wood finishes and paint was the superior product hands down. The best results used POR-15 as a base covered by Behr exterior latex enamel. Since I had some KBS Rustseal left over, I used it for a base coat today. Tomorrow I'll apply the exterior latex enamel.
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See my BLOG entries from prior months below:
March 2024
My Hobbies are:Auto Restoration Categories |
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T5 Info Page
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