Can't recall the book but the line was "If you want to become a surgeon, you have to make that first cut".
So while the details are cool, I am on the sidelines waiting for the guts to drop out the bottom of that Rambler.
That said, I agree that you should get anything that is out of place back in place before you start to cut.
Don't know what happened to your neck, but I hope your feeling better.
Well despite still being sore, I moved her trailer and pushed UB into the spot I'm going to actually work on it. Fortunately the body work doesn't look too hard to sort out unless I get stupid and try to metal finish it. 
I have a gallon of Kirker epoxy primer I'm gonna try to start spraying on the trailer some time this week if my neck/shoulder will allow me to get that far. Some of that might end up getting tested on Ben first. 
My neck problem is a less-than-subtle reminder I'm no longer in my 20's and lifing 18ga sheets over my head by myself really is a bad idea. Fortunately I don't have much overhead work left on her trailer and I should be able to nurse myself back pretty quick with some caution.
Crackers........what happened to K2500 FlatBED? done, gone, cast aside for Unca B?
liked where you were going with it....
It wouldn't stop peeing in the driveway so it's off in a corner thinking about what it's done. 
I need to get it back together soon so I can haul off my scrap pile, but I'm suffering a bought of "analysis paralysis" and not sure how to take a few things forward so I've been focusing on rebuilding her trailer so we can get it out of our driveway.
Since it's not roadworthy it probably won't get touched again until inspiration strikes or I need a brake from her trailer, but that could be any time.
Crackers wrote:
Looks like a shaky spot for an oil filter.
In reply to 914Driver:
Right?! "Where's the worst place I can put this remote filter? Oh, how about I make it the lowest spot on the front end?!"
So I'm trying to pull the driver side fender so I can finish beating on it. Of course to pull the fender the bumper and valence has to come off. In pulling the bumper I'm reminded of the primary reason why I'm doing a body swap vs engine swap.
That's the drivers side frame horn where the bumper mounts. The steering box is just barely peeking out on the left side of the picture. Those two little stubs are what's left of the bumper bolts. I'm really glad I have a blue tipped wrench.
Fortunately most of this damage is from battery acid so the body panels are largely unaffected.
In pulling the fasteners off the fender I realized they're all square cut threads.
This is the first time I've seen this sort of faster in an automotive application, so I thought I'd share. I thought it was pretty cool, especially considering none of them were seized and they all came out without breaking.
Crackers, is Unca B from the gulf coast region (port A to corpus C)? Last time I saw rust like that was on my '67 Coronet 500 from NEOH.
Crackers wrote: Am I getting in too deep?
Aw hell yer in it up to your neck, keep goin ;) But if you mean on the little touches, nah, I find I spend a lot more time sweating the little custom details than I do on the actual build but those are the things that really set it off. Carry on, looking forward to seeing more
In reply to 759NRNG:
I don't know any of its history other than it had an Oklahoma title, and it was parked in Texas sometime in the early 90's.
That spot is the only major structural rust though. The body rust is typical of these because of poor factory drainage, and the floors are rusted out because of water leaking into it and it rusting inside out. This particular FUBAR is from leaking battery acid.
JThw8 wrote:Crackers wrote: Am I getting in too deep?Aw hell yer in it up to your neck, keep goin ;) But if you mean on the little touches, nah, I find I spend a lot more time sweating the little custom details than I do on the actual build but those are the things that really set it off. Carry on, looking forward to seeing more
As I see this in my mind, the functional swap is probably the quickest part of the job. LOL
Is this not all slated to become Lexus anyways?
As to being in over your head? Well DUH!, no fun swimming in the shallow end is there? You are going to deep water in the ocean where there are sharks! Keep stroking
For sure. I'm mostly just documenting stuff as I go.
Crackers, you mentioned registration /title issues elsewhere, is this still the dilemma /drama you're face with .........or are you secretly moving back to SoCal and abandoning it all?
It appears Texas will not allow you to apply for a title on an out of state car when the paperwork is filled out in someone else's name. Stupid and embarrassing. That's what I get for being distracted and not reading stuff carefully.
So, bonded title time, hopefully. First it has to pass inspection which means it needs to run. Even then, it's apparently a bit of a gamble getting all the paperwork approved. But, I'll have to deal with that eventuality later.
So for now my goals have changed. I'm going to throw it together with the least amount of cash, and the highest quality fab I'm possible of.
If I can't get it titled I'll use it for autocross and/or rallycross and whittle away at the finish work until someone wants to buy it, or someone in a more lenient state wants to "buy" it only to change their mind a short while after getting the paperwork back.
Who knows, with this new level cheap I'm on about I can probably get it driveable for Challenge money.
And I've even been working on it!
I need another day to finish stripping it then I should be able to weld in some braces and chop the floor and bulkhead out.
I've already put the suspension and steering column back into the Lexus chassis so it's ready to start mocking stuff up as soon as the body is.
I've also designed a lift system that will get welded directly onto the A-pillar. Basically just adjustable legs, but they'll save me a lot of sweat even if you consider the fact they will probably take 2 days to make.
I do have pictures to share, but it will require the aid of a PC (and so may not happen) since the forum doesn't understand mobile devices don't have a hyperkey functionality. (Not that I'm aware of anyway.)
Any word on Unca B is all good ............so these 'lost title' peeps aren't a guaranteed solution to the 'paperwork'?
Yayyyy it is back on.
I've been working on fixing pictures since I'm stuck inside due to weather. I'm getting bored with that, so here's some new ones.
Interior is out of the wagon.
I've got pretty much all of the suspension out of it too.
It's almost got me feeling a little guilty about gutting this this. 99% of the fasteners came out with issue, or even penetrating oil.
The rear chassis rails and shock mounts are practically new!
I'm going to try and take some time to remove the chassis parts so they can be used by someone else as patch panels.
Wire nuts aside, the hideousness of this undercarriage is far short of what I was expecting. I mean, this is really the worst of the spider webs, and they're all old with no living stuff found so far.
Although, the tank itself is ruined.
Not that I'm planning on using it, but the 23+ year old gas turned into tar.
More to come if/when it ever stops raining.
"More to come if/when it ever stops raining. " not till Friday from the last local KHOU broadcast......I'm in the Grosh throwing out used thermostats and O2 sensors.....yes i said multiple.... sucks being me sometimes.... 
So I just realized that this will be my 999th post!
This weekend is blacked out in my schedule so I can finish pulling the driveline and start hacking out the floor.
I'm going to try to stay off the forum so I can reach "Dork Status" with a chopped up unibody!
Well, the weather is conspiring against me again, but this happened.
I'm slowly removing the body around the motor before the last bits come out. This is how it's usually done right?
With the transmission out, the front end is now light enough I can lift it up by hand. The rear stands will have to move back before the short block comes out so I can avoid turning the car into the world's most dangerous see-saw. (As funny as it would be to see.)
Apparently these t-14 transmissions are getting pretty scarce thanks to the Jeep crowd. It's probably the only thing worth selling, but it will easily zero out my $75 purchase price. LOL
So I don't have a hoist at home, and my swingset got hauled off and weighed in a couple weeks ago.
I do however have a transmission jack, so I lowered it and flipped it up on it's back then started tearing it down.
I'm mostly tearing it down out of morbid curiosity, and so I can move it around by hand.
Fortunately it hasn't turned over in over 20 years so it didn't make a huge mess when it came apart.
The bottom end is toast. This is surprising given the PO was obviously religious about their annual oil changes.
Mostly just surprising that all the bearings aren't showing brass.
A little play in the timing set.
With that fun over, I cleaned up a bit and went back to drilling out spot welds.
This is as far as I got for today. I'm gonna need to brace the cab before I can go much further, and it's full of crap. There's a bunch of crap where that crap needs to go so I need to do some organising and move some stuff around.
Next couple weeks are probably going to be wasted watching it rain, or doing day job stuff. (I hate not having shop space.)
I still need to decide on how much bracing it's going to need, and build the jacks for the front end. You guys are probably going to like the jack sub-project.
I accidentally found a spare engine for Uncle Ben on CL while looking for cheap turbo parts.
Sheila got to do truck stuff!
I know what you're thinking.
"You don't have 'a' motor yet dumbass!"
And you'd be right. But, this is just a longblock has a bad head gasket so it could possibly be junk.
It was really clean inside and only $200 and came with a 1 ton HF stand so I figured it was worth the gamble.
It will eventually get rebuilt with the intent of turbo charging. That counts as turbo parts right? 
Good news is, I guess I'm committed to keeping the car.
Ok, well I feel like an idiot. (Moreso than usual.)
I have no way to get this off the truck. 
No, I did not see this coming. I would have bought it anyway, I just feel stupid for my lack of foresight despite asking the seller if they had one to load it. LOL
At least I don't use the truck often.
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