This ’66 Chevy was never coming apart like a clean restoration project. The bed wood was rotten, the hardware was seized, the saddle tanks were in the way, and once the bed was loose it was clear the structure was too wobbly to lift safely without adding support. Up front, the cab was tied into everything—fenders, core support, firewall connections, steering, brake components, wiring, and rusted mounts that had to be fought loose one piece at a time. The real takeaway is what the teardown exposed. The original rear cab mount design put the rubber isolator in shear, and you could see it starting to rip. The replacement chassis uses a more conventional compression-style mount front and rear, which is the right way to support the cab. Before any engine mockup or fabrication work can happen, the old truck has to be stripped down to stable, usable body pieces. That is how you get from a tired factory chassis to a foundation that can actually support the build.
The teardown begins with the team finally moving from planning into hands-on disassembly of a 1966 Chevy project truck. Their first goal is to remove the bed before tackling the cab, since the bed appears simpler in theory. The truck still has wood in the bed floor, and that wood must come out first to expose the mounting hardware. Based on their inspection, the bed should be held by four bolts per side, plus the rear taillight harness. If those eight bolts can be removed and the harness unplugged, the bed should lift straight off.
In practice, the job is complicated by age, rust, and packaging. The bed may not have been removed in decades, and the mounting points sit above saddle tanks, which interfere with access. That means the tanks may need to come off before the bed can be freed. Early inspection also reveals debris and rodent contamination under the bed, reinforcing that this is a long-neglected truck rather than a clean restoration candidate.
Once work begins, it becomes clear that the bed floor is not original. The visible wood and hardware initially look promising, but after removal the team discovers a later replacement floor coated with sealant. That layer had been trapping the carriage bolts, and once the wood came out the bolt heads were no longer captured. With access from underneath, they were able to cut the hardware free.
The saddle tanks were then removed by undoing the retaining straps and dropping the tanks out of the truck. Additional hidden fasteners were found down in the bed structure, including bolts associated with square holes, washers, and a small U-channel arrangement that had to be worked loose. After clearing those last mounting points, the bed was theoretically free. The plan was to move the truck to a two-post lift, strap the bed, raise it, and drive the chassis out from underneath.
That plan immediately ran into another problem. The truck barely started, and the starter sounded like it had endured a hard life. Even after getting the vehicle moving, the team discovered that the bed itself lacked the rigidity needed for a safe lift. Their suspicion that it needed a substructure proved correct: once unsupported, the bed wobbled badly. Rather than risk lifting a floppy bed shell into the air, they abandoned that approach.
This changed the sequence of the teardown. Instead of continuing with the bed, they shifted focus to the cab. The bed was effectively off the critical path once they realized it needed more support before it could be handled safely.
Attention then turned to the cab, where the interior had to be stripped before the shell could come off the frame. The team removed the gas tank, seat, steering components, and deteriorated floor covering or sound deadening material, much of which came apart in pieces. The condition of the materials reflected the truck's age, with brittle, decayed components throughout.
They initially tried to remove the dash to make firewall disconnection easier, assuming that would simplify access to everything passing through the cab. That turned out to be a mistake. After spending roughly two hours on it, they discovered the dash was spot-welded to the cab structure. Removing it would require taking out the windshield, but the windshield gasket was so rotted that the glass and seal were already coming apart. At that point, they revised the plan: the cab would come off with the dash still intact. That meant they only needed to remove the remaining fender supports, sheet metal attachments, cab mounts, and any wires or hoses still tying the cab to the chassis.
On the second day, the scale of the remaining work became more obvious. The cab was still tied into the inner fender supports, which connected to the core support, which in turn linked into the rest of the front clip. The truck's construction created a chain of dependencies, so removing the cab meant progressively detaching much of the front structure.
As they worked through the front end, they encountered the usual mix of rust, improvised repairs, and seized hardware. One bolt was found sitting in what had effectively become a rust hole. Body-panel fitment showed period-correct shimming, and some areas came apart only after applying heat. Elsewhere, old sheet-metal screws explained why components such as the lights had likely never aligned correctly. The team removed the fenders and inner fenders along with the hinge-support structure, leaving the front fascia attached as a unit. Because the truck is being rebuilt on a new chassis with different hinge arrangements, preserving every original bracket was not a priority. In several cases, parts were broken free rather than carefully saved, especially when they were already damaged, seized, or destined for the dumpster.
With the front clip out of the way, the remaining firewall attachments could be addressed. The brake booster and master cylinder were removed, along with hard lines, vacuum hoses, wiring, and miscellaneous attachment points that still connected the cab to the chassis. Progress was steady, but the cab mounts remained a major concern because seized or rounded hardware there could easily add hours to the job.
During this stage, the team examined the original 1965-era GM cab mount design in detail. The front mount used a more conventional arrangement, with bent sheet metal placing the rubber isolator in compression and grabbing the frame rail securely. The rear mount, however, was unusual. It mounted above the frame rail and appeared to load the rubber isolator in shear rather than compression. The rubber showed signs of tearing, and the design struck them as odd and less durable. By comparison, the Roadster Shop chassis they plan to use places both front and rear cab mounts in compression, which they considered the preferable arrangement for the rubber isolators. This comparison highlighted one of the engineering improvements the new chassis will bring over the original GM layout.
Eventually the four cab mounts were removed and the firewall was fully disconnected through a combination of unbolting, cutting, and pulling. At that point the cab was free in theory, but lifting it safely was still a challenge. Without a steering wheel and with the shell stripped down, they had to figure out how to support the cab without crushing the drip rails, damaging the headliner, or deforming the lower pinch seams.
Their solution involved using two-by-fours and moving blankets to spread the load before taking the cab to the two-post lift. Even then, they proceeded cautiously, checking whether the cab would shift as it came up. One last linkage to the gas pedal had to be disconnected after the lift process had already begun. Once that was cleared, they were able to continue raising the cab and roll the old frame out from underneath. The operation required careful positioning and repeated test fits, but it succeeded without major damage to the shell.
By mid-afternoon on Sunday, the major teardown goals were complete. The cab was free and sitting on a table, and the engine was out as well. The next step in the build is to place the cab onto the Roadster Shop chassis and evaluate how the engine and cab fit together. That mock-up is important because there are known clearance concerns in the engine bay that Empire Fabrication will need to design around.
Rather than treating the teardown as an end in itself, the team framed it as the transition point into the real engineering phase of the build. The old chassis is slated to go to Kevin Aguilar at Fuelish Media for use on a C10 project, while the fate of the removed engine remains undecided. With the original frame and cab now separated, the truck is ready to move from disassembly into chassis integration and fabrication planning for what they describe as a blown build.