Hot Rods Official 1959 Chevy Apache Build Thread

You can have them the wrong way and they wont work at all if you have the wires switched (or on all the time depending on what switch you have and how you have it positioned)


The switch can be normally open or closed. The one that I have is normally closed, so when the brake pedal is not being used it is an open circuit... when I touch the brakes then it turns on.

 

Thanks man! I stole it from someone else, so feel free to take it.

 

Thanks dew468, Hopefully your dad's issues pass, I know how hard it is to take care of a family member. You have your head on straight and your truck is well on its way to being really reall nice.


Thank you 59Apache, yea it's hard to mess with the truck right now. my dad wants me to sell his lake house and a bunch of other stuff. hard to keep my mind on the truck.

 

Yeah, I understand... it sounds like you have your priorities straight. Don't forget to take care of number one every once in a while. That is the hardest part when taking care of someone else.

 

well I started to put the cab back together, there is a lot of stuff I have to do that is little and time consuming. I think this is going to look great when I have it back together.

 

yea, my family tells me to do that also. i'm doing all I can for both of us. just have wait and see.

 

are you going to use factory weather stripping or go with universal weather strip?

 

I don't know yet, I am not that far. I probably wont worry about the weather stripping until I have it in paint and ready to put back together.

 

well its still coming together. I have been doing a thousand tiny things to fix everything up to match, they just haven't been picture worthy.

I sprayed the rest of the interior parts down and will need to flip them over today and install them this evening. Once that is taken care of I need to clean up the wiring and make it look decent so the seat can go back in

 

Keep going man, you're almost there. This truck is turning out to be so killer! It sure takes a while to get all the little things sanded and painted doesn't it?

I decided to make covers for my kick panels instead of painting. I'm going to be installing them along with the headliner and door panels when it comes back from the exhaust shop

 

Thanks dubie, I keep finding little things I want to mess with.... it is so time consuming you are right...

I am looking forward to seeing yours, keep us posted!

 

Well I got a lot of little crap finished up tonight.

Here are some pictures of what I did:








Where I would like to take credit for this, this was my wife's idea.... she has some really great ideas, all the way to the placement of the emblems:

 

i'm loving that emblem on the door panel. Classy touch. Does your truck have arm rests? Mine came without having any and I'd like to see what they're supposed to look like

 

Dubie, I can't access Ebay here at work, but they show up whenever I search 56 Chevy Truck

 

Thanks dubie. No it did not come with arm rests, but I am considering it

They can be found here:

http://www.classicparts.com/1955-65-Arm-Rest-Black-ea/productinfo/19-631/#.UgqFklnD8dk

They look pretty good when put on. Since I lowered the seat and cut some of the back off I can't use the template that my buddy has at the upholstery shop, so I will have to wing it.

I was also thinking about doing a basket weave with 3/4" black leather straps for the inside of the raised portion of that door panel.. it would look pretty slick, while keeping it simple. I will post some pictures of me doing that after I am driving it.

 

Best Wife Ever:

So yesterday was my birthday and I was told not to enter my property so I would not spoil any surprises. I didn't and man, what a cool wife I have.

She knew that it was taking me forever to do EVERYTHING out in the garage since I had a 16 year old, 30 gallon air compressor that was rebuilt at least once. She found and purchased one that I could still move around and would be able to do what I needed it to do to speed up my restoration process on my cars.




She also remembered hearing me needing a new welding helmet, she got me this one that has options to either weld or grind, a really nice one at that.



I guess I am just thankful I trapped this woman into marrying me. This afternoon I am going to play with some new toys

 

So day 3 of cleaning the garage.... I am beginning to get more space on the floor, but the work benches are a mess still. I will need to start hanging fenders and other stuff so I can finally have some free space.

I gathered my scrap metal pile and my recyclable oil and will take the metal down when I take the rest of the parts plymouth down to the scrap yard. I will need to throw my HEI in the '66 too so I can at least drive it again.

I then did some easy work on the door emblems and got those pretty much taken care of, now to remove them, strip the lousy primer off of them, shoot them in black epoxy and then install them and everything else. Here are some shots of how I did it in case someone wants to copy:

 

1959Apache The emblems on the door panels look awesome! Can I ask what the original application for the emblems where? I'm thinking 57 Chevy 210 Tail Fin?

 

They are from a '55 for the exterior, I can pull a part number from dan chuck later if needed.

 

They are located on the front fenders of the 1955, 210 model sedans. I only know that because i happen to have one of those cars in my driveway

 

Love the emblems Scott, a very nice touch. And it seems like you have one great little lady!

 

Annnnndddddd WHY haven't I seen any pictures of this?????

 

Thanks Eric, she had a good idea on those for sure and even picked them out. She is still waiting for me to buy her an old car and start on it... I am looking forward what she has to say on what she wants to do with it once we get one for her.

Yeah, I am pretty lucky, she has been really sick lately (job is stressing her out) so I have been taking care of her for several days. She finally told me to go out in the garage because she wanted alone time, I was happy to oblige.

I got most of the metal work finished on the door panels (got to use my new welding helmet!)and will be stripping them out of the fab primer and putting them in epoxy this evening. I am going to have to drill the holes in the floor for the seat belts too very soon. The seat is going to be in shortly! I pre-hung the headliner in there to see how it would fit and it looks amazing, but a little oversized for the hole. I will post some pictures soon

 

Neat idea on the Chevrolet script on the doors. Only thing I would check is if the back of the seat would block some of it. Keep up the good work.

 

Yeah I thought the same thing. Since the seat still needs to go in I can adjust it accordingly when I pop it in. I did shrink down the back of the seat significantly, so we will see how big of a difference there is.

 

Here are the finished door panels. I worked on the wiring under the dash and for the dome light most of last night, so that got cleaned up quite a bit. I still need to do some more there, but it is coming along. I need to hook the battery back up soon and let her run, more of that tonight and this weekend.

Here are the shots:

 

trucks looking great but i got ask how you liking your air compressor. ive eyed that same model everytime i go to lowes but afraid its going to be to loud.

 

I haven't hooked it up yet. Life has been getting in the way, so I have been having a hard time doing what I want to do. I am planning on getting it taken care of here sometime this week, but the wife's OT Chevy Cobalt control arms are shot, so they will have to be replaced. I have them on order and this would be the perfect time to get the air compressor up and going for this weekend. We will see.

As far as this build goes I have the seat belts ready to go in, just need to drill the holes again... that will take a whole five minutes. I finished up the wiring under the dash and fixed a couple issues that I found when I was under there. I still need to primer the passenger side door with black epoxy too. I think a couple hours and some good hard labor this week/weekend will allow the seat to be put back in.

 

pretty much ready for the seat!!! Primer just needs to dry!

 

Looking good! Kinda makes makes me miss my 59 when I check in on your thread!!