Reaching the end

Anthony mixed up a final batch of beige paint and we painted the header from which the rear hatch is hung, and the new set of door hinges that I picked up after the welting that is vulcanized to them was removed accidentally.



We also shot the hard top sides, the headers for over the door ways, and the spare tire gate.

Glue

And speaking of Hector, he's been working to replace the brow on the drip rail. They decided to glue it into place instead of using the row of rivets. I had my doubts, but I expect that they know what they are talking about. You can see it clamped as the glue is setting up.

The piece comes from Cool Cruisers of Texas, and it fit beautifully.



The only rust we found in the top, apart from the drip rail, was a bit of surface rust at the rear corner of one of the side panels. Once we rough this up a bit, it will be ready to prime and paint.

On to the dreaded top

Trevor took out the myriad dents that were in the rear hatch after years of slamming it with something in the bed and is getting it ready to prime.


Probably the most difficult part of this project is working with the fiberglass cap on the hard top. It's riveted to a drip rail that goes around the cap and is in turn bolted to the sides of the hard top. It is dry and in need of some gel coating, and the steel drip rail is badly rusted. The brow must be replaced and refastened to the cap.

I'm glad Hector is doing this.

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.