Toyota Pickup

At the time of writing, the truck is in a bit of a stand still due to a battle with the weather. It’s time to put the first coat on the top side of the frame finally but winter has come and the metal is too cold to paint, with no help from the sun since it is on the south side and gets blocked by trees now. #Redneck

I had quite a lot of thinking to do after I got most of the rework sorted out. Some of which came out just wonderfully. Some not so much and took me a few tries waiting on wind to die down.

So, naturally, I started out with cardboard 😀 I knew for sure I needed to make a better patch for the break in the frame that I had hastily fixed up some years ago now. It’s held pretty well but after all of this I couldn’t leave it that way. I also removed old spring and shock mounts for the rear end, and I became a bit worried about the grind marks in those areas, so I patched them just in case because I’m a worry wart.

After all the patches, and a fun little plate for a special touch, it was finally time to work on the top of the frame. Finishing up rework on the welds on the top took me a good while, I was Tired of cutting and grinding. Then I had to get the axle staged so I could set the shock hoops in the Correct position this time. After a few retries a friend helped me get them damn near perfect. Never underestimate a construction worker or a carpenter 😛

This is going to make it hard to put the cab back on. We’ll have to cut holes in the fenders to fit the hoops in their new position. But that’ll be better than having them sticking out like… I don’t know, something that sticks out.

After the hoops were on I took a step back for a few days and just hunted down things I wanted to perfect before it was time to paint on. Lots of scraping as well.

Not Perfect welds but a heck of a lot better than they were before. The backsides of the hoop supports weren’t even welded before, for that matter. Damn that looks cool all mounted up <3.<3.

Finally it’s time for Paint! First I gave it an acid bath, which I quite possibly did a bit wrong since it was 110 degrees outside and the acid wash was burning off faster than I was supposed to let it sit prior to hosing it down. But probably it’s better than nothing, right? Hopefully so, although it is weird that the Gray paint is curing in olive green. I’m not really Mad about it, cause it’s still pretty dope looking, so I guess it’s a happy surprise.

Quite a lot of pictures and writing for One part it feels like. But this is our frame, the base layer to the whole truck. So I’m glad I was able to spend some time making it… well almost perfect, for me, anyways.

She sits under a broken ez-up and a tarp, looking like a redneck inside my front fence. But I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and be proud of a decent restoration from my front yard.

Until next time 😀

funcyChaos