Finally Ready To Head Home For Some Fishing

I’ve been at our cabin in the N GA mountains the past month where I often spend a lot of my time on one of my many hobbies other than fishing. My grandfather was the only one in my family who fished and was the one who turned me on to it at a young age. He died way too young but my favorite memories were summers as a kid and going on fishing trips towing his old boat in his 72 F100. When he passed away my grandmother gave it to my step dad. Around 15 years ago when my dad had stopped driving it asked to bring it home to GA. I drove it in the original condition for a few years and then about 12 years ago it was my work truck every weekend and vacation day while I spent every spare minute building the cabin. Once the cabin was done I started a restoration hitch has gone on, off and on, for nearly a decade. Started out slow cutting out the rusty floor plans and welding in replacements. Then around the time I finished cutting and welding in the bed and took it off the road and started complete disassembly, I decided to retire and the work took a backseat. I spent a year getting our old house ready to sell, then a couple years finding and settling in to our new house in FL. I continued to chip away at cutting, welding, bodywork, and what seemed like years of block-sanding, etc. Basically only up at the cabin every other month or so, and weather often too cold to paint, or hunting season or other projects monopolizing my time has taken this project longer than expected….
The first week I got here I reassembled it temporarily to recheck panel fit, get everything aligned, and drill index holes through all the hinges and mounts so I can get it back lined-up and gapped where it should be once painted. Then pulled it back apart, did the final coat of primer and block sanding. I don’t have a proper clean and ventilated spray booth so I did the spraying over 8 days. Sealer going on certain parts one day, followed by the single stage color coats the following.
So I still have a lot of work to do but I’m glad to have finally hit the milestone of getting the first round of color sprayed. I’ve put down 3 coats of single-stage and will sand that with 600 to remove any orange peel, dust bibs etc, before spraying with another two coats (maybe in June or July) Then it will be time to cut and buff. So really not close to going back together yet but feels good to see it back to the original blue.
I’ve been itching to get back to Flagler to relax and do some fishing. I didn’t even take a couple hours the past month to sneak out and hit some of the nearby trout streams…. I sure hope they are hungry and cooperate

 

Last test assembly and panel fit, etc.

 

What year dodge? Do you still have it?

 

Nice to finally feel like I’m making some progress…

 

Thank you. Still a lot to do but getting there.

 

It’s getting there. Headed to GA tomorrow to hopefully complete the cut and buff. I got a start last month and completed the cab and hood.