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You are here: Home My Truck Projects The '68 Choptop Page 09
Back to My '68 Choptop Project Index
Page 09
Six Weeks Worth of Updates

 

Sunday, May 06, 2007  -  Yeah, it's been a while since there's been a project update...sorry about that. It's not that I haven't been picking away at it, it's just that I haven't really gotten enough done to warrant a new page. So just to get you back up to speed, here's a quick overview of what I've been up to over the past 6 weeks:

March 25, 2007 - Got to spend the whole day in the shop, and actually got quite a bit done, though it's almost not too obvious just by looking at it. The whole day was working on the front and rear suspensions.

I got the rear suspension completely reassembled and it's sitting back on the ground. I really wanted to leave the thick bottom overload leaf off, but the center leaf-spring bolts I had would have been too long, and since everything was closed today, I decided to just use it for now and see how it looks once everything was back together. I can always pull that leaf out at a later date, once I get some shorter bolts.

I then dropped the front suspension off the donor truck (Fig. 01), intending to just swap it in as a complete unit. However, upon disassembly, I found that it really wasn't in as good a shape as what was already on the truck (Fig. 02), so I ended up keeping what I had. However, I did have to almost completely disassemble the choptop's front suspension...to swap the radius arms side-to-side. The previous owner had the right-side arm on the left and vice-versa, which put the shock mounts pointing up instead of down. I then got the front springs cut down by 2 full coils on each side, and then got the front suspension reassembled. I couldn't measure the amount of drop since the springs that were in the choptop when I got it weren't from a Ford truck...I don't know what they were originally installed on, but they didn't fit right (Fig. 03). The coils I cut were from the donor truck which had a 302. However, it appears as if the front was dropped several inches, and while the truck wasn't sitting on flat level pavement when I got done (it's sitting over the oil pit and the concrete is slightly slanted there), it didn't appear to have adversely affected the camber.

Figs. 04 and 05 were taken towards the end of the day. That front fender is just sitting there, to get the visual on the amount of drop the front got. The radiator support isn't completely cinched down, so the fender will drop down another 1/2" or so when that gets tightened up.

Since the two coils I cut from the front springs doesn't appear to have adversely affected the camber, I'm going to keep an eye on things as I move the truck around over the next few weeks, to allow things to move around and settle into place, and if it doesn't appear to have changed much more, I might very well take another coil off the springs and lower it a tad bit more.


Fig. 01 - Removing the donor truck's front suspension.


Fig. 02
- The donor truck's radius arms were totally shot and not useable.


Fig. 03 - The spring on the left is what was on the choptop truck when I bought it, compared to a factory spring on the right.


Fig. 0
4


Fig. 0
5

Friday, March 30, 2007 - I got to spend about four hours in the shop today. Got the backside of the front fenders painted with POR-15 and topcoated with Krylon. Then I got started stripping paint in the cab interior, got about 1/3 done (the easy stuff). I'll have probably another full day's worth of work finishing that task up.

Anyway, I'll get the fenders mounted onto the truck for the final time on Sunday and will get the minor imperfections filled and sanded down. Hopefully by Sunday night the outside of the fenders will be ready for paint. I'm also hoping to have the upper and lower valance panels and front bumper stripped and painted.

Sunday, April 01, 2007 - Well, I didn't get quite as much done today as I'd have liked, but it was still productive. I got the radiator support cinched down, after modifying the front support bushings. Since I didn't have any good used bushings, I had to modify a pair of rear cab bushings. Those are about 1/4" too tall, so I had to cut them down to fit. Then I got the fenders mounted, though it took longer than I thought. The driver's fender gave me a hard time trying to get it to fit and line up. Ended up having to also realign the driver's door as well as a little surgery with a BFH to the door post to get the fender to fit smoothly....but it eventually made it on and looks good. I also got the the upper and lower valance panels stripped and got the lower valance painted. Then I got the front painted bumper stripped down, and got the backside painted.

Here's a picture of the truck as it sits now:


Fig. 06

As you can see, right now there's a larger-than-normal gap between the fender and cowl. That's because it appears as if I need to shim the front cab mounts to life the front of the cab up, which will bring the fenders up too. However, I'll wait to do that until I have the bed mounted, so I can line everything up at once. In this picture the grille and bare-metal upper valance panel were just trial-fitted to ensure proper fender alignment, they'll both come off one more time, and the bare-metal front bumper was just sitting there for the visual. The hood is also down to bare metal, and I kinda wanted to throw it on to complete the picture of the whole front clip being shiny, but it was buried at the back of the shop and I wasn't feeling that energetic. Too bad, as the hood I'm planning on using is the one I previously modified for the shaker scoop setup, and it would have been an awesome shot.

I also did a little spring cleaning in the shop, since I had a full winter's worth of garbage and spare parts laying around, so much so that it was getting really hard to get around. It was a beautiful day today, so I pushed the truck out into the driveway. Here's a comparison shot...the first shot was taken the day I got this truck, the second shot was taken this afternoon. (click each to enlarge)


Fig. 07

Fig. 08

Not lookin' too shabby, huh? I mean, it's still got a ways to go, but there's some definitely progress being made.

Incidentally, after moving the truck around a little bit today, it became apparent that my trimming the front coils did affect the camber.

Sunday, April 08, 2007 - I did get to spend another day in the shop today, most of it doing bodywork. Man, that's a messy freakin' job! By the time I got home I was covered with so much sanding dust that I looked like a ghost!

Anyway, I got the lower valance mounted, got the upper valance painted and ready to install, and got the hood hinges cleaned up and ready to paint, and got one of them painted. I'm doing the hinges like everything else...getting it cleaned up with the wire wheel and sandpaper, then giving it a coat of POR-15 and then a couple coats of Semi-Flat Krylon. However, I used up my last foam brush painting the first hinge, and even though I had a case of them at the house, I forgot to bring them to the shop, so the second hinge will have to wait till next time. I also got the front bumper painted and ready to install.

I then spent the rest of the day sanding and filling and sanding and filling and.....well, you get the idea. I'm about 80% done with the exterior bodywork on the front-end sheetmetal, I've got probably one more day's worth of finishing before it'll be ready for paint. Most of the bodywork I'm doing is just door dings, though I'm also filling a few trim holes and finishing smoothing off the seam on the driver's door where I welded in the lower door skin. Fig. 09 was taken late this afternoon.


Fig. 09 - A shot of the day's progress doing bodywork.

Fig. 10 - Marking the transmission tunnel, preparing to cut it out for a removable cover.


Fig. 11
- Taken after cutting out the tunnel and dressing it up. I still need to drill the mounting holes.

Sunday, April 29, 2007 - Spent another day in the shop...as usual, I didn't get as much done as I was hoping. It seems that it's always 'two steps forward, one step back' with me.

Since I'm taking all next week off work (April 7-11) to finish up the body and get it painted (knock on wood!), I decided not to do any bodywork today. I decided I'd get the truck wired up. I decided to use a '67 Camper Special harness, so there will be some minor harness mods needed to hook it up to some of the '68-up accessories (like the heater switch and brake-light switch). Got the engine compartment wiring installed after doing a few minor repairs and rewrapping it, and then got started with the underdash harness. Got it about half done before it dawned on me that I had to get the firewall cover installed first. However, before I could install that I had to get the cab floor and firewall painted, so I spent some time finishing up the prep on the floor. Got some brush-on seam sealer over the top of the floorpan's patch panels and is now ready to paint.

Then I got started cutting out the butchered transmission tunnel, so that I could install a removable cover. Figs. 10 and 11 show the before and after pictures. You can also see the Hurst Indy floor shifter (that was graciously donated by a FORDification forum member) which I got trial-fitted, but it's very sloppy and will need rebuilt.

Sunday, May 06, 2007  -  As I mentioned in the April 29th update, I'm taking all this week off from work to get the bodywork done and (hopefully) get the truck painted. Therefore, I really didn't want to do any bodywork today, so I decided to get started on the engine. However, unless you've read up on my progress in the FORDification forums, you're not aware of a major change of plans I made last week regarding the drivetrain, so let me get you up to speed.

While trial-fitting the floor shifter, it became apparent that not only would the shifter have to be rebuilt, but I'd also have to do some fabrication to the shifter rods and levers to get it to function properly...something I really wasn't overly-excited about. Plus, I got to thinking about how difficult working a clutch pedal was going to be anyway, seeing as how I'll be practically sitting on the floor when the interior is reassembled! Therefore, after much thought, I've decided to remove the 302/3-speed and replace it with the 390/C6 that I've been saving for my '67 project. Besides, I've been stockpiling all kinds of cool dress-up and performance goodies for the 390, whereas the 302 would've been kinda boring to look at whenever the hood got popped open...and since this truck is probably going to attract some attention on the street, I decided that I'd just simply be happier with the 390 in here. I've still got the 460/C6 that WILL eventually get put into the choptop, but in the meantime, at least until I need it back for my '67, the 390 will go into the choptop.

So anyway, on today's agenda was getting started getting the 390 cleaned up. I needed to push the truck out into the driveway to give me room to work on the engine, but I'd have to install the steering box and linkage first. I spent about 90 minutes getting the steering box cleaned up and painted:


Fig. 12 - Well, here we go with another drivetrain swap. I decided it would be easiest (and safest for my freshly-applied engine compartment paint) to just remove the radiator support, to prevent the hoist from having to drop the engine/tranny down at an extreme angle.


Fig. 13
- Getting the 302 and 3-speed tranny pulled from the truck. I'll probably end up just selling these.


Fig. 14 - Before

Fig. 15 - During

Fig. 16 - After

After getting the steering components installed, the truck got pushed out into the driveway, and I then set my sights on the VERY greasy 390. This is the engine from a '75 F150 that was featured in a '67 project update page during it's removal. Figs. 15 and 16 show the 'before' shots. Unfortunately, since I don't have access to a pressure washer, I'm going to have to do this the old-fashioned way....plenty of time and elbow grease (no pun intended).

Since I'm (probably) going to be painting this engine, I first had to strip off all the peripherals to get it down to a basic long-block. That included removing the A/C, alternator, power steering pump, exhaust manifolds, water pump and pulleys, etc. Unfortunately, when removing the exhaust manifolds I ended up snapping off 3 of the bolts, so I'm going to have to do some drilling to remove the stubs from the heads.

I then pushed the truck out into the driveway and got to work. Beginning with the transmission, I spent a good 4-5 hours just scraping grease off with a putty knife and wire brush. Once the majority of the baked-on grease was off, I fired up the angle grinder with a wire wheel and went to work. I got the transmission 98% cleaned up and got started on the engine block before having to call it a day. I'd estimate almost another full day's worth of work is ahead of me getting the block cleaned up enough to paint, but that'll come at a later date, since starting tomorrow morning (Monday May 7th) I'm going to be spending the whole week in the shop getting the bodywork on the cab and front sheetmetal finished up and getting those areas painted.


Fig. 17 - One view of the choptop's new engine...


Fig. 18 - ...and here's another. I'll bet there's at least 10 lbs. of grease and grime on this thing!!


Fig. 19 - Here's a shot taken at the end of the day. It's looking MUCH better, but still needs a lot of cleaning.


Fig. 20
 
Fig. 21

Fig. 22
 

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