Everything is Okay

Just a quick one to let you all know I'm still here and that everything is okay around our place. It finally dried out and warmed up a bit here in Roseburg. I've been busy working out around the place. Today I managed to get two piles of brush burned, these two piles have been bothering us for quite some time now and it's good to get rid of them. Delaine got a bunch of her plants in the ground today too. With the long weekend we may actually get our deer fence up around the garden spot. If we get it up then maybe we will actually have some vegetables later this summer. Anna and Delaine have collected a bunch of plants to go in the garden. Delaine plans to put in a small flower garden behind the fence too.

Anna went to prom last weekend. She had a lot of fun and she looked very pretty. I got a photo of her in her dress. I posted it on flickr if you want to see it. Monday evening Anna was honored a UCC for outstanding performance in her math class. They had a night of excellence and she was one of about 50 kids from high school that were honored.

I hope you all are doing good . . .

Progress on the '95 GMC

I got the fender and the hood on the GMC today before church. I noticed the '89 fender is just a bit different than the '95. There isn't enough difference to make me want to look for another one but right at the top next to the door the '89 tapers back toward the front of the pickup, so there is a little bit of a gap. It's only about 1/8" in 1" so it's not very noticeable really. I snapped a couple of pictures of it. You can't see the gap but you can see the difference in the color.

Now all we have to do is get the new grille in and we'll be able to start prepping for paint. I have a new grille coming from Clint Newell, it should be here this Tuesday. The grille is coming white so we won't have to mess with painting it. The bumper I got is a little rough and should really be re chromed. I suppose I'll put it on the way it is for now then after school is out I'll take it off and get it cleaned up and re chromed. All the side body molding is glued on and will get ruined when I take it off, so likely I'll order up body molding kit from Clint Newell too. The old pickup should look pretty good when we get done with it. Before Anna starts driving it to school I'll take it in and have the front end aligned since it got jarred around during its trip into to the tree.

The Jimmy is Home

We picked up the Jimmy from Clint Newell this afternoon and drove it home. Mind you there was no bumper, grille, hood or right front fender on it. The lights all work but some are hanging from the wires on the front end. I'll clean a spot in the shop and move it in tomorrow so we can still the reassembly process and prep it for paint. It will be white still and get a pearl treatment then clear coat after that. I'll get some pictures of it later and post them up for all to see.

The work begins . . .

The Frame is Straight

Okay, we decided to go ahead and get the "Jimmy" fixed so Anna would have it to drive. We got it for such a small amount that we figured we could spend some money on it so we took into Clint Newel's body shop and they put it on the frame rack to straighten the frame. Well they were successful and it is straight again. Nick the technician did a very nice job and he painted the two spots that he had to straighten. You can see the end in this photo. When he took the inner fender tub, and core support out he found them to be too bent to put back in so I had to scurry around and round up the parts. Luckily for me our neighbor Rob has an '89 Chevy setting in our other neighbor Larry's driveway and they visited me the other day to tell me I could take whatever I need off it. Also luckily the '89 was clean on the front end and all the parts interchange perfectly so I got the inner and outer fenders, the core support, the hood and the bumper. The parts are silvery blue instead of white so Anna and I will paint them and we'll also repaint the whole pickup. It ought to be good project for us. I though Nick would be done with today but he didn't make it so we won't get it back till Monday. I was a bit disappointed because I was hoping to work on it this weekend. Now it will be next week before we can get into it. Here is another shot of it on the rack:

It will be nice to have it back . . .