Me & Gramps' '51 GMC 5 Window Project

Nice. Im watching this one. Great idea on the radio placement. Might have to do that one myself!

 

Thanks! I think that it'll work great, especially with the remote.

 

Hi Cubby

Very cool build , was looking at the pic of the wood in the bed.

Have you seen Quilted Maple as i have a few pcs done in candy colors, if you wan't to dazzle the troops at where you take your truck think about the colored quilt maple

Go to the custom Guitar builders and take a look at the colors they put on that trick wood, the candy orange in the sun will knock your socks off

See ' Wilkins Guitars ' as Pat painted my wood for me and he has different colors to look at.

That is really neat you get to work with you Gramp ' Priceless '

Don

 

Don-

I'll definitely have to check that out. I want to find that line between looking different and looking outta place. Thanks for the info!

 

In my Design shop the saying is from ' Mild to Wild ' it is what ever you wan't to have, the Quilted Maple is very popular with custom guitar builders but you do not see it other stuff like a pick-up bed!!

Like i said you will dazzle the troops when people see your cool ride

I have it in the orange - red and purple but the darker the color the less the wood pattern shows, so that orange really lights up in the sunshine and looks good under lights too

Don

 

Well the body work is slowly coming together. Running boards were rough and took a lot of work, but they're finally in primer and ready for paint.

 

Front clip is also in primer and ready to go. Gonna paint the radiator surround, inner fenders, etc black.

 

Pictures are posting tiny for some reason...I'll have to figure that out. Got my Vintage Air Mark IV underdash unit, condenser, drier and trans cooler all in and the "parts needed" list is slowly getting smaller. So ready to get this thing on the road! Hope to have the box and rear fenders squared away in the next week or two.

 

The front clip is mounted

 

Looking good.

 

Had room for everything. Didn't have to cut into the inner fenders at all. We did have to kick our compressor in a bit and get a new, shorter belt, but otherwise it all fit nice.



Thanks to the GMC having the longer engine originally, fan clearance wasn't an issue. Our radiator mounting bracket that we added to the Chevy frame worked out perfectly and.

 

Mounted our condenser and tranny cooler, then ran all our A/C lines to get length and index our fittings.

 

Test fit our new Vintage Air Mark IV underdash unit and discovered our gas pedal was hitting on the back side of the fan motor. We had to shorten the cable, cut a new square hole (which is always fun) a little lower, shorten and bend our pedal, and mount it all back in. Ideally if would have been great if we could have slid the A/C unit 1.5" to the left, but there wasn't room due to the cowl vent lever (which we had to already bend slightly) and we couldn't move our gas pedal to the right due to there not being room because of the distributor. I hate having to completely redo stuff, but it's nice when you're on the backside and things are working right again.

Oh, and we also hooked up our defroster vents. You'll notice there is two different types of duct, because that's all I could find in the right size anywhere within 60 miles.

 

Here's how it sits now:



Picking up the crimped A/C lines tomorrow. Gonna run them as well as the rest of the "plumbing" and mount the VA unit back under the dash. Hood will be done by Tuesday and then we'll work on finishing the box and rear fenders.

 

this must be an awesome time with your grandpa.
truck is lookin awesome

 

Nice man, coming along very well...

 

A/C unit is in mounted and lines are ran. As with everything, we ran into a few small issues, but nothing we couldn't overcome. Now I'm just waiting for my new compressor manifold that I ordered from Honest Charley. I hadn't heard of them before, but I can say this will probably be my only order from them. They charged me $18 shipping for only the manifold that will easily fit in the smallest flat rate box. I ordered it 6 days ago and when I called this morning to find out if it had shipped yet, they weren't sure and said they'd get back to me. Still haven't heard from them. Ok, rant over...time for pictures.

 

We also ran the heater lines and water lines to/from the radiator. The water outlet on the radiator had to be cut since it turned up 90 degrees and would have interfered with the fan. The next challenge was finding a house that had a 1 1/2" opening into a quick 90 degree turn and then a U going back up into a 1 3/4". We went through all the hoses at O'Reilly and found two that we could combine.

 

Cubby,

Hows the height of the seat in the cab for you? Lots of guys used to channel the seat bases on these from what i remember reading in mags as a kid.

I just picked up a seat that is the same as yours. Have you looked into getting it recovered or buying a new cover yet? Im gunna want black something, preferably vinyl. Thought you might be able to enlighten me

 

I'm 6'2" and seat height is perfect. I could see channelling the cab for the stock seat, but it's not necessary with these. I've seen a couple vendors that make replacement covers, but I'm nervous about ordering one and it looking like crap. I'd like to have it done with some pleat & roll, but I can't really swing the 300-400 bucks it's probably gonna cost right now. May have to order a cheaper cover and roll with it for the time being.

 

Finally got rid of the coffee can and put the air cleaner back on. It wasn't a piece of art to start with, so I just painted the top black, and it'll get the job done. Manifold came in and now the A/C is 100% hooked up. It's really a nice little part. Considering the amount of hoses running under the hood, I think we got it all routed and organized nicely. The motor could definitely use a good dusting at this point!

 

We got the headlight buckets and in and made sure they were working as they should. Also converted the running lights to dual contact so I can use them as turn signals as well as running lights.



We decided to test fit the hood....and man if I had any hair I'd be pulling it out. It's acting like it's 2 inches too long in the front and it's just a complete circus. Decided to call it a day...it'll be fixed eventually, but I'm not looking forward to fighting it as much as we're going to have to. At least it looks good in the up position!

 

3 months is too long without an update....

 

You're right brother! I had a spinal fusion back in August, so I've been away from the truck. I'm getting better every day and I'll be back at it in no time! I did make it down there this week and Gramps managed to straighten out our hood issues. I won't go into all it took, but he is a saint for sticking with it.





The little one keeps getting bigger and she's already looking ready to hot rod.

 

While I've been down, Gramps and his buddy put this Franken-A together:

 

Rad!!

 

You got yourself a good grandpa!

 

beautiful truck nice job

 

Thanks gents...and Chubod, I sure do!

 

Looking good neighbor! On the road before you know it.