Do I feel bad or good?

It was Jack's turn to get torn down. I actually wasn't looking forward to this. I wasn't taking it apart to fix it up or restore anything, I was taking apart my lovely brown disco-rig and ditching that '70's look and feel for the last time. It hurts. I've become attached to those big, thick cream stripes and ginger bronze body color. So I feel a little bad. What I don't feel bad about is getting rid of that gawd-awful teal and grey bed I used just for hauling scrap because it wasn't rotten where the tailgate went like the original bed.

So, same process as before. Lots more work, bagging and tagging nuts and bolts. This one didn't come apart nearly as nice as the '77. After sitting outside the last 8 years, even the never-seized bolts were seized. I actually only snapped one- the radiator support mount bolt. Since it did snap and didn't round over, now that the front clip is off, I can easily finish torching it out.

This is where it's nice to have friends for the heavy lifting. Or I should say, friends with heavy equipment! One of my buddies lives up the street and owns his own landscaping / excavating business. Today we nabbed the mini-excavator with just the thumb on it. :-)

Jared has proved to be invaluable for things I cannot even think about doing myself. I spend my labor and time working on his old trucks and such, and he basically lets me borrow heavy equipment at whim. Couple of straps to the cab and poof, about 5 hours later, the ole' 76 is down to it's birthday suit.

While the mini-ex was still around, I managed to barter the use of the machine for the scrap value of the old body panels. Little did Jared know how much of a favor he was doing me by getting rid of it.


And now the moment I had been waiting for after 3 days of working myself into the ground. The official merging of the two trucks by putting the blue cab onto Jack's frame. here is a sneak peak!!! Can anybody say "Bigfoot"? I actually got goose-bumps!