Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Linders
Thanks for that Tony and Keith so what do you think i should do, turn it into just a single cab or try and find blue prints and build the rear my self.
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My suggestion would be to restore it as a single cab and worry about the body later. That's my plan for the FGT9, it will get me on the road a lot sooner, and I can fabricate the body at my leisure in the shed. Building a FGT body from scratch is a major project in itself, with lots of nuisance bits to find or fabricate somehow, so it makes sense to do the vehicle project first. Plus it will be a lot easier to build in the shed than on the truck, and I can build it complete from nose to tail and have it painted and fully fitted out inside, ready to bolt on in a single operation and drive off down the road.
If you chose that route you'd need to buy or borrow another cab to get around in temporarily. However, if you can afford it, you'd be far better off to buy a complete running truck. If I were you I'd be looking around for a tidy F15A (SWB Ford 4x4 blitz) as a basis for this FGT project. That way you could be on the road almost immediately if you want, and you could upgrade the F15A chassis to FGT status at your leisure. That means transferring the winch associated components off your FGT chassis - crossmembers, fishplates, sidemounts, guide rollers, pigtails, plus relocating one existing crossmember. All holes for these components are pre-stamped on F15A chassis, there's no drilling or aligning to be done, just bolt them straight in and you have a FGT chassis, ready for a set of rear fairleads when you find some. The only welding required is a bead along the top sidemount brackets, which doesn't need to be done until you're ready to use the winch.
If you're not up for a whole new truck, the other alternative is to find a bare F15A chassis and start from there. That's what I'm doing, however if I had my time over I'd buy a complete running vehicle, hence my advice to you! In the long run it's probably cheaper, and certainly a lot easier, than trying to replace or repair the numerous missing or damaged parts on a FGT wreck individually.
Whichever way you go you'll definitely need another chassis, I promise you'll regret trying to salvage yours, for a whole lot of reasons. And if you ever did manage to get it on the road again, you'd regret it even more! If you can't find one up there I have a spare one you can have cheap, I'll dig out some pics shortly. Don't know what transport costs would be but it would save you a lot of grief in the long run.