I have wanted to start on this 65 chevy truck for about 5 years now. It was given to my father in law for his daughter and it never got fixed up. Now it's suppose to get fixed for my sister in laws son, but yet the truck sat there for over 15 years on the side of the house. But thanks to the Local High School shop teacher its being reborn again. Have a look at what we started with and the progress that was made in a little less than 2 months time.
Well, it dosen't look like much but as you look through the before and after pictures of this thread just look at the difference in less then two months time. Well the project started with the 65 being reborn, but before that another pickup gave up its parts for a good cause. have a look at the 1974 donor truck. But don't you worry the 74 did not go to waste you shall see
Yes the 74 truck was bought on line and chopped up for parts and did not even look like a truck as it was in pieces in a little as two days. The front crossmember, rear end, the motor, will go to the 65 chevy and the rest of the truck did not go to waste. The cab went to a friend that is working on his project and the bed went to the shop teachers assist for his ranch truck that needed a bed...
with the donor truck in pieces the 65 project had what it needed to start it's new life. But it was the second truck that needed to come apart before it could be put back together again.
The front end and the bed had to come off, the motor a inline 6 had to be pulled, and the rear bumper had to be taken off as the 65 must have had an accident at some point in time as the driver side of the bed had some bad body work and plastic filler that needed to be redone. A lot of cleaning up old rust and some body work needed to be done and on a cheap budget to get this project headed in the right direction. Well the Increadible Mr. Massey went to work with his auto body and auto mechanics class's and made this tramsformation happen with the help of some of his friends helping out in the process....and my friends too.
I found a picture on the internet and it might have even been on the HAMB but it gave me an idea of what i wanted the truck to look like.....insperation if you will so the Mr. Massey and his crew went to work on the body by fixing the rear bed dent's and using CLR and some scotch brite to clean the years of rust and old paint away to give it the natural look. It's amazing what a few rattle cans of lacquer paint will do. Mr. Massey put down a black lacquer paint and then the white lacquer paint and then used some sandpaper and scotch brite to burn through some of the white paint to keep the truck as nature and close to the original color as possible.
The high school class's kept plugging along and work on the truck and as they finished some of the clr treatments and body work they began to put the truck back together. My neighbor was a mechanic back in the day so he helped me clean up the motor taken out of the 74 truck and put a few new parts and gaskets and some paint to make it look good......chevy orange....
now that the project was well under way we had the insperational picture to go from but we also needed to pay respect to the 74 truck that had to give up so many of its parts. So we decided to paint the rims as close to the crimson red as we could get it.
as the truck came together we needed to put in some new wood in the bed as the old stuff and long again seen better days and was rotten to the core....the shop teacher Mr. Perez has some wood skills and put them to work by putting in a new wood bed. We went green with this project and managed to salvage some wood that was going to be thrown away to make the bed. it was cut, sanded and the cleared to make it look good. it was put back together with new metal bed strips and a bolt kit.
The truck began to come together and be put back to well....a truck and it continued to be touched up with the same clr and lacquer paint process to make it look like that original patina look.
have a look at the almost finished patina look....I will post more pictues of the overall truck when i remember my camera......
as I said before its amazing on the progress that was made on this project in two months time. look at before and after side by side.
even the emblem on the cowl was touched up with the same paint used on the rims again to pay our respects to the 74. The dog dish hubcaps where scored by my father in law down in the fresno area at the Cherry auction, and the rims had some new skinny whites put on and balanced also by the high school class.
This project is far from done, but would not have been possible without the help of Mr. Massey and the High school class's that worked on it. I hope they learned some things along the way. As the truck has made huge progress in the right direction from just sitting on the side of a house for too many years. The truck now has dropped spindles and rear springs, new crossmember up front with disc and power brakes, power steering, new rear end, touched up paint, new wood in bed, painted rims, transpformed from a six lug to a five lug, went from a in line six to a chevy 350. Althought it is far from complete it would have not come this far without the help of all the people involved on this project. hope you enjoyed this story and the pictures.....more pictures to come
TINT1.........Thanks for your help on this project as well....so everyone knows....Tint1 got me the parts to lowwer it and the power brake booster, he also helped deliver the parts to the highschool......And Good luck with the 74 cab on your project.
Tim you know who you are thanks for helping the truck get to the highschool to make this happen..........I still owe you big PS awesome metal skills, you know what im talking about
To my son-inlaw and the high school all that hard work you did thanks your nephew is proud to be a part of history the chevy pickup hot rods
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