Well, I feel like I made some progress today on the truck.

I got it moved to the new house in San Jose several months ago. It is hidden (sort of) behind a fence in the side yard, between my garage and a freeway sound wall. I have been slowly working towards removing a front fender, so that I can remove the engine.

After removing about 30 old rusty bolts and screws, and cutting some weld that Kirk probably did, the fender is still there. I came across a few rivets that must be original, and I am starting to wonder if this fender has ever been removed before.

Anyway, I decided to give up on the fender for now, and work on the radiator support. Since the fenders bolt to this (among other things) I had been planning to remove it after the fenders, but I needed a new approach.

The first step was to remove the radiator. Just a few bolts (that were not rusted in ... how rare), and the hoses. The hoses still looked in good condition, kind of surprising for hoses that must be 35 years old. Oh, and then I have to remove the radiator support, support bars (the long bar in the above picture that comes from the fire wall). This one was rusted in, and was quite difficult to remove. I didnt want to damage it, because it would not be easy to replace, so I spent a few hours with some large wrenches, forcing the nuts off.

And the radiator just lifts out. It is much heavier than radiators today. All copper probably.

Back to the radiator support: only 12 more bolts holding it on. Some of these come out easily, others do not. A couple of bolts holding the bottom of the support to the frame, were rusted so badly that parts of the bolt head were gone. One of the best tricks that I learned from my Chevy Truck Restoration book, is how to loosen an old rusty bolt: you heat the nut red hot with a torch. When it cools down again, it will come apart easily. Not sure why, but it works.

It was still a little effort to pull the support out, because the fenders are resting against it. But it came out.

I think the engine will fit out through the hole that I made here, but I still plan to pull at least one fender off, just for easier access. But that will be another day.