Comments:

The hood in these pictures was one that was just used for the ride home, to help make the truck a bit more aerodynamic...and maybe just a little bit to have the overall complete look for the ride home. It's got a few heavy dents in the front that I don't feel like messing with, especially since I've got a dent-free hood, so it'll be discarded.

You'll notice that there's a large gap between the cab and box. When I was tying the truck down to the trailer, I noticed that the cab wasn't bolted down, and since I didn't have any cab mount bolts with me, I just used my come-along to cinch it down to the frame, via a hole cut in the transmission tunnel. When I cinched it down, it moved forward a couple inches, so the gap in these pictures is way more than it will be once the cab is actually bolted into place.

As I mentioned earlier, the overall execution of the chop was done very well, I think. It's still rough in a few spots and will need some touch-up here and there, but all the hard work has already been done, with the exception of cutting the glass. The wing window frames have also been chopped, though they'll require a little tweaking as well to mount properly. The chop is exactly 7 inches, and leaves me with 5-3/4" rear window and an 11-5/8" front windshield, with 9-1/2" side windows.

In Figs. 14, 15 and ?? you can see how the roof panel was sectioned. It does look a little rough from the inside, but this will be completely hidden by the headliner anyway. While it's obvious that some body filler was necessary, he did a nice enough job on the sectioning that the filler was kept to a minimum.

Although the truck came with a very straight '68 steel grille (Fig. 16), I'll probably use my own steel '67 grill instead, which will probably be painted to match the body color. The inner fenderwells (Figs. 18 and 19) are in good shape overall, aside from a hole in the battery tray area...an easy fix.

Fig. 17 shows the modified front leaf-spring mount for the rear springs. The previous owner simply trimmed the top half of the mount and then repositioned it about 4 inches higher and welded it to the frame, resulting in a cheap lowering job for the back end. However, this obviously changed the rearend's pinion angle, so if I decide to keep this setup, I'll have to also reposition the spring pads on the rearend to correct the excessive angle.

Figs. 20 and 21 show that the bed floor is in pretty good shape overall, though a little wavy. I believe I can straighten it out though. There's also one small rust hole in the bed floor that will need patched.

You can see in Fig. 22 that the bed side seams have been filled and smoothed. However, it appears as if this was done with body filler instead of being welded, so I'll have to decide if I want to clean it out and start over or not. There are some micro-cracks forming where the bed's endcaps meet the sides, so at the very least I'll have to redo this section.

Fig. 23 shows how the filler neck hole was filled and the door handles shaved. Guess I'll be shopping for some electric door poppers.

While the front cab mounts appear to be in great shape, the cab's floorpans, center support ends and and rear cab corners have been replaced. In Fig. 25 you can see how the left-side floorpan was replaced...with a section of road sign as the replacement sheetmetal. While it looks a little funny with the green sign lettering showing through the primer, the repair job appears to have been done fairly well. You can also see how the cab was secured down to the frame with my come-along, since it wasn't bolted down. Also, you can see how the transmission tunnel has been cut out. I've got a good bolt-on cover, so I'll just cut the entire tunnel section out to use the bolt-on cover, which will also raise the floor shifter up a little bit.

Figs. 27 and 28 is a view of the inside of the left-side door. As you can see, the chop to these appears to have been done very well as well...you virtually cannot tell where the door was sectioned and rewelded.

Fig. 29 shows how my shop is getting pretty crowded now, with my current '67 SWB project, the new choptop and my '67 Olds 442 (under the car cover). My wife thinks I have too many car/truck projects...I say "there's no such thing!"

So...I'm sure you're all thinking "What's he going to DO with it?" The truth is, I'm not really sure. I guess I haven't had it long enough to really decide for sure, but here's what I'm tentatively thinking:

1) Lower it - Since the Twin I-beam setup doesn't lend itself to easy lowering, and since I can't afford a IFS kit like those offered by Fatman Fabrications, I'm seriously considering clipping the front. That is, welding on the front frame and suspension setup from a donor vehicle with a double-wishbone setup. Since the '73-up Chebby truck frames are virtually identical in regards to spacing, clipping the front with one would really be the cheapest way. Then I'd have access to readily available lowering parts, such as drop axles and/or springs. For the rear springs, I believe that the relocated front perch on each side has already lowered it several inches, and I could achieve an even slightly lower stance simply by using lowering shackles for the other end of each spring. The truck currently has the Flex-o-matic spring setup, so I'd have to install standard springs to use the shackles. However, I'm also considering that I should:

2) Mini-tub it - I'm thinking that I could relocate the rear leaf springs inside the frame, giving me quite a bit more room to fit some very wide rubber in the rear. I probably wouldn't need to narrow the rearend, since I could easily get more than enough rubber to fit inside those rear wheelwells after relocating the springs, though I would have to add some mini-tubs to the box, and I'd probably just widen out the existing wheelwells using an extra set of wheelwells from a parts truck to maintain a semi-factory appearance.

I'll be continuing to ponder the possibilities....this truck just has so many! If you have some ideas, e-mail me!