Me & Gramps' '51 GMC 5 Window Project

My grandpa has always been a truck, tractor, and car guy. If it weren't for him I wouldn't have the love I have for old rides. He's been telling me he only has one project left, and since I've always loved the 47-53 5 window pickups, that's what we're doing. We started out with this '51 GMC LWB 3 window that I bought back in March.


The plan is to turn this 3 window lwb into a 5 window swb. Gramps did a little asking around and managed to find us a good short frame and 5 window cab.

 

very cool family project

 

We cleaned up the "new" frame and installed a new MII front suspension and frame mounted power brake booster.


We cleaned up the stock rear springs and replaced all the bushings/shackles. I picked up a 9" Camaro posi disc brake rear, and we got it all temporarily mounted together so we could get it on the ground and move it around. We're gonna drop the rear with blocks and slide the axle back to center the tires in the wells.

 

this is awesome, great start

 

Next up was cutting the box down 9".

The stake pockets proved to be less than thrilled about coming off, but Gramps did a great job of getting them all off and back on.
Before:

After:


Once those holes are filled and the sides are blasted and cleaned up, it should look great.

 

We spent the past couple days stripping down the truck and cab. We just pulled the whole front clip off as a unit, and then gutted the cab of everything.

 

It's gonna be a slow going project, as I'm an hour plus from Gramps & the truck. This project is gonna test my patience and my wallet, but it's well worth it. I'm very thankful for the opportunity to spend all this time with my grandpa and to learn all that I can. I'm also thankful for the HAMB and the wealth of knowledge here. Between the main board and all the great guys over at the AD Truckers group, not a day goes by that I don't learn something.

 

Damn dude, that was a sweet truck to begin with! Gonna be nice. Also, both of those cabs look great, wish I was as lucky.

My gramps just turned 90. Still gets around ok but obviously not as good as yours. Nice project!

 

I wish my cab looked as clean as either of those. At least you won't be investing a lot of time repairing rust!

 

Cool project,enjoy the journey with your gramps and soak up all the knowledge you can, keep us posted with progress!

 

Thanks for the kind words guys. Making a trip tomorrow to sell all the parts I'm not using back to the guy I bought the truck from. It's gonna be a big help with getting some $$ to pump back into the project.

Shadams- that's awesome he still gets around ok at 90! Scientists should probably study my grandpa, he's in his 70's and gets more done in a day than most guys a third his age.

 

So awesome you're getting to do this with your gramps. Wish I had mine around...one was a real deal hot rod houligan. Nice start on the truck!

 

What a cool project. You are very fortunate to have a project with your granddad. My grandfathers were both awesome guys and I was fortunate enough to spend time with them. But for me this would be an ultimate experience, obviously you are aware of this by sharing with us. Congrats guys, it looks fab! ~sololobo~

 

Looks like a fun project!

 

Cool truck. I have always liked the AD trucks...

 

Great work fellow's !!!!! I love workig with my Grandson on our cars.

 

Got a little more done this weekend. Pulled the 350 and mounted the 700R4 to it. Started to test fit it on our frame.



Realized we needed to make a couple little modifications to fit the steering and run the headers we already have. Made a small scallop on the passenger side for header clearance as well as a small scallop/tunnel on the driver's side for the steering to pass through. Since making that "tunnel" got into our boxing plate, we cut more plate and boxed the frame a little further back on that side.

 

Sweet working with family

 

Got our motor mounts, U-Joints, and support bearing ordered and on the way. Gonna have 3 U-Joints and one support bearing making up our steering linkage. After adding lowering blocks and saddles to our stock springs, we're still not happy with where it's at height-wise or our scrub line. So, tomorrow morning I'm gonna call Posies and order their 440a lowering springs. I have read nothing but good things about them, and on top of lowering and centering the rear they should squash our scrub line worries and improve the ride quality.

 

Looking Great! keep it up look forward to seeing around.

 

Great looking project, Those cabs are really clean

 

...nice project, I've done dozens of these AD's; mite I suggest removing all but the longest 5 rear leaf springs, it'll lower and ride better but you'll still need to use a good size lowering block to get it to sit rite with stock rear springs, as they have a pretty good arch to em, no problem with frame clearance unless you go really low.

need any help/suggestipns, PM me.

 

Thanks for the advice! I actually ordered some lowering springs from Posies- gonna solve a couple problems in one fell swoop with their addition.

 

Thanks Neal! I enjoyed looking at your pictures...gonna take a while to look at all 9,588!

 

Got the Posies springs & saddles put on yesterday and they look like they're gonna work out great. They have a great amount of flex compared to the old stockers, they have us sitting as low (or lower) that we were with our blocks, and they have eliminated our scrub line worries. The saddles have two holes, so we'll have a little room to adjust the wheels in the wells once we get it all put together.

 

We put the cab and front clip on the truck to try and get and idea exactly where our motor needs to be sitting.





Discovered that since we are using a Chevy frame, the cross member for the radiator is a bit further aft than on our GMC frame (I assume this is due to the GMC having the longer engine originally.) So we made a "tab" and added it to the front of the cross member.





Also started to work our engine mounts onto the frame. This took up most of the day, as we had to adapt the amounts to work around our boxing plates and MII cross member. I didn't get a picture of them finally tacked in, but they are and we will be pulling the motor/trans to get them fully welded in.

 

Awesome!

 

...that's a great way to go...

 

Cool project! Enjoy working with your grand dad, I'm sure you can learn a lot.

 

Yeah, they seem like they're gonna be great!

Thanks TFoch, we're having a lot of fun and I'm learning more and more every day we work on it.