Hot Rods Official 1959 Chevy Apache Build Thread

Here is the mock up of the Drivers side... When it finally decides to stop raining when I have a damn day off I will push it outside so I can work on the tail end of this thing.

its been raining almost every day this month.... yesterday was wonderful out, but I had to work and today it is raining again.... son of a..

 

Picture of the Passenger side... as you can see I do not have much room I blame the '40 plymouth right next to it.... haha

still need to work on that cab corner....

 

The fenders and steps look great on there. Now all you have to do is wait for the sun to appear and take some pics outside for all of us to see!

 

busy week at work, will be posting pictures this weekend of working on the front fender to get the hood back on.

 

I got the truck pushed out into the driveway today to finally take some pictures of the progress that I have made over the winter. Sounds pretty good.

 

Here are some pictures too.. I have a lot of work to do still, but will keep it up and getting some of this stuff done. I really want to drive this thing to the local car show soon, but it will need a lot of work to get there.

 

Looking (and sounding) real good! I'll bet it felt good just to pull it outside. It won't be long and you'll have it at the local Friday night cruise in. Had my '40 there 5/6.
Dave

 

I was walking around there and didn't see you, but made it there a little late. Maybe this Friday I will see you.

 

Well not much to report, I decided to start reworking the passenger side cab corner because it is a lousy patch panel. Stupid Chinese, can't you build anything right?!?!
So I will try to fix this terrible body work job on that cab corner and get it as close as possible to the drivers side cab corner (after reworking it, it now looks 95% perfect). I am not going for a trailer queen, but want to be proud of my work. So we will see some more progress shortly. I am thinking about just throwing the coin down for a new Chinese door for this truck.. I wish I could buy something made in America that was actually quality, but what can you do... Buying this door would save me oodles of time.

 

Well after making my patch to fix the massacre that is the right hand cab corner I noticed that it was a little crooked.... I really hate these patches, everything looks straight and then its just a little bit off here and there and finally you just have something that looks lousy. I am going to make this right, so I cut it back off... again... 3rd time will be the charm because perfection is what I am shooting for on these things or as close as I can get it to put minimal filler on it where needed. I should be able to maybe get it finished this weekend hopefully. I will be ordering my new door for the drivers side as well to save me some time so I can finally finish the left front fender lower corner and then put the hood on.. That is a lot of crap..

 

just getting the cab corner placed where it needs to be, these things are pieces of shit. I will be welding it in fully here shortly, just taking a break from being on my knees welding this shit back on. I got this thing perfectly straight I just need to man handle everything into place and it should look better than the drivers side. yay! pictures to come soon!

 

cool

 

Well here are the first batch of pictures. I still am going to do a little of the same patch fixing on the other side (around the weld to make sure the metal is smooth). I don't think it looks half bad, but you can see how far off this panel is (keep in mine the part of the panel that was cut off was where the patch should be). I will need to do some more work on this end to make sure everything is good to go.

 

And the second batch of pictures. I will try to get this all finished for the outside portion of the cab corner tomorrow and maybe make the patch for the outer inside portion of the corner to make everything look good since it was butchered before. I am happy with the way it is going.

 

More Pictures... almost done with this thing I still have to rough it in, but it looks nice.

 

Just started welding this thing up after tweaking it the past couple days.. I will go back out later this evening and weld the rest of it up. I am happy with it. It is as straight as it is going to get, I will just have to use minimal filler and you wont be able to tell.

 

Well I got my two patches welded in, just grinding to make sure everything looks alright. I will be working on the bottom half soon here and then finally will be able to move onto something else. I will probably start by flipping the one bed cross sill and then putting all the supports in for the steps. Finally I will go through and finish out my exhaust so it dumps out below the step.

Oh an my door should be in this week so I will be able to go through and get the front fender patch finished, cab corner on that side completed and then the hood back on. I am getting close!

 

After you're done warming up on your ride....I'll need you to patch some panels for me.

 

haha, nice.

 

just working on the brake pedal, will post pictures soon and some more of the cab corner when i get it a little closer to completion.

 

Well the cab corner is roughed in and is pretty close to being complete. I still need to do the door frame portion of both corners before they are 100% completed, but will need a day out in the driveway with both doors lined up before doing that.. My door is definitely coming in this week, so that will only help things. I got a couple clevis pins for my brake pedal assembly to tighten some stuff up... It was kind of loose, will post pictures when that portion of it is completed.

 

Here is a picture of the brake pedal that I decided to work on, keep in mind these are all of the before pictures. I went to the weekly car show on Friday and got some good ideas from a 57 pumpkin orange chevy pickup that was there. I will rerun my brake lines to match the more simple version that I saw on Friday night.

 

I adjusted the brake pedal design with the help of a couple others on the HAMB who brought up some really good ideas. I will be taking all of them in account and will try to get this thing taken care of ASAP so I can work on getting it driving down the street.

 

nice work, that will be one nice ride.

 

Thanks! it has been a lot of work so far. I would like to drive it soon.


I will be picking up my driver's door tomorrow, so I will be that much closer!

 

New truck door on! Took all day to get it and then took forever to get it unpacked and on the truck. I still need to do a lot of tweaking to get it in there right before working on the step, fender and cab corner. It's a done deal though, not far from now I will be working on finishing the brakes and then driving this bad boy.

 

Boy is it hot out, just got back in after melting in the garage, spent an hour removing and installing the door to figure out what the hell is wrong with it... I will have to do a little dremel tooling to the hinges to make the bolt notches a little bigger in a couple spots to pretty much tweak the door where I need it, So the door will come off again!!! .... son of a...

will post pictures tomorrow or the day after of the progress

 

Not much picture worthy progress, I will post pictures of the proportioning valve bracket and the proportioning valve and the installation. I bent brake lines today and will be flaring all of the forward brake lines sometime this week.

I also just decided to order a new set of upper and lower hinges for the drivers side because I have already thrown a new bushing and pin set in them, but they are still sagging too much. Once that is done I can finally hang the door correctly and be done with it. Honestly, I cannot wait to stop messing with this side.

Once I get some picture worthy progess I will post it

 

Keep at it!

 

Wow! You have been busy! Keep up the good work.