1968 m715

[66stepside]

Whew. I disassembled the stock seats, sliced and diced the legs to fit the reworked floor pans and painted the frames with the snow cammo theme. Next up is the center console. It’ll get reworked to be an actual center console.







1st Step:




Edit:

I buttoned up the rhino fascia, so it can come off for final welding and prep for paint. Welding included a few nuts that had broken off so now it’s back to as it should be for bolting on to all the stock locations- even the M series fenders.

I also dropped the floor of the console and tact welded in a fresh piece. Then I ran out of daylight.





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[emoji90]



About a 1/2 gallon of polyurethane white dumped on the brick. So much for “cleaning up”. [emoji1787]

[66stepside]

If I can finish laying some brick down, I can get back to work on the truck.




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[glenn]

Nice, another M715 that is local to me. We need to do a cruise this next spring or summer with yours and mine.

[66stepside]

Nice, another M715 that is local to me. We need to do a cruise this next spring or summer with yours and mine.

That would be pretty cool. I never see anything else in the area on the road!

I did fix the brick and started on the 69 telescoping tilt caddy column.




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[66stepside]

I opted to work inside today due to the downpour of rain.

The grey canvas door panels turned out pretty good. I’ll cover the top of the center console and even redo the seat upholstery with this stuff.



Edit:

The rain stopped soon enough so the brick could dry out:

Cut off the column ignition switch and auto tranny shifter, fiberglassed the innards, layed down a coat of filler to smooth it out two, or three days ago, then sanded her this afternoon, then applied another thin coat of filler to get the imperfections.



More sanding to come.

[66stepside]

Whew... a busy few months. I made some progress- fab’d brackets, welded up and mounted the front bumper.



Painted and installed the modified caddy tilt - telescoping steering column with a custom bracket (similar to a mod I did on my 66 J300):



Installed the seats and the passenger side door panel:





I bought the metal to make the brackets to mount it all to the Chevy frame, but those plans were canceled due to rain. So maybe next weekend?

I centered the bed on the rear axle and came up with 6.5” of space in-between the bed and cab. So I’ll be making a covered storage-tool box-thingy and mounting it to the bed.



But for now, I’m more interested in getting the rear bumper figured out.

The original M715 front bumper was hidden within the giant front bumper on it and when I cut that bumper down, the stock one was there. So, I might be reusing it on the back after cleaning it up of the excess metal and repairing stress cracks:



It might be too far gone, so time will tell.

EDIT:

The stock front bumper is too far gone to reuse. So a trip to the recycling yard was in order today.



The plasma cutter whittled it down to the correct length, and sliced off come excess metal, too. I skimmed over the fuglies with the grinder for a bit, then did the initial mock up, but didn’t snap pics.

The plan is to build a M series version of the civilian Gladiator’s Den Hunt style bumper so it will wrap around to the rear of the bed’s fenders.

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[glenn]

Sent you a pm.

[66stepside]

While rapping up a resto on a Commando 1/2 cab, I painted the Gladiator Grill Support I swapped in to match the base Snow Cammo theme I’m going for:



Installation of the body mounts is up next, and, of course completing the snow cammo paint.


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Edit:




Yet another edit:

A bit of bling:




They’re in need of a thorough cleaning and polishing as they’ve been in storage for awhile, but for a late night mock up, it’ll do for now.

I gotta do something about that bumper, though.

[66stepside]

I’ve been tinkering with the m715. The hydro boost is in and plumbed, I need to instal the connecting rod from the pedal to the brake booster, though.

The wiring harness is cleaned up and mounted to the firewall in the engine bay. I had to instal the Chevy K30 steering column as the caddy tilt telescoping one wouldn’t work. The column is mounted to the steering box.

The radiator fan has been moved back 1” to allow for better clearance on the aluminum radiator that came today.









The radiator is 1/4” too big for the space. So mods will have to be made for it to fit. [emoji57]


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Edit:

That wasn’t too bad:







Next up, brackets to hold it and the fan shroud together.

[glenn]

Looking good. I'm hoping this next weekend to spend some quality time with one of mine.