Anyone want a truck?

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69 Stepside
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So here's the patches that I made. I think they turned out pretty good. I got a little burn through in a few small places, but I fixed it up pretty good. I thinned Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator 20% with laquer thinner, and sprayed the whole thing before welding it together. This way I can get as much rust protection on there as possible. Now I can grind the areas that I'm going to weld, and weld these patches in. Then a little more Rust Encapsulator and I'll shoot it with some high gloss Chassis Black.

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69 Stepside
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The left side turned out pretty good. After some grinding, the pieces fit in nice and straight. The right side was rusted all the way to the edge, so I had to cut off more than I had planned.

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69 Stepside
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This radiator support is all but shot. The bottom of the support is rusted through. It's funny that the parts that are rusted through are the parts that the bolt go through…so there's no saving this one. A replacement is about $300 plus freight shipping. But I kinda want to keep as much original as possible, so it's cuttin' time. There are no aftermarket patch panels for this thing, so I'm going to have to make my own. I need to cut the rusty parts out, making it as easy as possible to fabricate some new patch panels and put them in place. I picked up a 24"x24" sheet of 16ga. steel from Lowe's for $30.

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69 Stepside
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Finally got it in. Bolt holes not lining up, though. I have to take care of my kids tonight, so we'll leave it hanging and hit it again tomorrow.

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69 Stepside
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Got the engine hanging from the hoist. Got the flywheel and clutch on. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get it on the chassis!

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69 Stepside
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Almost ready to lift off of the stand.

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69 Stepside
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Painted the heads and got them ready to go. Check out the castings. These are Summit brand heads, but the casting and serial numbers show that they are Dart Iron Eagles.

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69 Stepside
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Got the crank and cam in. I replaced the spring in the oil pump with one from the 69 Camaro Z-28. The change in spring rate is supposed to give the pressure of a high volume pump without the high volume. I replaced the bolts in the main caps with those for the 69 Z-28 also. These caps have standoffs for a windage tray (and a special oil pan is required).

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Got the block bored and honed. This is originally a 283 block from a '67 Chevy panel van. I had it bored to an even 4". I ground a lot of the oil return paths, and coated the lifter valley with red insulating varnish (Glyptol) to make it slick to help the oil return down. The block only has 3 oil return holes over the cam, so I opted to not use oil blockoff pipes. The crank a forged 327 crank from a Chevy Camaro. The crank was cut .020 under on the mains and the rods.

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69 Stepside
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