With the the cab and bed situated where I planned on putting them the project was able to commence in full force. The first thing I had to do was attach the two bodies together. Since the two bodies are on the ground attaching was done by using four sets of nuts and bolts. The To put the bolts in I drilled four holes through the front of the bed and into the back of the cab. The holes were drilled close to the four corners in the front of the cab. Using 3/8" bolts I managed to get the two bodies attached good. The next order of business was to cover the driver's side door opening on the truck. When we got the truck the door was already removed as part of the initial deal made on the truck. I figured it was no big deal since this side of the truck was going to be against the fence line so there was no concern about having to open the door. My solution was to just cover the opening with corrugated sheet metal. I had plenty of scrap corrugated metal to use but what I found out of that supply was several pieces of cut metal that was around a foot in width and 3-4 ft long, cut from larger pieces from a past project. I figured these would work just fine, since I would start at the bottom of the door opening, securing the metal with self tapping screws, two on either side, and overlap the next panel up, doing the same with the use of the screws, and so forth until I made my way to the top of the opening. Because the panels were longer than the opening, as I attached them to the cab I had to trim the excess from one end of each panel. Since the rear of the cab was perfectly vertical I figured that would be the end where the panels meet perfectly on a vertical plane while I trim the excess at the front. Now since the body of the cab where the fender would've been is pretty uneven, the mounting points for the self tapping screws at the front of each panel were staggered, with screws going wherever a solid spot was found behind the panel. As I trimmed the panels the cuts were relatively uneven but cut where it allowed for the covering of the opening of the door way. As an added bonus I took a hammer to pound in the raised up portion of each panel to help close in the gaps created by the corrugated metal. I even made some cuts at the top of the cab at the corner, in addition to hammering. With these moves I was able to get a good coverage of the opening at the front and along the cab's A-pillar. With the sheet metal panel covering the driver's side door opening I can get the passenger side door hung, fully enclosing the cab of the coop. The next thing I'll do is cut the opening at the front of the bed through the back of the cab, just like the Toyota Chicken Truck. I'll weld up the seams between the two bodies to keep things closed up and eliminate the sharp edges. From there I'll weld on the roosting posts which will be made from some of the scrap conduit I have laying around. At the same time I'll also gather the electrical and plumbing components I need to get the light, outlet for heater and drinker cup assembly put together. I did have a new idea I wanted to implement for the chicken yard and the coops in particular. I plan on installing a dusk/dawn module at the outlet feeding the power cord running into the chicken yard and to the car coops. This will make the lights and outlets get energized only at dusk and go off at dawn. I plan on using these plain off/on 250w electric heaters. Even though they have no thermostats, having them come on at dusk and run through the night with such a low power rating will allow the heaters to slowly heat up the coops and keep the temperature maintained. The old thermostatically controlled heaters timed out after 12hrs, which does me no good in these coops as the whole point was to automate things so we don't have to periodically check on them like that. Other than observing things to make sure the birds are fed and doing the periodic cleaning when needed, we should not have to reset an electric heater every day. Another thing i also decided to do was hook up the perimeter LED Christmas lights to the same module so they too will come on at dusk, illuminating the whole chicken yard. Since the chickens come out of their coops at dawn anyway, it makes sense to wire things up to just come on at dusk and go off at dawn. This will save power as none of these items will be in use during the day anyway. Things are coming together nicely.
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