Friday, June 01, 2007  -  I finished up at work about 3:30 this afternoon, and decided to head to the shop to get a head start on the coming weekend's activities, which will hopefully mean getting the box mounted, sanded down and painted. I figured I'd have a couple hours to work this afternoon, but ended up working till about 9PM.

Anyway, before mounting the box I had some welding to do. The right-side bedside was completely broken free at the front panel, so it needed to be reattached, so I welded up the areas where the bedside and the front panel overlapped. Fig. 01 shows the top section after welding and cleaning it up a little with the grinder. I wasn't overly concerned with making it really pretty, since a tonneau cover will eventually cover this section anyway.

Then I got started on the front of the box, just sanding it down and getting it roughed up so the POR-15 will have a rough surface to adhere to (Fig. 02). Then I got that front panel covered with the POR-15, let that set up a bit and then hit it with several coats of Krylon Flat Black (Fig. 03).

After the paint had set up for a short while, I decided to just go ahead and slide the box all the way up onto the frame, so I could start evaluating the rest of the bed...to see what bodywork would be needed.

The previous owner had filled the bed seams, and although I never really checked it out closely, I pretty much figured he'd filled them with body filler rather than welding them up, which I discovered to be true. I'm not going to redo them however, since I sealed up the back side of the body seam with POR-15, so I shouldn't have any problem with moisture getting in behind the filler. The bedsides aren't too bad, but they're definitely going to require a little work before painting. I spent some time sanding on the box to smooth out the gray primer a bit, and making it easier to find any imperfections that would need to be dealt with....and I found plenty. The bedsides themselves aren't too bad, but the top of the bed rails are pretty wavy. At first I wasn't even going to mess with them, but decided to at least get them a little smoother. I'm probably going to be installing some bedrail covers in the future, so they won't have to be perfectly smooth.

After sanding the sides down, I spent some time tapping down the high areas and then marking the low areas with a pencil (Fig. 05). These are what I'll be getting started on when I return tomorrow morning. Check this page tomorrow for the day's updates...since I'll just post tomorrow's pics to this same page. Stay tuned!

Fig. 01 - Here's where the bedside and front panel meet up.

Fig. 02 - Here's a shot of the bed's front panel, sanded and ready to paint.

Fig. 03 - The bed's front panel is now painted

Fig. 04 - The bed is just setting there...it still needs bolted up...but it's ON!

Fig. 05 - Marking the low areas of the bed which would require some filler

Fig. 06 - A 'before shot' at the beginning of the day, after the first of three body filler applications

Fig. 07 - The finished bed, ready to paint

Saturday, June 02, 2007  -  I spent the day today alternating between bodywork on the box and getting the 390 cleaned up some more. Both turned out pretty well, I think.

Fig. 06 shows the left side of the box after the first application of body filler at the beginning of the day and Fig. 07 shows the same side at the end of the day. I ended up making three passes with filler today, since after I sanded each application down I either found that I hadn't applied enough filler the first time, or found another low spot. The left side required the most work...the right side wasn't really too bad. The top of the bed-sides were seriously dented up, and at first I wasn't even going to mess with them, and then just install some bed rail covers to hide the dents. But I decided to go ahead and give it a shot and they turned out much better than I'd hoped, so now I might just not worry about the rail covers. There were some holes drilled along the top for bed rail tiedowns but I decided not to mess with those, since they should be covered by the tonneau cover that will be installed in the future.

Fig. 12 - ...and here's what it looks like now, after several hours invested in degreasing it

Fig. 13 - Here's a shot mocking up the tailgate and attaching hardware, so that it could be painted with the box.

Each time I applied some filler, I'd have to let it set up before working it, so in the meantime I'd work some more on getting the 390 cleaned up. I was really dreading doing this, since I don't have access to a power washer, so I was going to have to do this completely by hand, but it actually wasn't too bad. I started off scraping the grease with a putty knife and then sucking it up with the ShopVac, then hitting things with a wire wheel attachment in the drill, sucking it up with the vacuum again, and then finally simply spending time with cleaning solvent and rags. In fact, after getting it as clean as it now is, I've decided I really like the look of the engine as it sits, so I won't be painting this engine...I'm just going to leave it as it is, which I think will help add a little more 'authenticity' to the budget-build/rat-rod look.

I've also decided to temporarily forego the installation of the 4-bbl intake manifold, mainly due to time constraints. I'm just going to continue getting this cleaned up and then install it as-is, and decided that I can install the 4-bbl setup at a later date, once it's a driving vehicle. So now I simply need to get the engine peripherals cleaned up and re-installed, as well as drilling out three broken-off exhaust manifold studs from the cylinder heads.

After I was finally satisfied with the bodywork to the bed, I went ahead and got it bolted down to the frame. I ended up having to use two standard bolts, since the square cut-outs in the bed floor had rounded off enough that I was unable to tighten the the factory carriage bolts without them spinning around. (I wasn't worried about appearance since they'll be under the tonneau cover.) I then got started on trial-fitting the tailgate and attaching hardware. This tailgate has the full-size rear trim cover on it, which is dented up and will be removed. I haven't decided yet what to do with the cover's mounting holes in the tailgate yet, but I'll probably go ahead and just weld them up.