I have wanted to share this build for a while, stuck inside today with back problems so I am going to give it a try. This is my first thread so bear with me. I started building this truck in 2010, it took about two years to get back on the road. The cool thing about this build is that it belongs to my mother, she has had cool cars all her life, never a stocker. So now in her 70's she decided she wanted an old truck as her daily driver. So in 2009 we went to look at a few projects and came across this one. It was drivable when she bought it, but was in need of a lot of mechanical work to make it safe. She drove it a year as is while I fixed some of the problems and then in 2010 the teardown began. These pics are what it looked like when she got it.
The truck had a 350 Chevrolet engine and auto trans, original rear axle, 3 different types of wheels, mustang II front end added to the original frame, the interior was mostly original with a 70's Chevrolet tilt column and wiring harness added.
The first job was to clean up the interior, Repainted the dash and inside metal with SEM Trim black. The wiring was a mess, lots of hot wires hanging loose, so I removed everything that wasn't needed. I had a swap meet 50 Ford car column and 54 Ford car wheel and fit them to it. There was an aluminum tank in the bed and we replaced it with an original. Did some cheap insulation and installed some carpet we bought at the local hardware store. The last pic is my mother installing some insulation, she was always here when I worked on it did whatever she could during the build.
Thanks, The most rewarding thing is seeing her enjoy it now, and her excitement while it was being built. You can't beat good memories with family, especially when you are doing something together that you enjoy!
The plan was to leave the truck together and shoot some paint on it, but that wasn't going to work out. You could see the panels had lots of bondo in them, also the front end was welded together at the seams and none of them were fit. I couldn't leave it like this, so I started stripping out all the filler. Fiberglass over the rust and then built up with a lot of filler. I found as much as an inch of filler in some spots. Lots of bolts holding these front ends together.
These next pics show the start of the metal repair on the front end. We had everything blasted. Then I started to fit the panels the best I could. I'm not a professional so I slowly work my way through it. I shaped the upper front fender panels with an English wheel to get the right curve. Made the center panel between the fenders bolt together again The metal straightened out pretty nice with some dolly work. The cab needed very little work except some filler work around the edges of the roof and the backs of the cab. Cab corners were fine and a good set of doors. At this time the cab bodywork was roughed out.
A few pics of the lower fender repair panels. These didn't fit to well and needed some vertical cuts in the fender to get everything to look right. I also tried my hand shrinking the area above the patches with a torch, hammer and dolly and cooled with water. I think I created more work before they were right.
The running boards had diamond plate on them when mom bought the truck. They were rusted out where the original braces were. Trying to keep the build on a low budget, I repaired the originals instead of buying new. I cut out the centers of them, made a panel out of 16 gauge steel to cover the holes, and then spot welded them from the bottom side. For the ribs I made them with strap steel that was close to the original width and thickness, spaced them like the originals, and welded them from the bottom. I'm happy with the results, if I had to do anything different I would have fully welded the 16 gauge plate, they are strong and stiff but they have cracked on the edges some.
I just about spit my jack & gingerale all over my computer , lol !!! Hock32 - Good to see ya fixing the truck up for your mom . You're a class act & a good son . I'll be watching for updates .
There's some great work going on there. I like the way you're approaching the build. Big Karma points too, Mom should be proud.
The bed had three layers of wood on it when she got the truck. The original wood was still on it but in rough shape. We replaced the lower front panel and saved the top portion. I had to repair some rust around the lower bed sides and filled the stake pockets.
The engine that came with the truck was a 1970 350 Chevrolet, really worn out, 10 lbs of oil pressure. The day it lost oil pressure was the day the truck started getting rebuilt. While it was still running we replaced the radiator with one from US Radiator, very nice product, and cooled the engine even with both heads cracked! While I was working on the truck the engine went to GHR Racing Engines owned by my brother. The block was plate honed, decked and the main bores align honed. New crank, balanced the rotating assembly, Comp Cam and a fresh set of heads. He finished it off with an old Edelbrock intake and a pair of Cal Custom valve covers. The paint is an industrial enamel that we had mixed at the local Car Quest.
That's a real clever repair on the running boards! They always rot like that, and bending a rib to match is tough. You also made the front end repairs look easy!
Thanks, The running boards were a lot of work but a lot cheaper than buying new ones! The original grill had been bent, busted and filled with bondo sometime in it's life. So it came apart too by removing all the spot welds. Had to weld up some cracks and straightened them the best I could. I made the top of the grill bars flat and covered the rest with stainless strips. We wanted to paint the bars white and make the headlight bucket area body color so decided to bolt the bars back on. This helped line things up when it was time to put everything together.
Mom had wanted a flat color from the start of this project. She was trying to decide between a Hot Rod Flatz blue and the old gold metallic. She decided to go with gold on the body and Wimbledon white on the grill, bumpers and underhood. I had a set of wheels off of a 50' Merc that needed a home so we cleaned them up and tested the color on them to make sure that was the color she liked. She liked it so gold it is!
Well tonight I'm going to skip ahead a few months and show some pics of the final sanding on the truck. Getting all the panels straight took a lot longer than fixing the metal, the guide coat kept me honest, and with the flat paint I probably went overboard on getting the metal straight. I did all the finish sanding with everything assembled and then took it apart again to sand all the areas I couldn't get to. At this point we tried to get everything mounted, all holes drilled, put stuff on, and take it back off. So close to paint but still a lot of work to do.
? Got a bead on a '41 pickup its not quite as rough as it gets but not far from it more less a rusty cab and chassis ? Is what is something like that worth in your opinion fella said bottom dollar was 2k seemed a bit steep yet to me Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The body is finally ready to start trimming for paint. Since the grill was now separate pieces I was able to assemble the fenders after they were trimmed with paint. These fenders have a lot of bolts and I thought it would be easier to do it this way instead of trying to put them together after painting, also it made it easier to carry them to the spray booth. The firewall is Wimbledon white, sold by TCP global, very inexpensive paint, it needed a lot of coats for good coverage and stayed wet a long time. I was happy with it, especially for the low cost and it was easy to work with. So at this point we're final sanding everything and finding lots of pinholes to fill. I had to get some extra help at this point sanding so mom came over and got after it. The plan was to paint the truck and then paint the chassis later, we were spraying in an unheated garage stall that a friend used for painting and it was early November, so we were trying to get the paint sprayed before it was really cold, may have been easier to do the chassis first and mask it off for paint but it all worked out.
Finally ready to paint. I used TCP Global Hot Rod Flatz paint on the truck, color is called Old Gold Metallic. I did a lot of research on this paint before we decided to use it, found mostly negative comments, some had good experiences, We tried it mainly because it was the color we liked and the cost, just in case it didn't turn out good mom would not have lost a lot of cash. The main problem I had was keeping the paint wet on the panels, not sure if it is the nature of a flattened paint, or if it was the amount of reducer or heat range. I'm glad the truck was apart when painting because there is no way I could have kept it wet on any large areas. The metallic blended really well. Also the layout of the room pulled overspray from the gun across some of the painted panels. Our time was limited to get the job done otherwise it would have been nice to paint only a couple pieces at a time. Anyway, here's a few pics of the painting.
The Jalopy Journal
