68 highboy

I was told I should do a build thread, i have had this project for a looong time, this was my first truck, I took my wife on our first date in this truck, it was my dads truck before me while I was growing up. I decided to do a body swap sometime in 2009, but a bad year in 2010 ( loosing two grandparents, a great grandma, and my father, as well as welcoming a second kid into our family took the wind out of my sail. I did work on it here and there over the years, but it has mainly been a looked over second thought. My kids are now at the age where they are starting to want to do stuff with friends over hanging with mom and dad, and I finally have the ambition to start working on the old girl again. So to keep me motivated and moving on the project I’m starting a build thread.

I’m currently found a high pinion open knuckle Dana 44 swamp, disc brakes and a better turning radius are my two major motivators to make this work.

 

[notajeep]

And I’m kind of a National park Geek, when I travel I buy patches and have built up a large collection. Does anyone else collect patches and if so what have you done with them? I’ve thought about a camp poncho but that may be one heavy poncho and may be a bit tacky, how about a blanket?

I attach all of mine to the headliner in my truck.

 

[Die Blaue Ziege]

Before

 

[Die Blaue Ziege]

And after, I even installed new “fog lights” and the heavy duty newly painted brush guard, this should protect my headlights and grill when deep in the bush.

 

[Die Blaue Ziege]

It’s that time of year again, I take a week off in the spring and catch up on projects, this year we were able to finish up some work on the 68! The body work is done, we got all the way to base coat but had some problems with the gun settings so I decided to stop and let it cure up before I block sand and give it a go again. Yesterday I was able to get the inside of the bed raptor lined.

 

[Die Blaue Ziege]

Well well well lots of work done on the Highboy… Finally!