After having touched down in Texas earlier and taking a few moments to play tourist by visiting the Ft Worth Aviation Museum, we went to the seller's house to pick up the car. Just like last time we rented a truck from Enterprise, basically the same model truck, a Dodge Ram 2500 diesel crew cab truck so this thing is more than capable of yanking a car down the road. Since I wasn't really in the mood to try and use a full size car trailer as these things are a PITA to maneuver around, I decided to press our newly acquired tow dolly into service. I did recently do some work on the dolly as I had noted in a previous post where I had to weld up the ramps and add some plate metal to the tops to replace the broken plastic tops that were on the ramps previously. I had the ramps nice and secured and since the base of the dolly tilts after removing a retaining pin, it would make loading up this car body relatively easy. The car is a body that was pulled from its original frame and had undergone a light chop top job where the guy did pie cuts at the rear then closed the gaps by pushing the roof down and tacking those joints together to get the desired drop of the roof. Now of course the interior of the body is stripped so it will need to be put back together but this was necessary as part of mounting the body to the S10 frame. As can be seen in the previous pic, the front mounts of the body are simple tabs that are matched up to holes in the S10 frame where bolts are used to temporarily hold the body down. There are bushings in place but I will more than likely use better bushings and heavier grade 8 bolts to secure these mounting points at the front as well as the back and the middle. Bushings will be used at those other mounting points just as well. There are angle iron braces that the guy used to maintain the body's rigidity while chopping the top. This metal is still in place, including on the right side since the door hasn't been remounted yet. The driver's door will have to be finished up on the chop since the top part that goes along the A pillar was cut off and never finished up. After examining this and completing the job on that door I'll have to duplicate the same thing on the passenger door, but will have to get the door mounted first so I can line things up to see where and what I have to cut and weld. Luckily I got all the body panels for this car so there won't be any concern with trying to hunt down any of these hard to find and/or expensive parts. All I'll have to do is clean everything up, probably even prime these panels and have them staged somewhere to keep them safe, more than likely in the garage. In the meantime even before I do anything with the fenders, door, trunk and hood lids, and front clip, I will finish the work on the main cab/body so that part will be all done so as I do my work with the removable body panels, I can attach them to a body that I more or less do not have to work on anymore short of painting the thing. I even have the privilege of having the dash panel that came with the car, which has the glove box door, gauges and other moldings in place. Cleaning this up and rebuilding the whole dash to make it more "modernized" will add to the overall effect of this build making it a unique piece of art when done. When I do remove the braces from inside the car that will open up the whole cab to where this vehicle can have some utility to it in the form of being able to open the trunk to slide longer items in place. Of course I will more than likely only replace the two front seats in this car and not worry about any back seats. The rear area can make a good storage area for cargo whether the car's used for just routine supply runs or actually used for a road trip where we're carrying luggage and other crap like we tend to when on road trips. As you can also see in the previous picture I have all of the inner door panel and window regulator hardware as well. While I will have to clean up all this stuff and get everything lubed up to work again, the idea that I have everything puts me miles ahead of those who get projects like this and have to replace parts that are long gone. I even have the original window glass for the doors which even though they're broken, they can serve as templates for making replacement glass. Another thing that I have that I found unique is the one piece front clip for the car. This consists of the fenders and grille, all connected, which kinda makes it easy to work on as once the bolts are removed, me and the ole lady or some other partner can remove the front clip in one piece to facilitate quick work in the engine bay such as removing the engine without risk to damaging any sheet metal. Even suspension work can possibly be easier with the front clip removed. As you can see there is a lot of potential with this project as all the parts are there and a lot of the harder work has been completed. Now while I'm not going to do any shitty work, I can't realistically expect to do some super high quality "professional" car builder type work either. We will have to take our time and just make sure to measure twice cut once. Making sure to get things lined up properly before making final attachments or welds or cuts will go a long ways. Taking time to install certain components as well before making final welds and attachments will save me a lot of time in not having to cut things up after welding or attaching things. I will probably try to get the body secured to the frame first then get some of the rear body taken care of just to get those parts out of play and on the car. When I get to the front, I will try to have a powerplant in hand that I can use for test fitting purposes. My plan, since this is an S10 frame and the intent of this project is for it to be a potential daily driver/cruiser, I will just go with a 4.3L V6, same as what was in the S10 truck, with a 5 spd manual to save me the headache of dealing with transmission issues, especially if we road trip this car. The powerplant has the potential to be made into a performance unit that can get the car down the road in a reasonably fast manner and will still be small enough to make it easy to work on compared to a V8. Now will I never consider a V8? I can't say that I won't but for right now I just want to build something that will be fun and economical to use. The other funny thing to look at too is the idea that since this is indeed an S10 frame, I could actually install a frame hitch to this thing to allow this car to pull trailers with ease, further increasing the utility of the car. Also I could do suspension mods that either drop the car to the ground or raise it up high depending on what I may want to do. Using an S10 frame opens up a lot of doors to what can be done with this build and also opens up the door to fast repair turnovers since this chassis is common enough that replacement parts are easily had at any auto parts store for reasonable prices. This would be a definite plus for a road trip situation as having to replace a ball joint or brakes in the field will be made a lot easier when the parts can be had the same day. As we do start working on this car you will be the first to see the progress documented here as well as on our YouTube channel, The Improvisation Center. Stay tuned for upcoming posts and videos on this and all of our other projects around the yard and shop! Until the next time....
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