Hope Everyone is having a good Day After Christmas! I decided to spend my day working on my truck project.
So I started today with removing the screws that hold the gas tank cap to the truck bed. There four Phillip screws in a plus pattern around the cap. Those were not to hard to take out and all straight forward.
After that I went to disconnect the tail lights so then were free when the bed got removed. There were two torque screws on each light inside where the tailgate latches. After they were removed I had to rotate and pop two pins out to fully disconnect the tail light assembly. With it disconnect I had to pop off two wire harness from the two bulbs. Then I just reinserted the light assembly and re-tightened the torque screws.
Then I moved to removing the rear bumper. First thing I had to do was disconnect the license plate lights. After that I had a fun and difficult time determining the correct size of the hex bolts holding the bumper on. Eventually I determined they were 18mms and began the process of loosening them. I had to ask my dad to come out and help hold the bumper while I removed the bolts so it did not fall on top of me.
Next I moved back to getting the hex bolts that held on the truck bed. I had a lot of trouble with these bolts also. Again I was having difficult determining their size and eventually found them to be 15mms. I began loosening them by hand until my neighbor returned home and informed me that he had size reducer so I could use the impact driver. Thankfully my neighbor had an impact driver and it made it so much easier. So I just had to loosen the bolts with a socket, ratchet, and I long pipe to get enough torque. Then using out small air compressor I was able to slowly back the bolts out.
With all the bolts out and getting the help of my dad and neighbor we were able to lift the bed off the truck. As a joke my neighbor said we should be on block in front of the house to mess with my mother who just got the siding redone.
Below are some pictures of the outcome of my work today.
