. In a recent Jalopy Journal Feature on my truck (found here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-dave-gray-33-truck.977955/page-3#post-11035928 ) there was some confusion as to who really built the truck. I figured the best way to clear up the confusion was to do a re-build thread showing the highlights of the trucks rebuild. Those that follow me on Instagram (@grays_garage), will have seen most of these pics before. Let's start out by showing the truck in "as found" condition by Jim, the truck's previous owner. As you can see the truck was pretty nice body wise and the chop and '49 Merc dash were already in done. They were both finished in lead, so the work was most likely done "back in the day". That said you can see the truck needed lots of work to put it on the road. Jim set off to make the truck a nice hot rod with some really cool bits and pieces. The Caddy goes in and the body goes on... Bad Donkee Hot Rods gets involved and makes up the tail pan, headers, rewires the car and headlight bar. If I forgot anything, I hope Clark or Junior steps up and corrects me. Here is the "finished" truck the way appeared when I bought it. As you can see it is a neat truck and had some really cool pieces and parts. Something about the truck just grabbed me and I couldn't get it out of my head, so I bought it. What you can't see is the truck was built as a more "rough and tumble" hot rod. While it had great bones, the paint was an "amateur at home" job with several runs in it, some longer than your arm. There was also thin spots on door edges, cab corners, etc... The body work was also not dialed in before the car was sprayed. There were several ripples, waves and even dings that were painted over. The Washington blue paint really hid a lot of this well. Please note, I was aware of all of these issues before buying the truck and by no means am I trying to disrespect Jim. He built the truck to his tastes and to satisfy himself for how he intended to use the truck. Job well done. Halfway home from picking the car up I stopped in Pennsylvania at HAMB'r Gump's house for a shop party. I had made arrangements with Bad Donkee Hot Rods to pic up a hood top that they had made up for the truck. I really like the change this made to the truck. Here are a few more shots of the truck taken at the party... While driving the truck at the party, it was apparent there was a major drivetrain vibration that needed attention. so upon arriving home, I tore the engine and tranny out and found the pressure plate was junk. the clutch was not adjusted properly and pushed the fingers on the pressure plate into the springs pockets on the cluch disc and bent the shit out of everything. At this point I had a decision to make, do I just put it back together with a new clutch or do I tear into it and put my own stamp on the truck. The truck sat in my shop torn down for about 6 months while I decided what to do with it.
I finally decided I wouldn't be happy with the truck until I made it my own. So I got a hold of my friend Marvin Leigib and asked if he would team up with me to redo the truck in time for the Detroit Autorama. A deal was worked out and we began the rebuilt in late October. Marvin would be working out of my shop and would handle all the body work and most of the painting. The tear down begins... That's Marv hard at it in the 2nd pic above. We cleaned up the dash and I welded up the radio hole. I completely re-sprayed the chassis and suspension... While Marv was attending to the body work, I handled the painting of the engine, wheels, steering wheel, headlights and the body color along the frame rails. After welding up something like 18 holes, the paint began to flow... Then the body color started going down and the magic began to happen... Niether Marv or I had touched a spray gun in at least 5 years, so of coarse we had some goof ups. Here the whole cab gets reshot after final assembly had began. On Instagram, I was not disclosing the color, so I posted all final assembly pics in black and white. I kept this up until the truck made it's debut at Autorama. It was kind of fun... The fenders going back on made a huge difference. It was starting to look like a truck again...
. During final assembly I spent several hours trying to nail down the final look of the truck. I changed headlights, center caps, trim rings and even wheel colors trying to get it just right. Notice the gold wheels with Merc caps... Here it is with black walls and white wheels... About this time I buttoned up the interior. My buddy Denny whipped up the door panels and seat cover. This was the look I had in my head for truck the whole time we were redoing it. Whitewalls, Merc caps and trim rings on gold wheels. Then at the last minute I decided to try a different set of caps on the car. I knew the second I saw them on the truck that I was going to run them. Here is the first time out in the sun in the sun with the hub caps on. This was literally days before the Detroit Autorama and we hadn't even began to rub out the paint yet. Marv called on another buddy Brad to come over and show us the ropes on color sanding and buffing the paint. Together the 3 of us spent a few days getting her ready for the show. I was actually still buffing at 10 PM the night before Autorama. A few days before Autorama I get a message from Tim Sutton from Hop Up. He had been watching my progress on Instagram and said they would be interested in shooting the truck. Needless to say, I was stoked. So we made arrangements to shoot the truck Thursday morning before the load in at Autorama. It was a balmy 8 degrees out that day but we managed to get the shoot done. The rest of Autorama weekend was kind of a blur for me. The truck got plenty of attention during load in on Thursday. I was grateful, but I really didn't think much about it. On Friday a buzz began to circulate about the truck and it just kind of kept building all weekend. My phone was blowing up from friends across the country saying they were seeing the truck posted all over the internet. By the end of Autorama, the truck had won a Street Rodder Magazine Top 100, The Chairmans Trophy on Saturday night and Best of Show in the basement. I was Stunned. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought the weekend would end up going this way. Here is a photo-dump from Autorama... Chuck Vranas From Street Rodder... .
Hi It's a cream puff no lie there. And it looked like damned nice driver before. So both owners have a right to be proud of there take on it. All I can say is I'd not kick'em out of my shop leakin on the floor HA . And who knows what it's going to look in the next 100 years. Roger
As I've said before, really really cool! Not sure what the big deal was.... you took a pretty decent running beater and turned it into a show car! Just don't forget to drive the wheels off it! Congrats man!
Hi Dave , no doubt about the change was positive, I never imagine that golden paint looks so right ... I always like hot rods with an old patina ... but I have to review this point ... Since I saw the post of your truck submitted by Ryan in the Jalopy Journal, I have not stopped thinking about some of the features of your truck ... and because my project is a deuce truck, that I wanted to ask you about .. . One of the first things I would like to know ... is if the box was shortened ? ... And what year is the truck bed? There are differences in terms of length compared to a deuce bed?
The truck is up for sale guys. As much as I love it, I need to sell something to fund the next build. PM me for the details. I will put an ad in the classifieds in the next few days.
Was it ever posted what color this was? I'd like to know. Super rich in tone. You had posted that neither of you guys had touched a gun in 5 years but you'd never notice. Really cool truck. Andy from STL
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