Pickup returning from the Abyss

They don’t start off much worse than this!

I am lead to beleive the project started many years ago when a father bought this Pickup with the intention of restoring it with his son,

They made a start by putting in a complete new passenger compartment floor/sills etc. plus a new rear subframe heel board.

The project came to a stand still when children grew up and life moved on – a very common storey many of you will understand.

So the father came to me asking if I would finish the shell restoration, he would then get someone to respray it and reassemble himself with hopefully his son helping!

I have to be careful how I word this but the welding they had done was not the best I have seen, so areas looked unsightly but held & others had not taken!

He wanted me to keep the floor & heel they had fitted since he was 100% sure they were in straight.

The first job was to make a jig from another un-welded pickup I had to align the new buck floor & rear wheel arches. Bracing was added to the shell with measurements checked form the other good pickup.

The heel board needed straightening up and some welds adding but otherwise was solid eough.

Hopefully the photos will give you then general progress but it was a very long job to with the following new panels being fitted

Complete buck floor, both rear wheel arches, both rear wings, both rear corners, new tailgate,

The last 2 photos are the customers own showing the rebuild