Coming together

Trevor ran into a problem with the rear doors. The OEM machine screws that hold the hinges to the body are too short to get through the quarter panel with the little bit of body filler that we had to use. I'll have to get my dad to help me find some longer ones. There is a set of black oxide screws in there now.


This is the second replacement gas tank that I have bought in the past month. Toyota still makes the original tank, but installed a return gas line in it, though the 1973 model year didn't have a return line from the carburetor. I decided to weld the return line shut on the tank to eliminate the danger of fumes in the cab.

Only we welded the wrong one. And it couldn't be repaired.

So I had to buy another one.


It looks good, doesn't it?

Assembly begins

Trevor has made great headway in assembling the front clip of my truck during the week. Both fenders, the aprons and the bib are all installed and it looks great.



Before I left, he was test-fitting the rear half doors. You can see the bed filled with painted parts awaiting installation.



Anthony is the man who is doing all of the paint work for my truck. He's done a great job, though I think he wanted to do this in two-stage paint. Single-stage paint is apparently tricky, especially after years of two-stage work.

Done painting for now

For now, we are done painting things beige, at least until we start on the hard top, and we can start assembling the truck. The bib, hinges, cowl vent and spare tire rack turned out really nicely.



The uupper door frames, rear half doors, kick vents and running boards look so good now that they are all shiny and new looking.



From what Trevor said, the driver's door was a real m ess and it had a twist in it that he was able to fix by welding a few beads across it to bend it with the heat. They look straight as an arrow now and really show nicely under that new paint.

Piece by piece

Back inside, the progress to pint all of the pieces of my truck has begun in earnest.



The fenders turned out very nicely, though you can see that the bezel, which is supposed to be an off white, was painted beige along with the other parts. Oops! I should have put that in a box somewhere out of the way.



Next is a big box of parts, including the rear half doors, the bib, hinges, the fuel door and kick vents.

Wow

The tub and cowl have been painted and are spending the next few days outside to finish curing. It looks so good that I found myself returning again and again outside to stare at it.



The seam beneath the windshield frame where the upper cowl panels meet leaked water when it rained, but now it's all closed up with new seam sealer and it looks absolutely amazing.



The hood and the windshield frame were painted as well, along with the tub. They look great.

Pieces

The fenders were roughed and made ready for primer. I probably should have saved the original ones since there was so little rust in them, since the OEM replacements are sort of catch-alls that fit every year and therefore don't truly fit any year. There is a bracket on the passenger side that won't be correct, but they will finish out really nicely so it's probably worth it. Nothing like new parts.



The bib was rust-free for the most part, though we had to repair holes that were drilled to accommodate a pair of makeshift padlocks that was installed at some point in this truck's life.



I don't think that anyone is looking forward to refinishing the fiberglass roof or taking out all of the glass in the top. It and the clip from an old Corvette are both in the "we don't wanna do it" corner of the shop.

Paint

They were able to paint the bed of the truck over the last week and it looks so good. I went with the original, single-stage paint to keep the original look. The color is Dune Beige, PPG 416. The guys thought I was silly for using single stage paint, but that's how it was painted in 1972 and I wanted to keep it as it was.



Next we are going to start painting the parts like the hood, which turned out so good.



Removing the years of weather stripping glue from around the doors took work with a torch and a speed wheel, but they are looking great.