Being my truck is a 1960 model (as I am), and is going to be 60 years old this year, I decided it would make a nice birthday present to myself. I bought this truck some time ago and
it is in the Gallery.I stripped the truck a couple of years ago to prepare it for this rebuild. I had also stripped another parts truck for the nuts and bolts.
I took the bolts out and, after de-greasing them, I threw them in a bucket of vinegar. Then I scrubbed them clean, dried them, and bead blasted all of them. Some of them I ran a tap and die over to make sure the threads were clean and sharp. Then I took them to a local zinc plating shop and when I got them all back they looked like new again. I spent a lot of time on them but in the end it all seemed worth it, and I sorted them out. I even took the original jack and cleaned it up and zinc plated it too. I'm not doing a restoration so it didn't need to be original.
After removing the body from the chassis, engine, transmission, rear end and front suspension, I bolted up a 1985 front engine cradle, suspension and rear end. Then I brought the chassis to a guy to have it blasted. Now that is a little backwards, but when I bolted up my newer engine cradle and suspension, I cleaned and painted everything that was mated together first.
I got it home and used epoxy primer and then black equipment enamel to paint the whole thing.
As I disassembled components, I cleaned and painted where the blaster couldn't get. All new bushings, bearings, rotors, rear drums, etc.
I disassembled the trailing arms and found a kit that welded steel on top and bottom of the trailing arm to beef them up a bit. I ordered a trailing arm bushing kit and got the old bushings out ... then the new bushings arrived. They came with sleeves, but none would fit. When I read the "destructions" it said not to remove the old sleeves, and to reuse them. I destroyed the little buggers taking them out, so I ordered some stock replacements.
