Some Days are Like That

I had a free afternoon last Sunday, so I thought I'd put in a few hours of work on the truck. I started looking at the patch panel, then Will came over to help out.

We moved on to removing the old wiring that powered the brake and tail lights. Its hard to believe how many splices were in just a few feet of wiring. The wiring at the back had been put in with those blue clip-on type connectors, which typically are a problem waiting to happen. All of that is going to be replaced with the new wiring kit anyway, so he just cut the old stuff out. I saved the old wiring though- the wires are shot and make no sense at the back, but I'm going to snip off and save the old connectors, labeling them in case I need to reference or re-use them.

Then we decided to try to remove the window from the driver's door. This did not go so well, as you will see. The video is a lot of just removing bolts and pulling on things, but some of the dialogue made it worth keeping. What I didn't mention in the video is the reason behind dismantling the door. When I start in on the floor, which will probably happen in the spring, I want to be able to get everything lined up right- the door, the front fenders, the floor, the rocker, and all the other pieces. Since the door opening near the top is really the only area not structurally affected by rust or the accident, I'm going to use that as the starting point for aligning the rest. This is going to involve frequent removal and installation of the door, so by removing its contents, I'll make it lighter and easier to deal with. It may be worth noting here that I plan on rebuilding the door hinges before I start the floor to ensure proper alignment.

Once we gave up on getting the window out, we decided to try to remove the passenger side door panel. This went about as well as the window removal. Two of the bolts that hole the panel on just spun in their holes, so they had to be drilled out. It turns out that those bolts were hardened steel, so I'm now down a few of my few remaining good drill bits.

And now, our feature presentation:





Of course, I couldn't just leave it alone, so a few days later I decided to take another whack at it.

So now, our encore presentation:






I'm planning to do my next video on the passenger window, in hopes that it'll be better composed than this one. I have yet to find a decent video on YouTube for this operation, so I'm hoping it'll be helpful to someone out there.