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You are here: Home My Truck Projects The '68 Choptop Page 07
Back to My '68 Choptop Project Index
Page 07
Getting Some Painting Done

Saturday Feb. 3, 2007 -  Got to spend the whole weekend in the shop, and got a few steps closer to getting the front sheetmetal reattached.

I started out Saturday morning by getting the cab bolted down to the frame. The previous owner had repaired the front cab supports by welding larger washers on the bottom where they attach to the frame mount, as well as welding similar-sized washers to the top of the frame mounting brackets. Therefore, since the holes in the washers were smaller than the standard holes in the cab supports, I wasn't able to use the factory bushing setup. I had a new pair of front bushings I'd gotten from LMC for the '67 but decided to not use them on that, so with a few minor modifications they were used on the choptop (Fig. 01).

I then got to work on the firewall. I spent about an hour cleaning and roughing it up a bit to give the POR-15 something to bite into for adhesion, and then applied a liberal coat of POR-15. Once that was tacky, I applied several coats of Krylon Semi-Flat Black (Fig. 02).

I then finished up with the installation of the aft-axle fuel tank. I had to weld some retaining nuts onto the frame crossmembers to allow the skidplate to bolt up from the bottom (Fig. 03). The tank is now completely mounted, except for fabricating a filler neck, but that'll have to wait until after the bed is reattached.

A while back I picked up a radiator support and a pair of inner fenders from a '79, and was planning on installing them on the choptop for the learning experience. However, I decided against that, choosing to just use the pieces that came with this truck, due to present time constraints. The left inner fender is in great shape, but the right side piece was rusted-out under the battery tray. However, I decided that once the inner fender was painted and then a battery tray reattached, the rust-out would be hidden, so I decided to just use it. I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the inner fenders up in preparation of the POR-15.


Fig. 01 - You can see the larger washer that was welded to the top of the front cab support bracket.


Fig. 02
- Here's a shot of the finished firewall.


Fig. 03
- The fuel tank's skid plate mounting nuts welded to the frame's crossmembers.


Fig. 04
- The inner fenders mostly cleaned up. A few minutes with some sandpaper and they're ready for the POR-15.


Fig. 05
- A shot of the finished radiator support...


Fig. 06
- ...and a view of the finished inner fenders.

Sunday Feb 4, 2007  -  I didn't get quite as much done today as I'd have liked, mainly 'cause I had a ton of snow removal to do in the shop driveway. I spent more than 3 hours shoveling the white stuff!

However, I did finish up painting the radiator support (Fig. 05) and inner fenders (Fig. 04), as well as the inner fender mounting brackets. In Fig. 04 you can see the rust-out in the right-side piece, but as you can see it's not really that bad, especially considering that the only way you'll even see this is to stick your head inside the fenderwell and look up. Considering the 'lo-buck' approach to this project though, it'll do just fine.

What little time I had left today, I got started getting the interior cab floor cleaned up in preparation for painting. Getting the cab prepped for paint is probably going to take another whole shop day, which is probably what I'll work on in the next installment. Stay tuned!

 

You are here: Home My Truck Projects The '68 Choptop Page 07


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