Work on My F8, No. 11

[Jim Price]

Since Day 14 we've:

Unbolted the drive shaft at the joints. (The shaft is bent and the ends will need to be rewelded to a new section of pipe.)

Removed the transmission (Although the motor was gone the tranny was still in place!). This was no easy task as the cotter pins holding the linkage together were rusted in place. Finally had to cut one rod in half to get it out.

Unbolted the floor from the frame.

Used a torch to cut off the extension off of the back end of the truck frame as well as cut the front bed panel off of the bed extension.

Measured all parts of the original bed.

Loaded up the the old bed and took it to the scrap yeard. (It's condition was such that it could not be reused.) Got $43 USD out of it!

Took the doors, back bottom panel and roof/rear window section to the media blaster for stripping.

Talked to the body shop next door to the blaster about fabricating replacement panels where needed for all the above parts. (I get the quote back next week.)

Went to the metal fabricator with all the measurements on the truck bed to get a quote for replacing the floor and seat panel sections as well as a new tailgate. (I get the quote back on this work in a couple of weeks.) We're going to reuse the original front and end panels as well as fabricate our own floor support beams then reassemble the bed parts ourselves.

Daytime temperatures are still exceeding 110 F so am taking today, Day 18, off!