5.3l1941GMC

iTrader: (2)

It happens! I was hungover/groggy one morning and sliced my stomach up with a wire wheel attached to a grinder, and then touched a piece of steel we had just heated up with a torch 3 minutes earlier so we could straighten it out and burnt the hell out of my hand.

Hangover/lack of sleep + car project is a bad combo.

Josh40601

iTrader: (9)

story of my life

5.3l1941GMC

iTrader: (2)

Sorry for the lack of updates, been busy with baby stuff and school.

I've received a power steering pump, alternator, waterpump, and starter, and found some perfect condition corvette fuel rail covers locally. That means I should have everything I need for my engine, now we just need to assemble it.

Hoping to start goi g at it full speed again starting next weekend, i'll keep you posted.

5.3l1941GMC

iTrader: (2)

Just a quick update:

Didn't get a ton done this last weekend, not only is my wife having our first child, it seems like everyone else we know is having a kid, so my Sunday was spent at a "couples" shower for some friends of our's...

Anyways, on Sunday we put the truck on the lift so we could finish welding the frame and, and did a lot of cleanup work on my terrible cutting job (from when I removed all of the stock S10 brackets from the frame).

Now that the frame is shortened, we are going to mount the bed. The bed has a 100% original steel floor, which hasn't rotted at all. It even still has some paint left on the bottom of it. Problem is, it is bent a bit, and the metal is stretched, so the floor has to go. I was hoping it would be easy, but of course, it is not. The floor is spot welded to the bed sides, every three inches. The snap-on spot weld cutter I was using broke on the fourth spot weld.

So, Saturday I hope to spend the day getting the bed taken apart. I have already purchased a new tailgate and a new front panel for it, and we welded a support in the middle to hold it all together temporarily. What I am wanting to do is install a wood bed floor, using natural maple with chrome strips, but that will be a while. We can mount the bed without the floor.

HOPEFULLY....emphasis on hopefully....we will have the bed ROUGHLY mounted on Sunday.

Then comes the running boards, which HOPEFULLY won't be a big deal, just get them in place, cut the original mounts, and weld them to the frame.

I am excited as hell to see this thing roll outside with every body piece mounted on a frame. It will be the first time, even when my father bought it it was in pieces.

Here's some pictures:

Up on the lift (yes, the barn is a mess. Three project cars not including mine, equipment to maintain 5 acres, enough tools and parts to build a few cars, or a house, a giant heater that burns used motor oil, and a big tank to hold the oil, etc.):



Front passenger cab corner, one of two spots on the truck that needs metal patching (excluding fenders, those are a little jacked...):



Drivers side front corner, the other spot that needs metal patching. You can also see the front cab mounts:



Here's how the rear cab moutns are designed:



Here's where we cut the frame, after lots of welding and grinding. We will also be plating the sides where we cut through the frame:



Here's the bottom of the bed floor:



And another picture of the frame work:



Random picture of my custom transmission crossmember undergoing modifications after I chose to switch to the LSx (old picture, it's since been finished)

5.3l1941GMC

iTrader: (2)

Sorry for the lack of updates, have been very busy prepping for the baby (due in one month!), slammed at work, and writing papers for school.

Fortunately, I have been still sacrificing my weekends in order to work on my truck, and have made a little bit of progress.

I succeeded in removing the old, stubborn steel bed floor, and the original front bed panel that was bent to hell:



Finally got to install new sheet metal on her, been waiting to do that for a long time.



Now that we have the bed squared up pretty good, we begin brainstorming how to mount it, and come up with this:

L shaped steel on each bed side, upside down (I know, it's hard to see in the pic)



And then this unistrut steel, which we will weld to the L brackets, and will then mount them to the frame.



Turns out, we'll only be raising the bed floor about two inches, which will barely be noticeable. I decided to use maple wood for the floor, but that will be a while.

We're taking this weekend off, but hopefully next weekend we'll have the bed fully mounted, and then we'll have to re-drill the mounting holes for the rear fenders (we moved the bed forward, there's maybe 1/4" gap between the back of the cab and front of the bed), and mount the running boards.

We did come across a problem with our frame shortening, we didn't go short enough. Instead of cutting the frame again, we're going to just move the axle forward in the leaf springs a couple of inches.

Getting closer to seeing it all together for the first time!

5.3l1941GMC

iTrader: (2)

Still haven't finished mounting the bed, just needs to be cleaned up and welded on a little bit, then it's going to the media blaster and being primered before we finish weld it.

I've taken the last three weekends off, one reason because of cold weather and snow, another reason being this:




Proud momma and a confused dog^^^

Lillian Grace, born 12/12/10. Wife had to have an emergency c-section, due to her being breach.

I promised myself I wouldn't lose focus on my project after having our first child, and I am planning on working on my truck at different points during my 4-day weekend.

Thought I'd give a quick update, and look at my build thread because it helps motivate me, and also I will take every opportunity to show off my daughter

Josh40601

iTrader: (9)

congrats brother. She is beautiful. I had one myself last september. They are the most amazing thing in the world.