Monday June 27

Hooray! My favorite part! Shooting paint and or primer. This was however preceded by sanding, and filler, and more sanding. The fenders are both primered now and ready for another round of sanding. They just aren't blemish free yet.

Marc finished filling in the patch work he did on the corners of the cab and they are looking very nice. The weather is supposed to be a little cooler here the next day or two, so we're trying to get more sanding done before it's back up to 100 degrees again.

Sunday June 26

It's hot here, very hot. Marc spent the day in and out of the garage trouble shooting the wiring. It's been frustrating trying to get the two systems to work together.
Instead he will be taking off the manifold, carb, and distributor and replacing them with ones that aren't computer controlled. There is a certain amount of irony in in the fact that he is removing the computerized portion of the engine.

Saturday June 25

Marc spent today attempting to get the injectors to fire.  It is proving difficult to find the correct wire in the 93 to connect with the correct wire in the 82. We're thinking this will call for a new plan of action or at least choice of how the motor will run.

On a bright note, the firewall is sanded and painted.

Friday June 24

Today was a day of wiring. Marc is attempting to get the 93 computer wired up to the 82 wire harness and in the 58 cab. As this isn't very exciting, there are no photographs of Marc puzzling over the wire engine octopus and the wiring diagrams.

Thursday June 23

It's alive!!

Wednesday June 22

The transmission, after being annoyingly difficult, is on the truck.

Tuesday June 21

I have minions. Wait, do minions get paid? If they don't then I have acquired assistants. The two youngest (who have rapidly become BFFs this summer) decided they would like a summer job to feed their Lego addiction. More specifically to feed their Harry Potter Lego addiction. They started today and sanded their first fender and did a pretty good job for a 10 and 12 year old.

Marc re-welded the brackets for the cab. I sanded the driver's side fender and applied putty to fill in the low spots after it was primered.

Monday June 20

A broken pulley, a broken power steering pump and two trips to O'Reilly's later the belt is re-installed. So is the new power steering pump, the pulley for where the air conditioner went, and a new U joint.

Today was extremely challenging, but progress was made.

Sunday June 19

The engine is on the chassis, with some slight maneuvering it is bolted on.  One huge step before many little ones.  Getting everything to work together is proving to be challenging for the man, but he likes a challenge.

Saturday June 18

Day off for everyone!

Marc was at a game tournament. He took second place and had a great time being around fellow players.

I spent the day doing girly things. Like going to the farmer's market and the library.

Friday June 17

I am Mary Shelley, Marc Doctor Frankenstein and the monster sits in the driveway. Not really, but it has slowly become nicknamed Frankentruck. It probably doesn't help that we are painting it black and green...

Friday was a late afternoon trip to Augusta to get a motor and transmission. The motor runs and sounds wonderful. Now it's getting the motor to work with the rest of parts.

Just a quick run down so far of what the Dr. is putting together:

1958 Apache truck body
1982 C-10 chassis
1993 Suburban motor

All we need now are some 60's and 70's parts and a good electrical storm to bring it to life.

Okay, no storm, maybe just an electrical engineer.

Thursday June 16

Marc spent his evening welding while I was running errands. He has most of the welding finished. Today's projects included the old gas cap hole, a hole in the floorboard, and the holes in the hood where the chrome ornament used to be.

Wednesday June 15

Sanding. How I do I love thee, let me count the ways. Apparently the answer is 5.

So you aren't wondering any what the cryptic writing on my hand is, it says Thrones. I needed to remember to bring our Game of Thrones board game to work for a friend to borrow. I remembered, but only when I was editing photos later.

I finished sanding off the guide coat on the first fender. Now I just have to remove the paint from the low spots and skim it with bondo

Marc spent his time welding. He finished the patches on the hood and the driver's side fender. He even fixed the spot where the hood brace attached to the hood. He worried a little about this repair since it was in a tricky location, but it came out very nicely.

Tuesday June 14

I say it's ghetto, Marc claims it's farmgineering. Either way the tailgate is straight thanks to over 2000 pounds of Silverado.

The cab corners are now patched. They will just need a little finishing to get them smooth. Marc has also started patching the front fenders.

Me, I started in on the beginning of what will be hours of sanding, hours and hours of sanding.

Monday June 13

Monday the 13th is worse than Friday the 13th. Today proved that. Once again, another engine set back.  We traded the front clip and cab of the 1982 truck for this potential good 350 engine.

It was not good. The cam bearings were scratched up and the cylinders in this one will need to be way overbored to make it anywhere near useable.  Then, if it is overbored, we'll need a massive radiator to keep the engine cool. So the entire lot of truck insides are being listed on craigslist. Someone, somewhere will want them.

The good thing, my yard is a yard again and not littered with truck parts.

Sunday June 12

Today was a slower day. Marc spent part of the morning at the Lake Afton car show with the Corvair club. I think the Corvair had more fun hanging out with other Corvairs than Marc did. We saw some really nice cars and the show had quite a few entries.

Our Corvair is the blue one in the middle. It seemed happy today to be among others of its own kind.

Beautiful GMC Truck. This one is from around the same time as our Apache. It had some really nice details we may use as ideas for our restore.

Marc started work on the corner patches. He wasn't happy with how they looked after he finished welding. His brain was working on this problem while he was cleaning up and I think he was able to solve his issue with the ridge on the bottom of the patch. He'll fix those tomorrow and should be happier with how the finished patch looks.

Saturday June 11

We've hit the three week mark today. To celebrate, we spent the morning at one of the few salvage yards near us that has early model cars and trucks. The kids did not find our excursion a celebration of any sort. Arina let out a soul rending cry when informed of the reason she had to get up at 7 am on Saturday.

The weather today was beautiful, unlike the 100 degree weather earlier this week, Saturday was in the low 80's. Which made it perfect for searching through a huge salvage yard full of metal.

The last time I was at this particular salvage yard, was not too long after my dad bought this truck. We were searching for parts for the Charger or one of our VW bugs. I remember it differently than it is now. It used to be rows of cars and trucks instead of a combination salvage/junk yard.

Marc was lucky enough to encounter the junk yard (demon) cat, which freaked him out when it rubbed up against his legs. Can't say I can blame him for that one. A blind cat with a messed up back and mangy fur hunting me with his sonar ears would freak anyone out.

Marc is telling me I need to hurry up or I'll get lost in here. I think he's more worried about the demon cat finding me, or finding him and Thom again.

We didn't find what we were looking for at this particular yard. Thom was the lucky one today. He found a tailgate for his 69 GMC truck that was in pretty good condition and some other truck parts he needs. After lunch and a trip to Harbor Freight, we were finally back home with plenty of time to work on the Apache.

Saturday's work included filling the old fender holes in the bed, filling the small holes in the fender with bondo, sanding, lots of sanding and the most exciting part...PRIMER!!!

Three weeks out and we were able to primer our first part of the truck. This is always an exciting step, the next ones to come our that first layer of paint and the sound of the engine turning over for the first time after the rebuild. In the next couple of weeks the rest of the body work and primer coats should be completed.