November
2001
It was a beautiful fall day when I drove Maych
down to the paint and body shop - sun shining and temperature in the
mid 60's. I remember how nice the day was, because I was
thinking how this would be the last time I would be driving Maych
for quite a while. It was kind of sad, knowing I wouldn't be
able to drive Maych for several months, but it was
also exciting to begin the work that would restore him to his former
beauty.
This photo shows how Maych
looked when I delivered him to
the paint and body shop. In anticipa- tion of the paint and body
work I had previously
removed the bumpers and most of the outside trim and hardware. I
didn't remove the grill because I wasn't sure how much support it
provided to the front fenders. I also left the trim on the front
fender because it is nearly impossible to remove with the inner
fenders installed. I'm sure Maych
looked pretty sad going down the road, but he didn't look nearly as
sad now as he would by the end of the day.
Alan (the shop owner) was in the
shop when I arrived. I told him I was free for the day and would
be glad to help any way I could. He took me up on the offer and
I pulled Maych into the shop and we could begin
removing body parts.
After a couple of hours all that
remained on the frame was the cab, the front core support, and the
engine. . . . . . . .
The hood was the first body part we
removed.
Next, we removed the grill, the doors and the cowl vent cover.
The outer front fenders were the
next to came off. Alan
(in photo) made short work of these with the air ratchet.
Luckily, we only had to grind the heads off of two bolts that were
stripped.
Next, we moved to the back and removed the tailgate.
Lastly, we got the bed ready to remove. We weren't able to
actually lift it off the frame on the first day. It was just too
heavy for the two of us (wimps!) to lift it off by
ourselves.
A few days latter, Alan got a few of his buddies to help
him lift the bed off of the frame and set it on a neat support
structure he had made. The wheels on the support structure
allowed him to roll the bed around to different areas of the shop to
work on it.
After we had all of the parts
removed, I removed the trim from the front fenders that were inaccessible
with the fenders on. I took the the trim
pieces, the grill,
the tail
light housings, and the side
marker lights back home with me to restore while Maych
was in the shop.
Maych looked pretty
sad, sitting there with his parts scattered all over the shop, but I
knew he was in good hands, and that before too long he would look like
he did when he proudly rolled off the assembly line.
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