Cleaning out the Cab

Now it's time to begin working on the cab. First, we had to remove all of the seats, the center console and the power inverter in order to remove the carpeting and access the cab mounting bolts. The first step was to remove the passenger seat to allow more room for working in the cab. Next, we disconnected and removed the 1000watt power inverter mounted on the side wall in the back of the cab.

Once this was out of the way, we could get to the mounting bolts that support the rear bench seat. Before we started here, we slid under the truck and sprayed a generous amount of penetrating lubricant on the studs before trying to break them free. Again, the air ratchet came in handy as we zipped the bolts out and slid the upper and lower seat sections out of the cab. Next we began to remove the bolts anchoring the captains chairs to the floor. These came out much easier than we anticipated. The drivers side chair was removed and both seats were set aside for the scrap yard.

Inside the cab before it gets taken apart	The passenger's seat is removed, the power inverter is the light blue object behind the driver's seat
This is the birds nest of wires hidden in the console	Everything is removed except for the carpet

The last obstacle here is the custom oak console that was created several years ago to replace the basic factory plastic console. The console used the same mountings as the original and once the bolts were free, there were a lot of wires to disconnect. In the cases where there were full cables routed in under the cab such as the four gauge power cable and the lightbar cables, these were simply cut to facilitate removal of the console. The last step of this process is to remove the carpeting and sound proofing.

With the carpeting removed, we can now access the body mounting bolts. This is where it gets tricky. We need to remove the cab, but we don't want to just take it off and set it on the ground. So we are making arrangements to have the truck transported by rollback to the body shop. Once there, it will be lifted off of the frame and work will begin on its restoration. Once the cab is removed and the truck returned home, we will begin the removal of the engine, transmission, transfer case and drive shafts.