The first repair is done

I purchased a replacement driver side mirror on eBay last week and installed it today. It is the first thing that can be taken off the list.

Here is a before picture:
And here is the after picture:



It took about 1 hour to complete this job, but the engineer at GM that designed the interior window cranks should be fired. It is the worst possible design and I can think of 5 different ways to install it that would make it much easier to take on and off than that little metal clip. This would have been a 30 minute job had it not been for me taking a long time getting the interior door panel off because of that window handle clip. Also, the Clinton's manual should have told me that it was a 13/32" nut (x3) holding the mirror in place.

I also removed the pin stripe that was just on the front quarter panel today.

Hopefully, a lot of stuff will be done this weekend.

Repairs

There seems to be a few repairs I have to make to this truck before I will start the ICE to Electric conversion process.

In no particular order:

-Remove pin stripe
-Driver side mirror replace
-Put on fender flares
-Undent Driver side door bottom
-Paint dings
-Bondo and prevent rust at bottom of driver and passenger side doors
-Align driver side door, replace hinge
-Remove dents, dings on driver side of bed
-Remove rusted metal & prevent more in rear driver side wheel well
-Align bumper a little
-New rear wheels
-Repair truck bed cover
-Put plastic piece on top of tailgate
-Fix tailgate handle
-Clean chrome on front bumper
-Paint, clear coat hood
-Paint/Repair plastic on bottom of windshield
-Fix/Replace windshield
-Paint windshield wiper arms
-Remove stickers
-Remove antenna and smooth/bondo hole
-Repair & smooth out passenger side door and bed
-Fix hook/latch on tailgate
-Add/Remove/Change color of interior panels and dash
-Add stereo
-Paint frame with POR-15
-Line up truck bed

It's a good thing I got a good deal on this truck...

And so it begins...

Phase 1 - Repairs

So, I have my 1996 Chevy S-10 pickup truck in the garage, but it needs a little work done on the appearance side of things before any actual conversion work will start. I will start by replacing the driver side mirror today. I bought a replacement from an eBay store on-line and received it yesterday.

I started reading Bob Brant's Build Your Own Electric Vehicle book today. It is from 1994, so some of the things are a little dated, but the rule W = V * A (and many others) are still the same. There is a updated version of this book being released in October, so I'll have to see if I can get it before I start my conversion. http://www.mhprofessional.com/product.php?isbn=0071543732

I am figuring that there will be 3 phases to this project, Repair, Remove, and Rebuild. I am estimating the repair phase to take 2 months. Hopefully that is a conservative estimate, but I will have some business travel to do next month.

Overall, I am excited to get started on this project. It should turn out really good and will be a good, efficient, cheap and reliable mode of transportation for many years to come.