1st Gen Lunchtable Thread - General Discussion

Yep, thats pretty compelling. So it goes. I'm still friends with the president of the company i left, and he still occasionally reminds me that i can come back any time i like Hopefully your current employer will be cool.

 

The outside walls are certainly thinner, but in structural steel terms that's called the web and it's not nearly as important as the top and bottoms, I was thinking I'll just plate the sides and eventually get rid of that rear cross member to build an x-brace

 

Yeah, the web. Thats the word.

I plated the outside, re-boxed the inside forward of the leaf springs, and called it good. Feels stiffer (and I can't see the bed wiggling in my mirror anymore...)

Got any pictures of this X brace idea?

 

I love the west coast and coming here to WA has been the best geographic place I've ever lived. But it's just so damn expensive to live in the Puget sound. both the wife's family and my brother are back east and we both have prospective land to inherit back there

 

I'm confident they'd welcome me back with open arms, they've already let me go back in 2017 and rehired me in 2018. including these current 2 jobs, the past 3 employers have given me open invitations to work for them at anytime lol

 

The boxes will be from top to bottom of the channel to make stronger tie in places, the rearmost boxes are to reinforce for the new farther back leaf mounts of the Chevy 63s

 

Do a write up on 63’s


Cause it’d be cool

 

Nice! Can't wait to see that come together.

 

That's too much work.. it's not like you'd actually do it

 

Maybe, somehow I've earned myself a helper on this project so I'll have him get more pics than I usually do working alone and see if I can fashion that into anything useful at the end. I'm kinda working off general knowledge from YotaTech and tips and locations @drr gave me, I'm certainly no expert

 

Nah, I got alcans on the other truck I’ll steal or buy new when it’s sold.


If I was gonna do something like that I’d have to get a new axle, locker, shock mounts. can’t imagine using stock mounts would be any fun.

 

Good plan to catch it early.

 

Someone else wrote one for second gens to. I can't imagine the basics would be a whole lot different

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/how-to-chevy-63-leaf-spring-swap.377756/

 

Wish I could have caught the original owner a bit early and told him to spray it off after ski trips

 

I know the feeling. Like change the oil or do some basic service.

 

I'll give him that, he was good about all the other maint. This is the only vehicle I've ever owned with tangible service records going back to when I was born. He kept up on it, but I don't think anyone had a clue the frame was getting rough, only because I knew to look that I even noticed it this early. Not usually a Washington problem, we aren't the salt belt and this truck is one owner from the west side of the stater that has even less extreme weather. It just spent 9 years only being used for ski trips and immediately garaged after, no washing.

 

I guess you’re gonna wire brush done and repaint everything youre not welding at the same time?

 

Yeah, probably lift the body off the frame about 4" and clean about halfway under there too, it's not very rusty under there at all but still would be nice. I'm gonna strip as much off as I can with those debris and rust remover things @0xDEADBEEF linked and then I will hit the little reinforced box areas with a abrasive blaster too.

 

Okay, Ill spray from the outside in when i do a quick spray down to check their seals and reassess. We dont camp when it rains tho, usually avoid shit weather. But if and when like how we woke up to snow on our last trip; id like to be better suited. I found plexi glass cheep from home depot, guess ill continue to research but that window may need to wait.



Appreciate it once again! Ill continue to update as i get time to actually do things. As of now been working 10-11 hour days and bumming it when im not working or running errands \

and yes, we hardly get water from the sky here as is haha!