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Boy, what a weekend. Enjoyed the concert seeing the Dropkick Murphy's and Skinny Lister was pretty good too, did take us a day to get our hearing back to normal though.
Went to Branson Friday after work/school and made a 3 1/2 hour drive in 3 hours to get to Lamberts and have dinner before they closed. We get to the hotel where the conference was and they were doing renovations, so the walls were all freshly painted, the pool and hot tub were closed....
Went to the Conference Saturday and was watching the weather. At the dinner we talked to some locals and found out that they had announced locally that the roads wouldn't be treated till after the storm was over so we decided to haul *** home that night instead of being stuck there for who knows how long waiting on the roads. Made the whole trip through freezing mist up to the last 10 miles and my dually lost traction going up the last big hill and there we set for a while.
I called the county and told them how bad that section of highway was after we watched an all wheel drive car go up it sideways with two guys trying to help push it, several 4x4's **** near landed in the deep ditches, etc... So we waited an hour till the county salt/sand truck arrived, and watched him almost loose it and then get stuck. He let us know that he called in another truck and was waiting on another truck to help get him out and get going again. 2 hours later, the second truck showed up and we watched him slide down the hill sideways right toward us as he was going. He managed to get the front end flipped back around and ended up right behind the stuck truck. He worked his way backwards up the hill coating the hill and then they both were able to get going again down the rest of the hill. We followed them the rest of the way home and then hit the 2 miles of icy gravel roads to the house.
Today was spent getting hay out to the cows, feeding them and all the other animals in the all day sleet storm, and then a little bit out in the shop with the outside temps at 10 degrees with a windchill of -11. The shop was a balmy 42 degrees.
In the shop, I welded in that top plate to add additional metal where the body mount goes on the back driver side mount. Then added a filler plate on the bottom side of the area. Now I need to cut the rotted metal out on the underside and get a new piece of 16 gauge welded in place.
[img]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3810/12893824295_063f8824f9_b.jpg
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Finished welding up the body mount this evening and plugged the last hole in the bottom of the cab. The one hole left I'm going to use to route my shifter cable through. I'm down to filling the wiper holes in the top of the cab and replacing the rusted out sheet metal along the back of the cab. So tomorrow I'm hoping to get that back metal replaced, but before I can do that, I've got to go get my bottle of C25 refilled as I just about ran out tonight finishing up those welds.
I think it's going to be a race to get this truck done before the season starts. There is just so much still to do. I picked up my epoxy primer today and I've ordered my Reverse pattern PPP shifter, hopefully it will arrive in a week or so. This Friday, I will have 8 weeks left to get the truck done. I think it's going to be a race till the first race....Comment
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Finished filling in some cracks and crevices on the bottom of the cab to help keep mud out of the cab of the truck tonight, then set the cab back up right and started cutting material out of the back of the cab where it's rusted out. Have it all cut out and a piece of it ready to be welded in tomorrow.
Got a late start tonight because I had to pickup another tank of C25 for the mig and 7 more bags (all they had) of fine blasting sand. Weather is supposed to be good Friday so I'm hoping to be able to get a lot of sand blasting done while the weather holds. Hopefully I can get it all done Friday.
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Woke up before dawn today so I spent some time out in the shop making replacement pieces of sheet metal and getting them welded in place for the back of the cab after I finished a big cup of coffee. Then at 8am, I made the grueling commute back to the house dodging piles of horse and cow crap to my office on the couch. I love working from the house....
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Finished welding in the new metal this afternoon during my lunch break. After work, it was starting to get dry out from the snow and rain, so I went back to sand blasting. Managed to get the front bed panel sand blasted and one side of the other bed side done before it got dark.
[img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7314/12980176863_6a280ebf1f_b.jpg
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Finished blasting the cab of the truck today, took 800lbs of sand to finish it. I've been trying to recover as much as I could as I blasted, but with the wind gusts up to 30mph today, felt like I could just throw the sand in the air and it would have been quicker.
On a side note, the sand is mixing in nicely with the non draining clay soil I have and making a better entrance into the shop for the first bay. Next round, I'm going to move over a bay and add sand to the muddy ground there.
We have the cab laying on the back side now and I've cleaned it with the por 15 wax and grease remover, washed it with water, then dried it, then coated it in the metal prep for 20 minutes and washed that off. Now I'm waiting till the morning to give the bottom a coat of por 15.
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Today was a por day. Weather sucked, with the high occurring at 6am this morning and rainy and occasional sleet for most of the day. So I wasn't able to get any sand blasting done, but I managed to get 2 coats of por 15 applied to the bottom of the cab and also on the body mounts on the frame and the bed frame. I needed those covered before I put the cab back on.
While waiting for the por to dry, I finished welding the last two inches on each side of each wheel opening filler panel, fixed a few holes that sand blasting created or showed up on the fenders. I also welded a piece of 1/8" x 1 1/2" strap across the top of the front bed panel to give it a bit more strength since I cut the top round piece off of it.
I made the filler panels for the front grill and lower grill. Fixed the dents in the grill housing and then put a filler panel in the top of the grill housing where the radiator cap would have been.
Just washed off the por wash off the firewall and the back half of my truck frame, will let it dry over night and then apply the por metal prep in the morning so by mid day I can get them all coats of por 15 / chassis black.
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Busy day today. Started off by washing the firewall and frame with metal prep, then washed it off after 20 minutes. While waiting for them to dry, I started sand blasting parts for the truck. Over the coarse of the day, I got the grill, hood, lower grill and finished the other side of the last bedside.
Since Friday morning, I've gone through 1200lbs of sand blasting metal. All I have left to blast are the two doors and two front fenders.
We finished up the day with mounting the cab back onto the frame of the truck. Talked to my brother today and we are going to plan on putting the cage in it next weekend. So while I'm waiting on that, I'm going to finish sand blasting metal, fix a few dents in the hood and weld up a few holes I found while blasting it.
Gave my son a turn at the sand blaster
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