Calf's 69 Crew build, and CNM67's 67 shorty build

[sargentrs]

Way to go Rich and Caleb!

[Calfdemon]

We got all new brake lines on the shortbed frame, and this Monday is the day that we tear Caleb's truck into pieces and put it on the shortbed frame. If all goes well, the goal is to have the truck driving as a shortbed that night. We will see...

In the meantime, I started putting my 460 back together. Got the new cam in, along with the new heads and everything else to go with it... Got the new lifters, pushrods, and rocker assembly done today. Got the engine a few new coats of Ford Dark Blue, and got the Edelbrock Performer on. Still need to paint the other bolt ons... Going gloss black with all of the pulleys, alternator, steering pump, and brackets.

Here are a couple pictures as it sits on the stand tonight.. The valve covers on it are not the ones I am using as these are dented and have the smog brackets on it. Thanks to Bobbyford, I have another pair of dent free stock valve covers without the smog brackets. They will still be the same Dark Blue, so it will look just like this when done.




It truly is amazing what a couple of coats of engine paint will do...

[sargentrs]

Beautiful, Rich! Great work!

[CNM67]

Hey I helped with that (pats himself on the back)

[sargentrs]

Yay Caleb!

[BobbyFord]

Hey I helped with that (pats himself on the back)

Did you hide any of the parts?

[Calfdemon]

No, but he lost a bunch of my tools!!

[BobbyFord]

[Calfdemon]

Ok, so today we got started on the longbed to shortbed swap at about 9am. It was already almost 100 degrees out and muggy as all hell thanks to the rain we randomly got a few days ago... Needless to say, it peaked at about 110 today while we were working on this swap. We couldn't touch the black frame with bare skin for most of the day.

Here we are at 9am this morning when the longbed was pulled into the spot next to the shortbed frame. Hood up, and starting with the front bumper removal:


2 hours in and with some scalding heat, we had the front clip removed, doors off, cab emptied, and things were moving right along:



Unfortunately, we ran into a few unexpected delays with the transmission that was in the longbed. It will not mate with the shortbed driveshaft. So after running over to my house to get the other T18 from the shortbed, and a few other stops for food and supplies, we ended up running out of time to get the engine and trans pulled before our friends showed up with some extra muscle to help move beds and cabs. The buddies that came over to help after they got off work were only available for about 2 hours, and we used that to move the shortbed onto the frame, and get the cab over from the longbed frame. Due to us not getting the drivetrain pulled, this made the cab swap take a LOT more time than we originally hoped for. We got it done, but did not get everything we wanted to get done involving 5 sets of hands. Here is how the truck sat after the shorbed was put on and the cab moved over:



And here is the extremely messy 352 still on the longbed. Too bad we dont have the 390 built yet as it would be so much nicer to just drop it straight in rather than have to pull this 352 twice...


By 10pm tonight, we had the power steering moved over and steering back in the truck, brake system fully hooked up, interior of the cab all back together, gas tank installed, both doors put back on and aligned, and driveway pressure washed. This picture was taken before the driver's door was put on. Front clip is just sitting in place for now since it needs to come off for the engine install:


Unfortunately, there is still quite a bit of work to do to make this a driving truck again, but hopefully we can get it done on Wednesday... we will see. If not, its going to sit for a while because I have family coming into town this weekend and Caleb is having surgery next week. So until he recovers, nothing will get done to these trucks. Hopefully it is a little cooler on Wednesday and we can complete this project!

[tylerb43]

This is awesome work, guys!! Sorry you didn't get as far as you wanted, but you've done a ton of work in one day. I hope you have a productive Wednesday, and can't wait to see pics of the finished truck!! It's just amazing what you can do when you have the right help.

[sargentrs]

I can't believe you did all that in one day. I'm exhausted just reading about it. Great job!

[BobbyFord]

Damn, you guys got a lot done.

[460tzilla]

When you guys get together you sure do get alot done,love all the pics..

[Calfdemon]

Thanks for the kudos... Well, it isn't going to be any cooler tomorrow. In fact, it is supposed to be hotter... so life is going to suck.

Going to try and get an 8am start on it tomorrow since Caleb has to be at work at 2pm. So we only have the morning hours to get as much done as we can.

Here is the list off the top of my head for what is left to do to the shorty:

Clean and paint (spray bomb) the engine compartment
Pressure wash the 352 and get the 45 years of gunk off of it
Separate the 352 from the T18 tranny on the longbed, and pull the 352
Hook the 352 up to the other T18 that came with the shortbed so it will work with the driveshaft
Mount the 352 and tranny in the shortbed
put the front clip, bumper, and hood back on the shorty
Hook up all the wiring
Reinstall the radiator and coolant
Hook up the e-brake cable
Start the truck and hope it drives
Clean the driveway

Thats a long list to get done in an approximate 5 hour window in 110 heat, but we will see how it goes. If we can at least get the motor and tranny moved over, and the front clip and hood on before Caleb leaves for work, I can do the rest of the work myself since I can stay longer. I dont want to try lifting and moving that much steel by myself. My 42 year old body cant quite do what my 21 year old mind thinks it can anymore.. More progress pics will be posted tomorrow night.

[Calfdemon]

Well, just to sum up the day in one word.... Defeat.

So going off the list that I posted previously, this is how it went down.

Decided not to paint the engine bay right now as we are going to be pulling the 352 again for the rebuilt 390, and decided to save time and paint it later.
Decided not to pressure wash the 352 as again, it is just going to get pulled again in the near future. So just scraped about a half inch of crud off of the large areas so it wasn't quite as greasy.
Pulled the entire engine and T18 from the longbed frame and sat it down to separate the transmission, and bolt in the other T18 transmission. Then did said swap of transmissions.

ATTEMPTED to put the engine and transmission in the shorty truck. Here is where the day just went to hell on us. The distance between the crossmember under the firewall, and the top of the transmission hump where the tranny needs to go is 15 inches. The distance between the bottom of the transmission and the top of "snout" where the stickshift goes is 18 inches. There is a 3 inch difference that we fought with for hours trying to get the transmission in. We thought about taking the tranny off and turning it sideways to get it in place and mounting it, but that was too much weight for the 2 of us to mess with, and then trying to line up tranny with the clutch and bellhousing would have been a nightmare. We tried every different angle we could think of. It just will not clear. The only solution we can think of is unbolting the cab again and then lifting it up about 4 inches while we work the engine and tranny into place. Then we can set the cab back down once the tranny is in place. But there were only 2 of us there and had no access to anyone else. So it will have to be done at a later date. The 352 and tranny are now sitting on the floor of the garage and the only thing we were successful in doing on that list was hooking up the e-brake cable, and washing the driveway.

It was crazy hot today, and then the frustration of not getting anything done just screwed today up. Oh well, going to have to find another day to get this stuff done, but going to have to line up some help and Caleb has surgery next Tuesday and will be down for 2 months of recovery, so looks like it will just be me and whoever I can enlist to help.... Man, the beer and food bill is going to be huge!

Anyway, not much to look at, but here are a couple pics I took of our failure...

At least the bed, door, and cab all line up...


The bane of our existence before we moved it from where it has lived for 45 years


Caleb pressure washing 45 years of grime off of the clutch lever


What we though was success, only to be severely disappointed later.. An empty longbed frontend


The 352 out of the truck with both T18's waiting in the wings


And the last picture taken before the mood turned nasty... The 352 mated up with the other T18 for the shortbed.


No pictures were taken after this because every hand was used trying to maneuver that hoist around on the slanted driveway and trying to fit the engine and tranny into a place that it did not want to go. Instead of colorful pictures, there was plenty of colorful language.

Oh well, more updates another time when we try this fiasco again!