Let's swap a motor and do some other stuff to a 60.... (1 Viewer)

[c2dfj45]

I wasn't going to do a thread on this 60 but figured why not. No 79 series builds going on right this second....so I wanted to slip the 60 into the shop and knock it out quick. I doubt it will be quick but I'm going to try my best.

I bought this truck 3 years ago.....it was for sale locally.....a college kid had it and had no idea what he had. Well to be fair, he knew he had something but this was well before prices went nuts....I thought I paid too much but now, I pretty much stole it. Late 1985, no rust, clean interior, 300k miles. I really fell hard for this truck when I saw it....told my dad who was with me that I felt like it had good bones. Wasn't modified, right color combo, everything was there.....no brainer of a buy.....not bad for my first 60. 30 years in these trucks and never had a 60.....I can remember as a kid going to look at wood-grained 62s at the local dealers. I wanted one badly.....most kids wanted a sports car....I wanted a Land Cruiser wagon

Got it home....found the original owners manual in the glove box which was cool. The keys were original. Always a big deal to me for some reason.

The day I got her home.....what a good looking truck!

 

[c2dfj45]

I never really planned on doing a build....wasn't really sure I was even going to keep this truck so I didn't take my usual 1000s of pics. I think I took a few for my classic insurance company and that was that.

The body has plenty of bumps and bruises but no rust. I can deal with dings and dents....they don't bother me. They add character

The interior was kind of a disappointment....had some kind of jute or felt carpet deal. Front seat torn. Dash had no cracks.....amazing. All the lights worked I think. Everything was good on it actually. Except the tires...they sucked as I recall.

 

[c2dfj45]

So I think I started driving this thing and fell for it pretty hard. Hard enough that I decided it would join the other trucks in my little collection. It was just too nice and enjoyable to drive. And this may sound strange but the way the interior smells is my favorite part I think. Lol. It smells really good in it....kind of old, kind of like tobacco but not tobacco.....just a really good smell. I remember keeping the windows up as I didn't want the smell to go anywhere. I always make people smell it. Ha.

So once I knew it was going to stay.....I started down the slippery slope so many of us head down. We did a Dobinsons lift on it as the OEM springs were flat. I bought a set of OEM chrome wheels for it.....put on some 33s. Removed the tint....had some Lumar Air 70 put on it which is just perfect....nice and blue looking....and it keeps the heat out. Water pump went as I recall. Radiator was a mess, parking brake didn't work.....fixed up some of that as I recall.

Old tint off, new tint on, suspension on, wheels and tires on......WAY better. Now we were making progress...

 

[c2dfj45]

I feel like I drove the truck thru the summer.....probably into the next year. Then as we got into the warmer months, the truck started running crappy on warmer days. If I had to guess, I would think the manifold is cracked. It would fall on it's face at the same place every time I would drive it home. The AC started blowing warm at this time too. My storage warehouse had some new lifts installed and at some point it went up on a lift and that was it.....she stayed there. I figured when we had time we'd pop a 3FE into it and have a really nice ride.

 

[c2dfj45]

Then I figured if I'm doing a 3FE, might as well do a 5 speed so this arrived...a brand new H55

 

[c2dfj45]

Ended up chasing a bunch of parts I wanted to take care of while the motor and trans was out....clutch, transfer rebuild, shifter for the H55.....all important 5 speed shift knob.....and probably a bunch of other things I can't remember.

 

[c2dfj45]

We had built this 3FE for a customer's 40 but he decided to go with a Cummins 2.8 so we ended up having an extra 3FE without a home....what better place to put it than in a 60. So that was the plan up until about 2 weeks ago

We did this one in a really dark metallic grey.....beautiful. The dog is not impressed.

 

[reddog90]

diesel

 

[c2dfj45]

diesel

Bingo.

 

[reddog90]

Hell yes.

 

[Gretsch]

We had built this 3FE for a customer's 40 but he decided to go with a Cummins 2.8 so we ended up having an extra 3FE without a home....what better place to put it than in a 60. So that was the plan up until about 2 weeks ago

View attachment 2910811
We did this one in a really dark metallic grey.....beautiful. The dog is not impressed.

View attachment 2910812

I want......

 

[vipergrhd]

@c2dfj45 If you don't mind sharing how much did the 5 speed cost you out the door? I will be getting one soon as the 60 is back on the road hopefully by summer.

 

[c2dfj45]

@c2dfj45 If you don't mind sharing how much did the 5 speed cost you out the door? I will be getting one soon as the 60 is back on the road hopefully by summer.

I don't recall but I did ask my dealer if they could match the price of what I had seen online and they did. We buy a lot of parts thru them so it wasn't a big deal....I think it was actually lower than I had seen online. And of course no shipping since it was local. May want to check with your local dealer...they might be inclined to make an easy sale

I seem to recall seeing them around $2495 or so.....but this was before the current crazy times we're in so maybe they have gone up. Google that part number and see what pops up.

 

[c2dfj45]

I want......

We did a blacked out 3FE for a client's 40....this was a really cool motor. Kind of gave me the idea to do the charcoal metallic one. The next one is going to be even better

3FE badge for the win

 

[c2dfj45]

Back to the 60 story. Before the holidays I had moved the 60 into the shop and figured I'd start tackling the interior over the week we were closed after Christmas....I thought I would knock out the interior in a few days and start getting the motor ready to pull. One can dream.

I had bought an ACC carpet kit....ACC or Stock Interiors......a few years back. I've used ACC carpets before....I must have forgotten how much I hate doing carpet.

Day one.....quiet shop....just me, my dog and my truck. I start in on the truck...and I find this

BOOHOO for me.

I knew that there was some kind of sound deadening under the carpet but I never really inspected it......as I looked closer at it now(before removing it to find rust), I noticed some paint that looked like rust converter. My heart sank. Out came the sound deadener and I saw the rust. Bummer. I'm guessing water got into the truck and pooled around the drain plug that is in the floor at this location. Fortunately I had a little bit of the seam left so I did what I had to do and welded in a patch. Not my prettiest work but this area was going to be covered with so much sound deadening....I really didn't lose sleep over it.

 

[c2dfj45]

The rest of the truck was CLEAN.....the rear lip where the tailgate weatherstripping goes was crunchy unfortunately but not a huge deal. We use a secret weapon on rust.....stops it big time.

Dog found the old carpeting to be quite the nice spot to sleep

 

[c2dfj45]

Thanks stereo guys for cutting braces instead of using the big open areas where there aren't braces. Kind of cool the washer fluid bag is still back there. It was down in the quarter. Doesn't look like it has been working in a LONG time.

We'll fab up a new brace I think. We'll also fab up some new side panels. Got a pretty cool idea for them.

 

[c2dfj45]

I believe that first day I had welded my new piece of metal in the floor and started removing the OEM sound deadener from the drivers side. I wanted to make sure there was no rust under it.

On our older trucks, when we do flooring(either sound deadening or bed liner), we coat them with one of the best products I have ever used. I swear by this stuff. It's amazing. Master Series Rust Sealer....we use silver.

MasterSeriesCT Coating Line Rust Prevention - MasterSeriesCT

Check out http://MASTERSERIESCT.COM! The MasterSeriesCT Coating Line homepage where you can find rust preventative coatings for restoration and industrial purposes. Chassis coating, rust converter, paint over rust, restoration supplies, anti graffiti paint.

masterseriesct.com

This stuff is brutal. Clean bare metal, rusty clean metal, painted clean metal, pitted metal......you can put it on anything. It's loaded with aluminum and seals metal so the rust is sealed up permanently. I like to do 2-3 coats. On some projects we have mixed in fiberglass strands to help seal up pinholes(tape placed on underside). I love using it. Pro tip.....don't get it on your skin.

I heard somewhere that this was what Por15 used to be.....but since it was silver, car people didn't like it.....they changed the formula to be a black for frames and it lost some of what made it so good. I think I read that it's use was originally for bridge repairs(the silver stuff). It's old school stuff....so you know it's good.

End of day 1 if I remember correctly. Not nearly as far along as I had hoped.

 

[c2dfj45]

I think I ended up taking a few days off that week to chase some fish got back to it and started with the rest of the process...

Whole floor painted in silver. Passenger side was done too.

I had started installing my next favorite thing to use.....Second Skin Audio's Damplifier Pro sound deadener. This is a 2mm thick sound deadener....it's great stuff. I've used a lot of brands and once I landed on Second Skin's products, I was hooked. This stuff sticks so well and the 2mm thickness is great. Great company with excellent tech support....and very fair pricing(they run some great sales from time to time). They offer a TON of cool products.

This is our base....we cover the entire floor generally. For some reason I started taping all my edges with foil tape a while ago and I like it. Depending on our topcoat, this step really helps smooth things out.

The shifter plate got done as well.

Another step we like to do which isn't what most people do is we use Second Skins Spectrum sound and ceramic product. This is a spray, brush, trowel, spoon, smear....whatever you want, product. We brush it on(some projects get sprayed). I try to do about 1mm of thickness with this and we get this everywhere. The have a thickener that you can add to it so it turns into a peanut butter consistency.....you can put it anywhere. We really like to do roofs with this(if the headliner comes out obviously). Great for controlling heat. Again, I've used other stuff and I really like this product. Water cleanup too.

 

[c2dfj45]

I didn't take my normal amount of pics on this build since I wasn't really going to document it. I did not do a lot of stick on sound deadener in the rest of the truck. I did do the rear wheel humps. I left on all the factory sound deadener in the rear of the truck. Spent a lot of time cleaning things....then slopped on the Spectrum. I may have put on some stick on deadener under the back seat.....not full coverage. Just enough to tighten it up.

When the Spectrum fully cures(about a week), it's an extremely durable coating. It can be used as undercoating. When we topcoat with bed liner, we'll sand it down a bit to remove any peaks....helps to level it out. We also let it cure for about a month. Does really well with sound deadener over it.