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Project Frankensquare

jrsavoie said:
Illinois really sucks anymore.

How hard is a rust free cab to find?
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A couple popped up recently. Two of them were $1200 and one was $1500. I have $700 into patch panels, so yeah, I'm saving myself some money, but I'm starting to second-guess whether the savings are worth it. On the flip side, they don't make cabs anymore, so I am saving a cab that might otherwise get scrapped, so that's one more cab still out in the world. This is also an AC cab with a title, and I don't have to drive somewhere to get it, so it has some built-in value in those regards.
 
Today I got the passenger side pretty far along. First thing I had to do was change some of the door opening bracing so I could install the door. I hadn’t really thought about installing the doors when I embarked on this, but I was thinking lately that it made a lot of sense, so that’s where I started today.

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Once I got the door installed I started to work on getting the fit of the outer rocker correct. I had to make multiple cuts in the patch panel to get it to fit right unfortunately.

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That took a lot of time, but once done I moved on to the floor brace and cab mount. I had originally planned on doing rosette welds to replicate the factory spot welds, but decided to instead do perimeter welds so it would be sealed from the outside elements.

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I have a small patch to do in the vent area and then I can move on to the driver side. I’m saving the cab corner for later - I’ll get everything done on both sides except for the cab corners and then I’ll rotate the cab forward and work on both cab corners in the other position that should be more ergonomic.
 
Did you build a rotisserie for the cab so that you could access/repair anywhere without having to contort yourself to reach somewhere? Or is it resting on horses? Never did see how you're doing it, maybe I missed the photos earlier on. Looking good so far, Nate. Yes, it's tedious, but so worth the results when finally finished!
 
Husker6.5 said:
Did you build a rotisserie for the cab so that you could access/repair anywhere without having to contort yourself to reach somewhere? Or is it resting on horses? Never did see how you're doing it, maybe I missed the photos earlier on. Looking good so far, Nate. Yes, it's tedious, but so worth the results when finally finished!
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It's just sitting on 4x4s that are on jack stands. I thought about making a rotisserie, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to do it exactly, so I just did it the quick and dirty way.
 
I had a hell of a time this week getting the floor pan and inner rocker to fit like I did on the passenger side. So I decided I’d work backwards and get the door hung and outer rocker installed first and that would establish where the floor needed to fit. I got the outer rocker all welded in and nothing was fitting right. Something moved when I removed the door and I think I also just missed a measurement, so I had to cut the front of the outer rocker. After I did that I got the rest of the pieces in place and finally with some coaxing everything fits. Unfortunately I can’t just start welding, I need to take it apart and put some holes in the kick panel. I’m not looking forward to taking it apart and then getting it all to fit again, but oh well, that’s the job…..

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This is how much I had to spread the front back apart. I can’t believe how far off I was!

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EWC said:
Have you ever thought about the position of the cab as you are working on it ? That is not how the cab would mount on the truck . Maybe it has some "sag" to it and hanging it like that causes some pull in the wrong direction .
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I have considered that, and that is the reason I added the bracing while it was in the normally installed position. It’s challenging with so much metal removed because I don’t have a datum to measure off of - everything is just floating in space. Part of the issue I found was that I had also concerned myself with the door gap, but not the door frame itself and I ended up having the rocker somewhat twisted, though that was only part of my issue. I mostly just made a mistake and now I’m having to rework it unfortunately.
 
Finally got some time to make progress this weekend. Yesterday I got the parts all welded in on the driver side.

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Once that was done I started working on the back of the cab. First step was sandblasting the rear cab mount structure - it looked too hard to do a good job with a wire wheel, so that’s why I chose to blast it. It was a nasty job, but it worked so well that I decided to do the rest of the original floor pan as well.

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Today I started out carefully rotating the cab onto the cowl so the back would be in a good working height/position.

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The back is rustier than I hoped it would be - surprise, surprise.

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I got all the bad metal cut out on the driver side.

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I was able to get the floor and support around the seat belt bolt reconstructed and start fitting the inner cab corner.

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I spent over 4 hours today getting this cab corner to fit. The vertical radius didn’t match the cab so I had to hammer-and-dolly that to match. Then the horizontal radius didn’t match the door so I had to use the shrinker and stretcher on the flange…..however I also had to cut the flange off and remove metal so the depth of the corner would match the cab depth. So much work to make fit, but now it’s on and ready to grind welds down. IMG_6821.jpegIMG_6822.jpeg
 
I wasn’t able to work on the truck over the long weekend due to some traveling……but not all was lost - I found a couple 1973-74 GMC grills for a good price while in Wisconsin and picked them up. I’ve been trying to get one of these for this project for over 6 months and now I have both a silver one and a chrome one so I can choose which direction I want to go.

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Last night I got the cab corner mostly welded in, I just need to finish welding the flange back on and then grind the welds down. I’m really hoping to be able to paint the floor by the end of the weekend, but it’s going to be tight.

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n8in8or said:
I wasn’t able to work on the truck over the long weekend due to some traveling……but not all was lost - I found a couple 1973-74 GMC grills for a good price while in Wisconsin and picked them up. I’ve been trying to get one of these for this project for over 6 months and now I have both a silver one and a chrome one so I can choose which direction I want to go.

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Last night I got the cab corner mostly welded in, I just need to finish welding the flange back on and then grind the welds down. I’m really hoping to be able to paint the floor by the end of the weekend, but it’s going to be tight.

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I have a new appreciation for this effort after doing the rockers on my Yukon, glad your saving this one.
 
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