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With the complex and time consuming painting finished, it is now time for reassembly of all the parts removed for the finish work. No particular sequence, but the big deal is when the
bed and chassis come together again. Today, that happened.
All the glass joined the cab. Closing of the doors has taken on a new, solid sound.
At home, much sanding application of spar varnish to the
bed wood. Spar does not fill well, and takes up to 20 hours to dry between coats. Time, time, time. I finally just stopped, and loaded the wood into the GMC for installation. After thorough drying, the wood will be
carefully sanded with 400 grit and a final brush coat of Spar will be applied. Later.
The process of installing the wood was not as I expected. I assumed that each piece would be carefully aligned and bolted
in place with the polished stainless hardware. Not so. After messing with 3 pieces for an hour or so, Jeff took pity on me, and told me just to put it all in the bed, put in all of the bolts, stainless bedstrips and
don't worry about aligning. I did what he suggested, and after just a little pushing and pulling, the wood was in. Jeff helped me align and tighten each bolt...the bed was square, and the job was finished.
Next, we drilled the holes in the bed wood for the chassis mounting bolts. Then, 4 of us lifted the bed onto the chassis. Some pushing, pulling and the bolts went through, nuts on, and locked down. OW REALLY LOOKS
GOOD!
We looked at each other, and Jeff suggested that we install the tailgate. Some trials, switching of installation order, and it was on...fits perfectly. With a little bending and swapping of parts,
Carter and I installed the tailgate latches. We all worked on the tailgate cables...on they went. More pictures.
Carter and I did the tail lights, Jeff installed the last window. We talked about the next
steps of:
- Final polish (in process right now)
- Rear bumper, door gaskets & bumpers, door sills, door panels.
- Nit-picking (Carter and Jeff walk around OW and examine the finish for any imperfections. They are marked and fixed.
- Striping. This will be the last step, with our ideas of striping takes form with masking tape, critiqued, modified, agreed, and painted.
- Clear coat this, and another cut and polish over the striping.
- Final washing
Back home on Friday: AC controls, glove box, stereo. Touch up chassis and wheel paint, additional 1 inch on front wheel spacing. Chase down seat belts at Dillon, install. Find speedo
cable, install. Trial/error, design, install parking brake cable. Clean, Clean. To United for the carpeting.
Back to Eagle Chevron next week, the defective transmission will be exchanged and the multiple
spark/rev limiter will be installed.
By this time our application for the Car Show in Boise will have been processed. We might know if we made the class we applied for. OW will be at the Fairgrounds from
11-14 March. Lights, slideshow, storyboard, specifications, handouts, credits all have to be arranged.
Sometime in between all of this, OW will enter the crusin' line in downtown Boise on Saturday night.
Also, a party for the major contributors: Brent, Tom, Jeff, Carter.
And, I have promised all of the others that worked on OW to take her by for a visit. Must do.
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