And it still continues...

(06/18/04) This picture is a little hard to figger out, but it's the inside of the rear cab corner...or what's left of it.

I decided to try something different, just for the heck of it. I filled it with fiberglass resin after masking it off and dealing with leaks. It took a few tries, but it's solid now. I still need to lay some Bondo on the outside to smooth it out.

Then I cleaned up the whole floorboard and the backside of the cab and hit it with a coat of Zero-Rust.

And while the fuel tank was out, I emptied it, checked for any unidentified objects in it (I've found all sorts of things in gas tanks before) and painted it with silver Rustoleum.

(06/19/04) The back wall of the cab got a coat of Summer (Safety) Red Rustoleum...the same red I've been using everywhere else...and will use to paint the rest of the interior sheet metal.

(06/22/04) Then I got the tank back in. I made a new cork gasket for the sender opening and vented the filler cap. Now I don't have gas smell every time I get in when the tank's over half full. Btw, I looked and looked for a ready-made gasket and there were none to be found...at least where I looked. So I finally asked a parts counter man if he had some cork gasket material. He looked it up and sure enough, he had a roll big enough to make 50 tank gaskets...and for just a coupla dollars. He asked me what I was gonna do. I told him that I was going to make my own gaskets. From his reaction, you woulda thought that I'd told him that I was gonna seal the cab air tight and fly it to the moon. He was amazed that someone would do such a strange thing. Kids...what can ya say?

I was gonna do some other stuff...like put a carpet kit in...but a coupla things happened. First, I needed to drive the truck to a business meeting. It sounds funny, but some of the people I work with don't know my name...but greet me as, "Ugly Truck": "Hey there, Ugly Truck, how's it goin?". This is done in a real friendly way...and if I've made some progress they'll come out with me to see what I've done. So I had a meeting scheduled at this facility and wanted to show off what had been done. The other issue was the fact that I plan to take the truck to the Bonneville Salt Flats for Speed Week. I won't be racing at that event (I hope to at World Of Speed in September) but I wanna take the truck (now known as the Ratt Truk) out there to use as a pit truck and just for the sheer hell of it.

I got thinkin about all the salt that would get tracked into it and decided to delay the carpet (and possibly seat covers) until after LSR season. So I put the seat and floor mat back in and made it driveable for the time being. It was received with many comments of, "You're gonna have to get rid of that license plate. It ain't ugly no more."

(06/24/04). When I cut the coils outta the front end, it really made for a radical rake. So I went on another parts quest to find spring clamps. You'd think that they were more of them "voyage to the moon" parts. I had to hunt all over town before I found a place (NAPA) that carried them. But when I got 'em, I had to modify the hell outta the things. I had to re-drill the bolt holes cuz they were too narrow to straddle the spring coil and I had to grind the brackets because it appears that they were made for coil springs in little rice-mobiles...or maybe ball-point pens. Then I had to make my own bolts from all-thread rod, since the bolts that came with the clamps were too short. I ended up dropping the rear end about an inch and a half...and I'll prolly go for another inch before I'm thru.

Here's how it sat on 06/26/04 after the spring clamp adventure.

Next page: The long-awaited motor project.

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