Big Block's Return-Its All About The DETAILS Man..

[Tamiya Cowboy]

Well some of you have seen this truck before but since I posted picks of it, it has had some misfortune at the hands of my teenage son. Here is a pick of her at work.


And here is a pick of the culprit next to the victim.


And a picture of the victim stripped of all her pride.


Since I do not have picks of what happened to her I will keep it short. She had a run in with an item that was not going to move with the passenger front wheel. This run in wrecked one of my 38 inch TSL SX tires and almost ripped the front leaf spring bracket off the frame bent the U bolts on both sides and sheared the centering pin out of the leaf stack and jacked the passenger front fender. Now don't think he is getting off with out being out of pocket he has to buy all New Tires for the truck and since Interco's Tire plant burned down 8 months ago my TSL SX's are very hard to get and if you can find them they have went threw the roof in price so he is buying 4 new 38 inch BFG KM2's..

So since we have this amount of damage and it has been run hard the last 11 years since I first rebuilt the truck and re did the body it is time for the kid and his little brother to learn how to do body work and paint and restore the old girl.

Now since all the parts I have gotten him are OG off other truck there will be some work on them all but all in all for the most part rust free.

So he started with the bottom side of the new hood this weekend and prepped the under side and sealed it with POR rust proof sealer.

Before


After


Next with some help he got to work on the damaged mount.


And here is what is left of the mount after we got it off.


Now that is it for tonight Ill have more soon as I am having new U bolts made tomorrow and getting a new centering pin for the stack.

[Stylin n profilin]

Thats awesome Paul...I cant wait to see it all back together....

[grumpygrady]

glad after that hit he is ok and didn't hit his head on the steering wheel
or windshield ,i guess he was ok if not please say so .
but i was wondering if it was like when my son totaled my old IHC pickup

we went down to the accident and my son keep the state trooper between me and him as he explained what happened lol
the trooper got to laughing so hard that he had to sit down lol
son was seventeen or so lol
friends said it looked like we was playing ring round the rosy

anyway all i wanted was to make sure he was ok but it took his mom to reassure him that the world wasn't ending that evening lol god love kids

loved that old truck in fact where the devil is that kid rofl

[Tamiya Cowboy]

Originally Posted by grumpygrady

glad after that hit he is ok and didn't hit his head on the steering wheel
or windshield ,i guess he was ok if not please say so .
but i was wondering if it was like when my son totaled my old IHC pickup

we went down to the accident and my son keep the state trooper between me and him as he explained what happened lol
the trooper got to laughing so hard that he had to sit down lol
son was seventeen or so lol
friends said it looked like we was playing ring round the rosy

anyway all i wanted was to make sure he was ok but it took his mom to reassure him that the world wasn't ending that evening lol god love kids

loved that old truck in fact where the devil is that kid rofl

No the kid is fine just a half asleep kid not paying close attention..

OK here he goes. Here is the new mount all bolted in place with grade 8 blots.


The boy got more done tonight..Here are the old and new U-Bolts I got the new ones made at a local semi truck repair shop..


Putting them back in..



Well the son has learned another good lesson from all this.. The law of Action and Reaction. Problem.. What happens when you hit a object very hard and it puts lots of TORK on the gear box?? Thats right it blows the upper seal out of the box so he will be going to get a reman one tomorrow..

[Stuff]

love the rust proofing!

[9W Monighan]

I keep getting crap from my kids about me selling my 1948 Dodge Power Wagon I restored ground up. I had it for 14years then sold it in 1996. But I would probably be doing what your doing --fixing it from 4 wheeling mishaps. I had a blazer about the same vintage as your truck 1975, with 38" Groundhogs and winch back in the early 80's.

[Stuff]

i had an 80 gmc like yours. 32" tires on it, 350 done up. (flat top pistons, rv cam, hooker headers, edlebrock everything) and it had some insane power. at the time it was 80 cents/liter for fuel and i was complaining about it using $40 to drive 2 hours on the highway lol. now it would be more like 80-100!!

[Tamiya Cowboy]

Hey guys Thanks for all the comments and the past rigs you all ways regret getting rid of them after they are gone for sure...

The boy got a lot done this weekend a good friend of mine and I helped out some and Tristin recruited some help from one of his friends also..Here is what we got done..

First as you can see the old box had to go..On the left is my son Tristin and the right is a good friend of mine Wyatt..


Here is a pick of the newer box we got.. We had the under side of the floor sand blasted do to the rust on the cross members witch is weird as the box sides and floor and tail gate are straight and rust free??


I had a local welding shop make me new cross members out of 12ga steal instead of the 16ga the factory ones were.I did not get a picture of it but the boy got the under side of the box and all the inners of the box sides with POR so they have a nice think coat of rust proofing on them now like the hood.

He also got 2/3's of the frame POR'ed this weekend too..


And a pick of the goof ball playing in the POR..


Also he got his cowl in for the hood on Friday.

And I got him started on the body work on the hood. Now this is his first major body work he has ever done but with some teaching he will do fine.

After teaching him how to shrink high spots and fill and smooth them out he shot the bear metal spots with metal etch primer and then he shot high build primer on the hood.



Will get it blocked out this week and get the sealer on it I also started on the doors today but I did not get any picks yet..

[fhhhstix]

looks good Paul and Tristin seams to be having fun and maybe learning a little but where was Joe during all of this I know he had to be close by.

Travis

[Tamiya Cowboy]

Thanks Travis.. Joe was in and out fishing and riding bike all weekend..

[Tamiya Cowboy]

well since Friday was the boy's birthday and I got the wheels back from the powder coater I got his 3 tires he had bought the wife and I bought him his last tire for him for his Birthday..



He has been working on the body work on the hood and doors should have them in final prime this week and ready to be sealed and painted..

[Tamiya Cowboy]

Well the sky's finally opened up today and the sun shined so the boy and I were able to get back at the truck today and block out the 1st coat of high build on the hood. He did a pretty good job for his first time he did sand to far in areas but that is not to big of a deal..Here is the hood ready for high build primer again..



We also got the passenger door ready for it's first coat of high build primer.


So next it was time to teach him how to mix up the 4to1 primer.


Then time to learn how to spray and primer is a perfect thing to practice with..



And the fruits of his labor today..


We got alot done today. The boy is buying his first major tool tomorrow he is buying a wire welder he has saved up $550.00 and is going to by a nice welder and get a tank of gas tomorrow so we can get going on the box and new cab corners this week too..

Ill be picking up a driver side fender this next Sat and some other parts we need from out at the farm and we will keep pluging along..

[will43209]

Lookin good TC! With some more practice, you may have a custom car builder on your hands! Not trying to get soft on you, but I love to see Fathers in their kids lives- teaching and showing them things. Great job on the truck, and with the kids!. I believe if more men, stepped up and did more stuff with their kids--the world would be a better place! Keep up the great "All around" work! Take care, Will

[Tamiya Cowboy]

Originally Posted by will43209

Lookin good TC! With some more practice, you may have a custom car builder on your hands! Not trying to get soft on you, but I love to see Fathers in their kids lives- teaching and showing them things. Great job on the truck, and with the kids!. I believe if more men, stepped up and did more stuff with their kids--the world would be a better place! Keep up the great "All around" work! Take care, Will

Your so very right there Will.. Helping them along and teaching them makes all the difference in life most of the time. He is on the path to be going threw CAT's "Think Big" Program here in 2 years. He will be starting at the largest Truck Shop in the state here as soon as school is out. He does want to get some about body schooling also as he would like to do custom semi work down the road too but a CAT Teck as is main line..

[Tamiya Cowboy]

Well been crazy busy this last week but we will be making major progress later this week. But last week the boy took his money he had been saving up and bought himself a new Hobart wire welding and cart. This is his first major tool he has ever bought so he is pretty crazy happy. We have a Miller stick and tig welder in the shop but he wanted a wire so i told him he needed to pay for it and he did. Now I have trained him on how to weld with a stick in all 4 positions I figure you can do that with a stick you can run a wire welder all day i learned how to on the Nat Gas pipe line then I switched over to Boiler and larger scale AC system welding after I got sick of welding in the hot sun or the freezing cold.

Ok so this is his first time wire welding and had him welding 12ga in a matter of minutes so he was able to get 3 cross members stiched in and 2 71 inch seams welded shut today now he just has 2 more to do then we will do any clean up it needs then seam sealer and POR and the bottom of the box is done then it is all body work..

Later this week the front and rear bumpers will be going to get sand blasted then I will heading to the paint booth with the hood and bumpers..

[russisloud]

its all down hill after you start buying kool tools....

keep up the good work, theres alot you can't learn in skool. somethings just have a "feel" to them.

[Tamiya Cowboy]

Originally Posted by russisloud

its all down hill after you start buying kool tools....

keep up the good work, theres alot you can't learn in skool. somethings just have a "feel" to them.

Hey Russ Tristin says Thanks Much. And you are very right sometimes better to learn by feel of doing it that is for sure..

Well he got a bunch more done this week and tonight..

First off the new box supports are all welded in and seams ground and buffed and also recoated the hole bottom of the box one more time with POR..



Missing the finished pick Ill get it tomorrow.

He also got the rear drums wire wheeled and POR'ed.

Now this winter we will be doing a rear disk break swap so more to come there..


And then he mounted them on the truck just to see how they looked.

Now also I got the new style center caps for the wheel from the salvage yard and I used a 4 inch hole saw to cut the centers out of the front. Now to do this you have to order new lug nuts but you can get them from Dolmar 16-6116 is the part number..

Fronts

Rears


Ok more to come it should be moving along faster now. I am going to go to the paint booth with the front and rear bumpers and the hood this week..

[RCTech9]

The Hubcaps go great with the wheels!!!

[Dreamweaver]

She's coming right along... Good job Tristin..

[Diesel Demond]

**** those wheels with those chevy caps look sick!!! i wouldnt be able to drive it in the mud again after that. tell tristen good job on the work looks great prom date should get a nice rumble in that! hahahahahahaha