Projects 1957 Chevy Pickup

This weekends progress....

I pulled off one of the doors, and took the glass and chrome trimming off. I sanded and primared the door, door panels, the hinges, and some other random parts. I also went over to my grandpas and got some of his old tools, and found a fake Mooneyes pedal. Id say it was a good weekend!

 

Oh ya I made a video too....

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UDZly9AFPPo&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UDZly9AFPPo&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

 

Wicked

 

Taylor

Magnet on a stick, the flexible one. You can get a cheap one from the autoparts store. If the magnet is strong you may be able to get it to stick to the side and slide it up were you can reach it.

Your dad has been keeping me updated. Cool truck, keep the side mounted spare, get a cover and pin stripe it.

Mark

 

I was planning on putting fenders without the spare mount on it. I have the other fenders, I just have to sand blast em and they will be good to go!

 

Looks solid. Nice score.

 

were in so cal are you? back ground looks familar.

 

Low and fast works too man.LOL nice truck man!

 

Orange County.

 

Its gonna be low and slow until I get a new rearend or I get it re-geared. I'd like it low and fast eventually! Haha.

 

I'm on the other coast, so can't offer too much help. My 75 yr old playmate has been working on his '57 for over a year, mainly due to income restrictions. It's got a 350/overdrive auto, a Volare front end and 3.59 Firebird rear, so discs all around. The difference is the cab extension, using a big window cab from the jambs back, replacement doors and then cutting down the original doors to fill the gap. He had a third set of doors that he got with the cab back and cut and flipped the rear window trim to finish off the opera window. The rear cab roof was cut for a sunroof, so he finally got the rear half of anouther roof which is glued on. He now has about 20 add'l inches behind the seats for storage. Just a couple of pics to give you ideas. Hood is off while we find a replacement and the visor will go back on.
RB

 

Didn't Clint Eastwood drive one about that color in "Any which way but loose"?

 

Nice! Its lookin good! I like the cab extension.

 

Waiting for paint to dry flipping through parts catalogs....

 

Okay so now comes the part where I gotta start to sand down, spray with primar, and paint pretty much the whole interior. I also have to re-wire everything, get the gauges working (not knowing how much gas you have is a bummer) and get the turn signals etc. working. Is the dash easy to take out? It sounds like it would be easiest to take out the dash and re-wire everything and paint/'stripe it while its out. But is it easy to take the dash and put it back in?

 

Nope, the dash is welded in.

 

Okay thanks! Looks like I got a lot of masking to do haha...

 

Buy a harness from the Truck Shop or some place like that. A reproduction one is easiest to install and I'm pretty sure they sell one for this with a V8. I installed one and when I got it it had the six and ran a generator. I later swapped to a bigblock running an alternator and bought a kit from the same people to go from the generator to the alternator and its all worked out pretty good so far. The guage cluster pulls right out so you shouldn't have a whole lot of trouble taking this out. I'd also remove the molding around the windshield before painting the dash. You're also going to want to vaccum out the channel really well and take time removing the clips that hold this trim piece in. I'm assuming you're leaving the windshield in as well... make sure you get enough paint on the edge closest to the winshield as this is hard to get at with a buffer and polish up if need be...
Good Luck,
Seth
BTW... what color are using on the interior?

 

Will this work?

http://www.classicindustries.com/co...ail&productId=106637&productSearchCatalogId=4

And as for paint....Im gonna paint the body Gray, and the roof black. 2 tone! So the whole interior is gonna be saten black, and the dash will be gray. Its probabaly not gonna have paint on it for a while.

 

Finished this last night....

 

The classic harness would work, however I bought one from the TruckShop in Orange that was meant to be used on a tri five chevy truck and had the correct material on the headlight looms and such. Everything was already wrapped and a majority of the ends, bulkheads and what not were already installed. I basically took off all the old and followed the schematic to install the new. The drawback to all of this was the fact that I had to cut slits in all m firewall grommits to pass the wire through, as it alrady had the ends on it. I chose the harness that was already fab'd as it wasn't much more than a universal one, and I had never completely rewired a vehicle like this. What you posted would work, it just looks a bit more complicated than running the wires from a pre-made one. I think most of mine was even wrapped. If you are going to utilize a universal harness like the one above I suggest the "new" cloth covered ones that have the old style covering. Go to rod and customs website and check the tech archives if you're not quite sure what I'm talking about. Your shift knob looks good.
Seth

 

Ouch, that's a lot of $ for a new harness. I'd buy a Rebel Wire kit from the fellow HAMB'er here. Look him up, he's an Alliance member.

 

Well my headlights work, and my brake/tail lights work. Im not sure if my turn signals work because the assembly is all messed up, but I think the wiring is good. So I just need my gauges working. I dont think I need the whole harness...

 

I'd just troubleshoot everything from the firewall back then. I had a shop manual with the schematics and what not in it. It may not even have the orignal harness though. Are they hooked up or are the wires and whatnot altogether missing? I'll see if my brother can scan some wiring diagrams and try to pm them to you. The turn signal thing is something i had to figure out on my own , even after buying and installing the harness. I second Antny's "too much" for a harness comment. I think mine was like 250.

 

I'll be starting the wiring phase on my 55.5 this weekend. I hate wiring. HATE it. I expect to be aggravated, and likely inebriated before the end of day Saturday. Anywho, here's how she sits as we speak, in case anyone cares.....

 

Me and my dad went through and removed the gauge cluster, we found wires not connected, broken, or just missing. So we are going to re-wire everything one thing at a time. I need to get the speedometer and the gas gauge working before anything else. Those are kinda important haha.

 

Very cool! Hope the wiring goes well! Let me know how it goes.... I like that color also. Im trying to figure out how Im gonna do a 2-tone paint job.

 

As of right now Im at a stand still....I need to get the right rivots and the tool to put the window felt back in. I was gonna go get it today, but the Truck Shop is closed on Mondays. I got all new hardware for the doors, and I got all the door window weatherstrip/seals/felt/ect. I also sanded down where the headliner goes and painted that. My dad was saying the headliners look like straight shit unless they are custom made, which I simply dont have the money to do, so I may just leave it without the headliner. And thats my progress for the last few days.

 

Got the last pieces I need to put the windows back in today. I also got a new starter selenoid and new tailight lenses. The other ones were faded so much they looked like revearse lamps...

 

New selenoid in! Starts perfect now! Also put in the gas tank filler neck tube thing. No more leaks....