At long last, we reach the final post about our farm truck restoration. This was a month’s long project and it came together the day we needed it to be ready to go to the wedding. Fortunately it wasn’t a photo finish like you see on those car restoration shows and I wasn’t screwing things together on the ride down. It wasn’t far off though!
Thank you for coming along on this ride with us. Enjoy the wedding pictures below.
The final result. Bales of straw in the back as requested. Cleaned and ready to go to the wedding.Front view of the truck, ready to go. Note the Ninja Cow Farm front license plate.My kids were also in the wedding. Here is Spork in his outfit, looking dapper.Here is Bok Bok dancing with the happy couple and other kids. Photo courtesy of Libby McGowan PhotographyThe Princess and Bok Bok dancing with Cassia and Johnathan. Photo courtesy of Libby McGowan PhotographyThe girls, having fun while the adults do boring adult stuff. Photo courtesy of Libby McGowan PhotographyJust married. Photo courtesy of Libby McGowan PhotographyThe reason to get the truck ready. The big photo shoot.The bridesmaids got in on the action.The happy couple, ready to go and start their lives together. That is yours truly in the cab, driving them away. Photo courtesy of Libby McGowan Photography
Many thanks to Cassia and Johnathan McKay, the McKay family and the Lewis family for letting us be a small part of a really big day. And best of luck to Johnathan and Cassia on their lives together.
Two big dings in the door thanks to the window installation.
March 15th. Final check. The glass man, while installing the glass, was kind enough to ding my door for two big paint chips. I can’t worry about it now, nobody will see it so I’ll have to get it fixed after the wedding.
Bumpers are not cleaned nor polished. Too late to do anything about it now.
I didn’t have time to wash and detail the truck after we were done. I had to go out-of-town for business so I had a friend who manages a car wash come and detail the truck for me. I asked him to just knock the dust off of the brand new paint and to detail everything else. The guy shows up and POWER WASHES the truck and doesn’t detail anything. Sigh. Nobody will see the scratches he put in the paint nor notice the bumpers have bug marks on them. Too late now to do anything about it anyway.
Sitting in the parking lot at loop road. We got a few compliments from the locals.
Last trip to Loop Road for parts to fix the few things that weren’t right. It’s time to go to a wedding!
The bed is on, the wood hasn’t been started yet, and there is a huge pile of parts still in boxes.
Today we continue the series on our truck restoration. These pictures were taken on March 10th. The truck is mostly together, at least the big pieces. 5 days till the wedding. No pressure.
No interior yet. The seat belts haven’t been replaced with shoulder belts yet. At least the stereo is in.
It’s definitely getting more tuck like. The scary part is I’ve heard putting the wood in takes forever and who knows what part won’t go back on, or will break on install.
Part way through installing the floor in the truck.
Installing the planking is a two-man job. Fortunately we have a car lift so between that and having air tools it only took Miguel and I a few hours and some limited foul language.
The finished product. Beautiful.
The finished bed. It did take a while, and it was a pain, but it sure was worth it when you see the result.
The bed, finished except for the tailgate. I’d make fun of the barrels as work surfaces but when we got home, we had nothing close to working as well as these barrels.
March 1st. The bed is done. The tailgate hasn’t been started on yet, the truck is in 1000 pieces, and we’re picking it up from paint. Stressed? Oh no. Not a bit. We’ve got entire days until the wedding. I’m sure it will all work out fine. Let’s head to the barn and get to work.
The rear view of the bed, minus wood and tailgate.Truck and bed loaded onto my trailer, ready to haul back to the farm to start putting things together.
At least we’ll have most of the pieces home where we can do the work ourselves. It’s hard to have everything waiting on you, but it’s even harder to have it waiting on someone else who is outside your control. Two weeks till the wedding day. It’ll be close, but it’s doable.
Somewhere along the way, the painter didn’t realize that the interior of the cab needed to be painted completely as well. He thought we had carpet to cover everything. Um, no. It’s all Tiffany Blue. So back into the shop for more interior paint and to the paint store for more paint since he’s running out. More time, more money. However the end result was worth it. Perfect paint match, inside and out.
The fuel tank was equally clean. No spray, no missed corners that weren’t quite taped correctly.The cab, fully painted on the inside. It’s impressive how well everything was masked off so no paint got onto the wheel or gauges.
These pictures were taken February 24th, 2014. The wedding was March 15, 2014. This truck is PART OF THE WEDDING! I wasn’t freaking out by this point, but I was becoming concerned. We had to put the entire truck back together, plus a mountain of parts had to be installed, then the truck cleaned and taken to Pinehurst for the wedding. Not a lot of time for mistakes or things that don’t fit properly.
The rest of the truck. The paint looks great, but now the other parts of the truck are looking bad.
Engine bay covered in overspray. Sigh. At least they won’t raise the hood at the wedding.
Back side of the truck, minus the bed.
Frame rails the same way. Nobody should look under the bed I guess. At least we can work on the boards for the bed to make some progress. We hauled them to paint to test the fit, then varnished them 3 coats on top, 2 on the bottom and put them aside waiting on the truck.
Finally! Paint, and it looks good. After months of work, and wondering what this color is going to look like, it was rewarding to see the first coat of paint on the truck.
You don’t realize how bad the red primer looked till you see it against proper paint.
Of course, the bed hasn’t been touched yet and we’re running short on time. Uh oh.
Argh! Why isn’t there paint?! Apparently if you know what you’re doing, you primer the truck and it reveals areas that need more attention. So it’s back into the shop for more body work before any paint can be sprayed.
Inside drivers side door. You can see some of the original red on the door where it will be covered by the trim.Drivers side door and back of cab
Beginning to make progress. Primer on the front half of the truck.
Finally! Primer and progress. Seems quick here on the interweb but this was months of work to get to this point. The color. Tiffany Blue, which was the color of Aussie’s wedding. I thought it was called teal but I was corrected by the girls. However I believe that in the presence of men I’ll still refer to it as teal since the mocking I received for calling it Tiffany blue was somewhat brutal.
Another view of the truck with primerThe first look at the color to come.
It’s a picture of some paint. Big deal. At this point we were months into restoration, LMC truck knew me by first name and voice when I called to order more parts, and the little bit I’d told my friends about the color, they all thought I was crazy. I could find NO pictures on the internet of my year and style truck with a color like this and it was hard to picture what all this color was going to look like looking at a truck that was still in this kind of shape. To top it all off, the painter, who speaks very little English, had previously picked the wrong color by having a really bad green picked. Luckily Miguel and I had stopped by to check on him and he’d thought to have us verify the color one last time before he ordered it so there was some trepidation that he’d have the wrong paint through a mistake. When I saw this color in the can, there was a lot of relief. It was spot on, and it was going to look great. Plus now that the paint was ordered, there was no room for doubt so being committed took some of the worry about the final product off my mind. Some people get nervous being locked into a choice. When you’ve worried over choices for so long, it’s sometimes a relief to not have to make them anymore.
Stripped for paint, mostly. The bed and interior still need work. Bondo had been removed and is being reapplied properly this time.The rear view. The fenders have been removed as well.
Nothing scary behind the fenders. Thank God. Further along in the process.
