Why do I do this again?

Tonight started out tough. I knew I had to do some work that I really wasn't looking forward to... Interior, Steering, and Brakes. Each of them I really don't care for in their own respect. After the aligning of the front clip to the cab and my solution for cab mounts, I was feeling pretty confident in tackling more.

Originally this truck came with cruise control, but somewhere down the line the steering wheel got changed out to this really 80's retro Grant GT wheel and the cruise control controls (yeesh!) got ditched. Well, I'm not one for frilly frilly crap in my trucks, it had to go, along with all the wiring that goes with it.

Yanking the whole steering column was on my list anyway because of changing over to a stick shift and Jack originally having manual steering and the larger wheel. Not to mention that little wheel and gay shifter lever just wasn't going to cut it regardless. So while the column was out, the pedal assemblies had to come out too so I could put in the clutch pedal mounts and linkages. It was the perfect opportunity to get at all the wires, and boy, did I.

The awesome part of spending 1 1/2 hours on your back on the floor board of the truck looking up while dust and dirt falls in your eyes is the simple fact that when you're done, you have a pile of crap laying outside on the concrete floor and when you turn the key, it'll still start and the headlights and radio still come on. I got lucky- the ONLY wire in this entire truck so far that was cut was the one black lead to the windshield wipers where somebody put in a delay system. Since my truck won't ever see rain, at least not intentionally, I could really care less about that stuff and soldered and heat-shrinked up the splice. I moved into the engine bay, plugged everything in, and presto- wiring was done.

On to the steering column and pedals. Here's where another surprise came in. Apparently, when you have manual steering, you have 3 more holes drilled into your firewall and a brace that gets bolted to it with a big clamp that goes around the lower steering column tube. Makes perfect sense to me as the torque you are putting to the wheel would cause that lower assembly to try to walk all over.

A quick few holes and some bolts, and that was all fixed up. Noteworthy also, the opening hole was larger in this cab than in the highboy cab and the gasket hardly fit.

I had some time to kill, so I figured I'd tackle setting the bed down on the frame and seeing how screwed I was... Well, pretty screwed, and I'll save that for a future post. One thing I did learn however, all that time spent on the front clip and cab making it perfect on the frame? Yeah, it all gets to be redone. Since the bed was gingerly set on the frame, and none of the crossmembers lign up, I spent some time getting the bed square and level.

One thing I immediately noticed after doing so, was the bed in relation to the cab and the fact the cab and front clip have a rake to them. They are raked nose-forward. This is HUGE. When I added the 1 inch body lift, the front bumper on the stock brackets BARELY fits around the grill shell. If it was even 1/4 of an inch higher, the bumper wouldn't fit properly, and it's not easy to make higher new front bumper brackets. I just don't want to either. So to take the rake out of the cab, I have 3 options.

1. Remove shims under front cab mounts and core support mounts and hope I can use rear cab bolts to smash down the mounts and re-level lower on frame.

2. Relocate front bumper higher and shim nose and front cab mounts higher to match rear cab mounts.

3. Say screw it, and just mount the bed at an angle like the cab, although this would be a nightmare to make each crossmember brace shim at a different height- so, that's not going to happen.

Yeah, I guess it's option number 1, and I'll be unbolting everything once again... Argh. Here are some teaser shots of what's to come. It's looking better and better by the day. And yes, I know the bed doesn't line up. Didn't we just go over that? :-) Haha