Billman and I put in several hours last night working on the truck, braving the thunderstorms and tornado warnings.
Positives-
We mounted the tailgate, rear view mirror, brake pedal pad, removed the inner fender, changed the oil, installed the doghead recommended starter relay, mounted the junkyard spare tire, changed the wiper blades, removed the white box from the back, and did a little cleaning.
Negatives-
The tailgate is little more than junk. The inner fender had rusted through along with the front battery support. It looks like a previous battery may have leaked and taken the metal with it. Some of the mounting nuts attached to the bodywork spin making it difficult (impossible) to remove the bolts.
We discovered that the shift linkage is missing a washer and bushing. Luckily it is easily found in the 34P manual, and ebay apparently has everything.
I am sure there is a trick to mounting the tailgate properly, but I don't know it. Fighting with the springs was an experience. At least the bolts I picked up fit well.
Last week, when we discovered that the purple starter solenoid wire didn't receive power, we made a jumper and used it to start the truck. We knew it was either a bad relay, or a bad wire. This week, as we were preparing to install the improved relay, we discovered that there was no starter relay installed, hence it was a "towed onto lot" vehicle. I will admit, we probably should have looked past step 4 in the troubleshooting manual, but we were in a pinch for time and we just wanted to get it moving and into the garage.
No pictures today. The only pics I took were of unit markings, the build sheet in the glove box, and the rusted inner fender and the hole it left.