Here is another current view of my truck. I just put new 30-9.50R15 radials on it about a month ago. Man, what a difference that made in the ride of this truck!

Here's the Ga4 grey color you asked about. This is not my car.

It's a nice color. Is there a very slight tinting of green in there?

Monday night, March 24, 2009. I came back to the shop about 6:30pm and stayed until 9:30pm. Continued paint/primer/rust removal was the goal this evening...

The A pillars are in good shape.

I took the opportunity to straighten out some dents and dings on the B pillar while I was there. Thirty years of wear will take some time to correct...

The cab had another speedometer in it, one which still has the needle intact. I'm going to switch to the older style speedometer (0 to 100mph).

In addition, I'm going back to the original '73 dash and bezel. I'm missing a glove box door, so I'll be on the lookout for one of those - in black please.

Looking good

Arrggh! I went to help a friend on a Chebby this morning (March 28) - precip is mostly rain with sleet falling. My truck cab leaks worse than ever! Now it's leaking onto my steering column while I drive. There is almost a thin stream of water coming down the left "A" pillar. I have gotta get this cab done sooner rather than later....

My son, Caleb, is back from Iraq for leave this weekend, so I'll be spending time with him instead of working on the cab.

Metal for the floor pans is ordered. Now to see about a welder...

April 4th, 2009.

The weather is nice in Joplin this weekend - the highs are in the 70's today, Saturday.

I picked up the 18ga steel that I'm using to form new floor pans. I decided to build them from scratch for several reasons. First, I want to. Second, I'll save enough money to offset the cost of a decent mig welder for the project. Third, I want to use 18ga instead of 19ga or 20ga for the pans. Since this isn't a show truck, I'm not concerned that someone can see underneath that it's had floor pans welded in.

So, we began...

I had an idea for several weeks about how to proceed with the floor pan. I decided to make as much of a "one piece" pan that I could. So, I mapped the 48" x 30" piece of 18ga to the old floor pan and marked the bend areas...

The edge will have a double bend where it meets the rocker panel; it's sort of an "S" shape in sectional view. It would help if I had a large sheetmetal brake! I had to make do with these tools:

(Note to self: get a pneumatic panel cutter! 18ga is rough to cut with tin snips! )

The first bends I tackled were the side rocker areas. Then I bent the front incline. Not bad, so far...

I cut out a "V" shape for the side wall to the seat mounting. I'll add another piece in this area later. The remaining large flap was bent in two places to replicate the factory bends. Here's what I ended up with. The rear section still has to be trimmed. I gave up using the snips; I used a die grinder with a cutoff wheel.

I had two helpers today. There never seems to be an end to this paint removal...

The roof seems well in hand, though...

I dug out the original dash structure to clean up and paint - while we're at it. That's about all we had time for today - we got started late. I have a new deadline: October. Tags are due.

Week of April 6th through 11th: Since this was Easter week, I didn't have much time to work on the cab. I spent the last two week's evenings and Saturday, the 11th, writing 3 music soundtracks for Easter service. Still, since work was not too busy, I managed to fabricate the right side of the floor pan.

Another shot from a different angle. I will use the center "high spot" part of the floor pan with the new sheet metal. Since I have a removable 4x4 hump cover, I'll use that as a template once I trim and weld the metal in place on the front, back, and sides. More to come...