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Project No Money Noma

28K views 349 replies 42 participants last post by  Laydout'noma 
#1 ·
Howdy fellas, It's been a while since I've been on here, close to 3 years, and it's been almost that long since I worked on my truck. So I've decided to go ahead and post a thread here to show some progress and maybe get some new ideas and advice. I'll start by posting some pictures I took a few years back of the front getting bagged and the traditional BD. I'm not going to really post a lot of step by step pictures of that though because my main focus for this thread is going to be completing the bed, getting the engine and transmission in, building a dash and then wrapping all the small stuff up so I can put this thing back on the road. That's enough chit chat for now so here are some pics of the progress its made up until now. I'm not going to put a bunch of captions in the first set of pics but once I get current pictures up, I'll be more descriptive.






































Theres how it sits for the most part now. I will get some pictures up of the bed mount progress tonight when I get home. Be warned though that from here on out, almost all pictures will be from an iPhone 5c. I don't have a digital camera and I'm not going to go buy one. Also, I have to say, I'm going to try very hard to make steady progress on this thing and keep the thread updated regularly. As we all know things do come up. But I will try to follow through with it until it's on the road.
 
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#4 ·
Here are some of the bed mounts I've made over the past couple of days. Originally I wanted a tilt bed and a fuel cell right behind the drivers side of the cab. My buddy designed me a bad ass hinge set up that was extremely intricate and used air rams. I wanted it bad but unfortunately it was going to be as expensive as it sounds, so I opted to go with regular bed mounts and a smaller fuel cell in the rear underneath the bed floor.






The tops will have to be ground down, but I didn't get to that this week.








The rear frame mounts. I didn't weld the back parts of the gussets yet because I wanted to wait until I put it against the frame and weld it all in as one.



Here's where I'm at so far. I do have the rear mounts done for the bed but they look the same as the front ones. I'll also say that by no means am I a professional welder. I've done it a lot and picked up on some techniques that I like but I don't do it consistently. I'm always open to advice and constructive criticism. But please fellas, do be nice. I'll try to get some more up Sunday, that's when I'm going over there again.
 
#10 ·
I was able to get a little bit done to the truck yesterday and I'll get pictures up later on tonight. I didn't get as much completed as I had wanted because I ran into a problem I was hoping to overcome pretty easily but it looks like its going to be kind of difficult. Once I get some pictures up I'll explain in more detail and if anyone has any ideas or advice please let me know. I'm all ears.
 
#11 ·
Heres where I'm at so far.









Heres where my issue is.

When me and my buddy made the 1x1 frame, we spent a lot of time squaring it up and making sure it was as close to being right as we could. Somehow, we overlooked squaring the actual bed to the rear part of the frame. I'm embarrased to admit it but it is almost a whole inch out of square from top to bottom. I was thinking about drilling the spot welds out on the bottom side of the bed. Only on the part behind the wheel well, and trying to pull the back in. However I was also thinking about cutting that lower part out and replacing it because it got beat up and bent pretty good when I first bagged it and didn't care about it. Have any of you guys had to cut and replace small body parts like that? I don't think it'll be all that hard but I've only done something like that once on an old bug me and my pops have.
 
#14 ·








Let me know if that worked. As far as the body lines, they're really close. I just cut up a 1/4" thick piece of conveyor belt to use as a rubber spacer. Once I bolt it in place I'll use shims to make everything accurate. The last picture isn't really helpful but I put it on here to show how the top and bottom of the bed are attached to the bed frame. So if you have any ideas as to how I can bring the sheet metal back in to square please let me know. I won't be working on this again until Friday and Saturday.
 
#16 ·
I think I am going to cut this part off and replace it with one I'm getting at a junk yard for $20. The guy said they had a bed that the lower side is good on. I'm going to look at it today and if I get it I'm going to cut the old out, tack the new in and make double sure that it's square. And if all that happens today, which I am hoping for, then I'm going to try to make a tailgate skin and blend it in with my roll pan tomorrow and Sunday. Here's where I'm talking about cutting (just imagine that the line is straight. I had to do it on paint and it was zoomed in so far it couldn't see it from one end to the other)



If anyone has any better ideas I'm all ears
 
#17 ·
Went to the junk yard and cut this piece out


Then I got to the shop and realized that the rear part is longer on a long bed. For some reason I thought only the front part of the bed was longer and the rear part was the same length. Oh well, my bed wasn't in that bad pf shape anyways


My buddy Tyler with some action shots and pics of the frame mounts




Looking at these pics I see how bad the drive shaft tunnel looks on the back of the cab so at some point I'll clean that up.

I got this part cut free, cleaned all the spot welds out, and got it rewelded back much much closer than it was before


Headboard removed! looks better already


Some of the rod in place. I ran out so this is all I will probably get done this weekend, but I am going back today to see if there is anything else I can do




And here is the front metal broke and set in place. I had to cut the middle because when I broke it, it had a really small wave in the middle.I guess when I do the back part I'll have to measure a slight bit shorter between breaks. The metal must have stretched further than I was expecting.





I would have cleaned this up, its been sitting in a few different shops for a couple years now so it's got some surface rust, but now that I cut it, I was wondering if bead rolling some of the sharpie lines would be a good idea? Any opinions on that?

And finally the gas lid filler
 
#18 ·
Bead rolled would look good. The bed mounts on the frame look good too. My bed is done similat to yours and I checked everything several times to be square and its still 1/4" different from the bed side to the wheel. One side has a decent clearance and the other is a little close. Just the way it was built from the factory I guess. It squared to the cab and to the frame and if I adjust it to be even on the wheels it makes it crooked so im rolling with it. Never notice those little things on a stock truck but there not perfect.
 
#19 ·
Thank you. Yeah that must be it. Like you, whenever I set up the mounts it was based off of the body lines and gaps on the back of the cab so that it looks as square as it can. Anyways here is what I got done today. I am very pleased with how this turned out since I haven't ever tried anything like it before. It is going to need a little body work but its pretty damn close. I will say I should have used 20 gauge sheet metal instead of 18. That shit is hard to bend evenly when its 50 something inches across. I probably would have gotten better definition near the top rails with something thinner, but you live and learn.







 
#21 ·
Haha my girlfriend HATES it! but I blame her for the 3 year dry spell.

Also I wanted to ask what yall thought. Originally I was going to put a piece of 1x1 across the front of the bed and just smooth out the front wall but now I'm wondering how it would look to just leave the front wall out and have it show off the back of the smoothed cab? I was planning on painting the sheet metal on the inside of the bed a different color than the truck so it would contrast a little with the cab colors. I think that would be pretty cool but I'm open to all opinions. Just let me know.
 
#24 ·
smooth the back cab wall, no headboard. plexi goes to shit after a little road use. no one really runs no head board it would be kinda cool. i'm digging the over kill lca's and the bed framing! so my style! your beds gata be be square but if you do look into it they weren't perfect from the factory like mhilt said and whatever diff you get measuring corner to corner you divide that by 2 for how far each side is off, so it's not as bad but... not square is not square.
 
#25 ·
Thanks for the advice. I think I've been talked into no headboard. I'm going to go to the shop Friday and all day Saturday and try to get the roll plan tacked in and the piece that connects them so the back end is smooth. I'm also going to get a fuel cell I found on craigslist as long as the guy doesn't sell it first and try to get it fit in place. However, if I run into a wall or run out of supplies I may try to static drop the shit out of my old 78 Toyota. If I do ill get some before and after pics.
 
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