[truckasaurus]

Having read, numerous times, many of the excellent threads telling the frame up rebuild story I wanted to start one for my project. Given that I'm always asking, somewhat bizarre, questions at least this should help keep me in one place. I've had this gutted '61 for a nearly a year now and feel I've got a decent plan.

I had the running gear replaced before I picked her up and recently I stripped all the interior aluminum, wiring and insulation out. The vents were mostly long gone and I ditched the swamp cooler. As it stands right now she's up on jacks all leveled out with some, (maybe a little on the overkill side) bracing holding the shell in place.

In general the job will start with replacing the floor and every panel except the curved ends and maybe one or two flat sheets but we'll see how that goes. I've kept every sheet that came out for either reuse or as a template. I'll be substantially changing the interior layout and all appliances too. I'm very keen on the Vacuflush system, Precisiontemp showermate, Isotherm cruise 200 refrigerator and a few other nifty gadgets but I'll adjust as I go along.

The next stage for me is to lift the shell and get a look at the frame. I want to do this before final tank selection. I'm hoping the frame is more or less OK as the floor wasn't particularly bad at all. So after any work on the frame it's off for sandblasting, then POR15 and a sealed exterior ply floor. I'm hoping to secure the (new) exterior sections of the belly pan leaving the core area open for now, then reattach the shell. We'll see how it all goes...

So here's the current idea.

And here's the progress to date.