Or I should say, an off of frame experience.

After getting my "New" panel truck home and taking a closer look at it I decided it would be be better to swap the chassis of this truck with the chassis I had under my old panel. I had planned to yank the engine out of the old truck and throw it in the "New" one. The "New" panel's chassis was in good shape but needed a lot of work like new shocks and the brake lines were rusty. The other chassis has a rebuilt engine, new brake system, exhaust and shocks.

Here is want we did yesterday between 12 noon and 7:30pm. My two sons, Charlie 15 and Andy 13, and later my wife helped with the operation.



We still have to re-install the front clip, which we'll do today. Then onto new tires, wiring and going through everything to make it driveable. I plan to get it driveable this year to make it to the Dash to the Dells in September. Then next year I am going to repaint it to match my other truck.

P.S. These are the only published pictures of myself that I have ever allowed on the FTE site, or anywhere on the net I'll give you guys a hint, I'm not the cutie on the right hand site of the pictures.

 

How did you do that "car-toon"?! That is really cool! You make it look really easy.

What's with not allowing your pictures on the net? You in witness protection or something?!

 

Thats pretty cool, you guys are fast .

Mike

 

I did mine that way and it only took 5 years, you could have seen trees growing if I had done a stop action video. Very impressive!

 

Way to go, Bob. Great cartoon. It fun to see the light change as sunset came closer.

So...which one are you?

 

That's pretty neat! If I had a fork-lift, I would be dangerous

 

ALBUQ,

I set my digital camera up on my Workmate bench, no fancy tri-pod for me, and took pictures every 15 minutes or so. I then took all of the pictures and joined them together using Animation Shop. I hope to complete it with shots of the front clip going on this afternoon.

About my picture, a while back someone on the board asked everyone to post pictures of themselves. I just figure I'm just another overweight, 40 something that doesn't need to pollute the net with their pictures. The net is for trucks and perty girls.

Randy,

I'm the big, balding guy with the dark blue shirt. The other big guy is my 13 year old son. He takes after me, he's a big galoot. The other guy is my 15 year old son, he takes after my wife, slight build. The 13 year old stands 5-6" taller than the 15 year old and outweighs him by about 40 lbs. The star of the show is my lovely wife, you should be able to tell who she is.

53fatfndr,

I have a forklift and I am dangerous.

 

Bob,
That is an awesome panel, and an awesome serious of shots. You're kinda like the Army -- You do more by 7:00am than the rest of us do in several years.

My head is spinning. Sure looks like you had a fun day

Bobby

 

If I would have known you were going to tear it apart like that it would have never left my front yard.
Oh, and next time I had better get to meet the Best Half.

 

bob,

nice work on the cartoon and the frame swap... although ??? when I drop it back in Animation shop and look at individual shots... the boys seem to be doing all the hard stuff ??? hmmm

way to go !!

john

 

Wow! So thats how the guys on TV do it so fast.

 

So...it sounds like you had two panels...why'd you swap the better chassis to this rig? Is something wrong with the other one?

BTW Props on your animation work! Next time I need to pull a frame off, I'm callin you!

 

John,

We all know the most important part of any job is management. I just happen to be the most qualified for that position

Blue,

I have had a '48 panel for the last five years and have stalled on working on it for the last three. I did a lot of work on it, like replace the entire roof and replace all the rust along the bottom 6" of body, but there is a lot left to do. I have pictures of it in my gallery. When I saw this one on uPay a few weeks back I figure it would save me a lot of work because it was in a lot better shape so I got it. I knew when I bid on it that it needed an engine and my original plans were to yank the engine from the '48 and drop it in this one. Once I got this panel home and starting to look it over I saw that, although the chassis was decent, it needed new shocks and the brake lines were rusty meaning that it probably needed brake work. I just figured it wouldn't take much more work to switch chassis'. The chassis I had under the '48 was completely rebuilt including engine, exhaust, brakes and suspension.

Dick,

I hope my logic seems to make sense. I figure I saved myself quite a few hours by doing the swaps than doing each individual repair.

BTW, last night after finishing for the night my wife started thinking it would be nice to have two paneltrucks, a his and hers. She's seriously thinking we should keep both panels. My thoughts are to take the '48 and making a street rod out of it since the body isn't as nice as the "new" paneltruck and the chassis could use some updating. Maybe I'll try my had a stubbing a newer frame to the front. It'll have to wait until I get the "new" panel running and the F-4 on the road.

 

Very cool picture. Watching it kinda reminds me of watching an episode of Overhaulin with Chip Foose!

 

Good looking panel there Bob, and its ok, I already knew you were the scary looking one of the bunch Thats cool that you may have it running for the Dash, I'm actually debating about taking a road trip (minus the 52) over there as a grad school graduation gift to myself. I'd look forward to seeing it in person.