'71 F-250 Diesel conversion and more 01/10 starting back in

[Ranchero50]

Well, the mad dash to finish the cab before the mill arrived almost worked out. The cab has one very heavy coat of primer and I have an agreement with my neighbor to paint it when ready and he recommended waiting a couple weeks to let the 2k primer settle and cure before sanding on it. The cab looks really good in primer so it should paint out nice and smooth.

So on to the mill. Some pics showing the mill in position in the garage, right where the cab spent the winter.













Spent the day debugging a friend puter and then working on installing the phase converter and figuring out what conduit I'll need to run the wiring. Once the mill is making chips the bed is getting pulled back off the frame and the front clip is going into it's place and I'll start the body work on it. Goal is to have the front of the truck in paint before the end of the month, well maybe...

Jamie

[HRDROKN]

More pain... Why is it when you absolutely gotta have it done it goes to crap instead...

Fridays fiasco...

Look at the pictures and guess just what went wrong...

Hey.... I got a shirt that looks just like that!

[1971ford]

ive been eating lots of popcorn waiting for an update!

playing with your new mill is no excuse
well maybe

[Ranchero50]

Playing 773H with the new mill is more like it... Stupid encoder died on it the other week and I'm still waiting for parts. The truck is doing a great job as horizontal storage again. I did get to replace the front springs in my Ranchero this weekend and installed a new winch on my friend roll back. That was fun...

Jamie

[Ranchero50]

Been a while. Ironically while playing in the basement I found a couple boxes of old mustang parts I got many years ago. In one box was a ratty looking '69 stang rim blow steering wheel. I decided to clean it up a bit and put it in the ranchero just because. Started cleaning the funk off and saw where a PO had painted the center section and it was originally blue... Now I think it's going into the bump.

Jamie

[Ranchero50]

Finally an update worth mentioning. Last night decided to do the roller paint job and started cutting in the doors etc with a brush. It actually looks pretty good, some stroke marks etc, but the paint is going on nice. I'll get the roller stuff this evening and start the flat panels. should be an interesting experiment.

Jamie

[BiggDogg]

Finally an update worth mentioning.

I forgot you even had a truck

[Thunderfoot]

back to working on your truck!

[Ranchero50]

Yeah, did the first coat of paint last night. I was going to thin it, but ended up not having any clean thinner around so it went on straight with a foam 4" cabinet roller. It went on smooth and if I kept it to a light coat it didn't sag or run and looked really good, but it had a bunch of dirt in the paint. It took a while to remember that the open can I was using was the one that I had spilt all over the floor months ago and scooped back up and it was supposed to be used for the floors etc. Oh well, at least I'll be able to tell what's been wet sanded. After an hour of setup the orange peel effect has self levelled out of the paint and it was glass smooth (except for the dirt and dog hair etc.) I'm actually really impressed. Took about an hour to roll the cab and outside of the doors.

Looking back at it this morning there is no orange peel and you'd be hard pressed to tell it was rolled at all. If I had realised it would look this good I would have done it months ago.

I took some pics, but didn't get done until late last night. I'll try to post them this evening after I pull the front clip back inside and get it taken apart. I'm going to let the cab setup for a couple days and then wet sand it. The plan is once everything has one coat of wet sanded dirty paint on I'll pop the good stuff out and go back over it.

The bed seams are still trashed so I may just shove filler in there for now and close my eyes.

Jamie

[Ranchero50]

Pics;







Spent an hour this evening getting my DA to work again and going over some of the cab with 400 grit to remove the trash. Truck still looks pretty good and the trash is sanding out instead of smearing the semicured paint. The bad is it added a bunch of time to the bodywork. I also noticed that both doors need more smoothing work. PITA but I'm learning.

Jamie

[Ranchero50]

More learning, the paint has cured a good bit more and I'm working on the roof now. Stepped up to 220 grit to remove the primer splatter and trash as well. Maybe I'll take some pics tonight. An hour a night of snading doesn't get much done...

Jamie

[BiggDogg]

WoW that looks really good already!

[fomocoguy]

I just read this thread for the first time from the beginning, and this thing is gonna be a beast! However long it takes, you'll have something to really be proud of by the end, that's for sure. Some of us who haven't been around that long didn't even know you had a truck Can't wait for more updates!

[Ranchero50]

That's funny, I just wish the thing could move under it's own power. Back in the spring when I got the mill I figured it'd be done during the summer, even put the bed on it so I could work on the bedside seam. Well, the bed got filled with junk, then the cab got filled with junk, then to top it off the rim blow steering wheel sat on the air cleaner for a couple months... The lower shed is full of truck stuff, been that way for over a year. Half the wood shed has the front clip and hood in it. I found the spare tire halfway down in the compost pile and there was a reese hitch a foot under that...

With the truck on one side and the mill filling half the other I found I had a 6' x 10' area to work in and then I got two drill presses to share that space.

Last week I tossed the junk out of the bed onto the ground outside the garage, then caried the bed out and sat it on top of the junk. The front clip is now out in front of the woodshed under the shed roof. The hood is on the rear frame (nothings been done to the front clip or hood). The doors are leaning against the back wall again (they need more work).

My absolute goal right now is to get the cab in paint so I can get the driveline stuff hooked up so I can move it. Since I don't know what I'm doing with bodywork it take a while to get anywhere. Oh yeah, my big compressor crapped out last year so I get plenty of time to work on other projects while the air nuilds back up.

Jamie

[fomocoguy]

I know how you feel about the body work; I detest it. All the way to the point that I'll replace parts and beat dents out, but the finish work I'd rather just pay someone else to do. It drives me insane to go over something 5 or 6 times and still not have it come out right. I suppose if I had a good teacher and the right tools I'd probably be decent at it, but I've never had either of those. It would be nice to get it moveable, but just be careful you don't move it out and then pile stuff in it's place! I know how that goes...