Well I got a little bit more done on the truck after church today. I got the cab corner and the new rocker panel partially welded and tacked on. I also decided to see what the oldsmobile steering wheel would look like in it as well. I still have to some work to the door and get it adjusted better. But it's looking sectioned and chopped. Part of me wishes I had gone with a 5" chop but I'm sticking with what I have now.
The current chop will provide very nice proportion with your section. The Olds steering wheel is great choice. Keep up the good work!
I understand that. I still have to find someone that can do them. I'd probably order more than just 1 set. I have multiple projects.
That's an idea I thought about. I even thought about 3d printing them and then sand casting them myself with a small forge I made years ago.
I haven't gotten much done this past week. But I did find some vent wing parts and garnish molding parts for the doors on Saturday and picked up 3 of the Barris kustom books to for ideas. Hopefully I can get some done this week.
If it is not too late.... you could make the rear fenders a little wider for the Pontiac taillights and have more meat on the rear tires to fill the space. Compared to the rest of your project the wider fenders should be a cake walk.
I was actually thinking about that last night. Great minds think a like . I have a set of really rough fenders on another bed I thought about cutting the back sides of them off where they meet the bed and just splicing them into the good fenders to widen them just a touch. I saw a picture on Insta of a 55-59 with wider rear fenders. It looked ok. Other then it was more of an off topic build. Mine is just going to run skinny tires probably thin whitewalls at first and later get a new set of bias plys.
I don’t think wider is the answer. That’s more of a later trend. Once you get time and have the bed together take a couple pics of the back. It will come to you. Plus you have us! Haha
I saw this picture this morning on the japanafornia page of this in progress truck and I like where they are going with the tailgate area. I also like the 62 olds taillights. I'm thinking I could do something similar although I'm considering making a custom tailgate as well with a similar V to a 59 impala trunk lid. And maybe thinning down the upper bed side rolls to thinner fin shaped areas similar to a 59 impala. Since I see alot of people round them off like the kopper kart. I'd maybe do something slightly different. But your right I need to wait till I have the bed on the truck first. I did a little bit of work on the drivers side last night in preparation for sectioning it. I also noticed I can cut down my garnish moldings for the doors without doing any welding on them possibly. I'm thinking I can just cut them off at the bottom and redrill the hole for the trim screw. I'll have to redimple it though but I can do that with a couple of nuts and an tapered allen head bolt in a vice. But we will see if that's really how it goes when I get to that point.
I worked some last night but mostly just made a mess and cut the main parts I needed to save off the drivers side of the truck. I still have some cutting tonight to do and then hopefully I'll start tacking stuff back together. I think I can reuse the outter rocker panel on this side and just replace the step.
Could you extend the guards aLittle & widen them behind the tub? Make a slightly narrower tailgate? Not sure how that would look
Looks rad man, excellent! I chopped mine 5-3/4 like 20 years ago, parked it after I put the motor in. Just started working on it like a week ago.
I'm planning on running a rear bumper. I just picked up two different ones this weekend. One is a 55 pontiac split rear bumper and the other a 57 chevy car rear bumper. I'm thinking about flipping the 57 chevy car bumper upside down and modifying the back edges of the end of the bumper so I can run my exhaust through it. But until i can mock it up properly I don't know if it will look good or not.
Life is getting in the way but I did get a few mins to mess with some lighting ideas that I thought about after seeing posts of furniture things on Instagram yesterday. A cool guy named Ricky that builds cool vintage looking tv sets from modern flat screen tvs had made these starburst lighted panels in one of his builds and it made me think of trying to do something similar on my truck. I remember the Lee lenses i have in my 53 chevy tail lights have a starburst look to them at night but im not sure how to recreate that look with these 58 lights so ive been coming up with other ideas.