I first ran across this truck two years ago, It was pretty much given to me by the "Original Owner"'s grandson-so we got a rollback and loaded it up one night and left it to sit for a year before I really got motivated with doing anything with it. Its a '37 Chevy 2-ton, and was headed for the crusher before I saved it. It had a good bit of history on it. It was the first County Road Department truck in my county, and was later bought by the "Original Owner" and equipped with a wench and used to erect a Ski Lift (Called the Sky Lift) at nearby Natural Bridge State Park. The thing climbs straight up cliffs and hillside-so I'm not entirely sure how it made it. After this, it was used as a log truck and a flatbed, and apparently sit for a very long time. Its Gross Vehicle Weight was at one time 18000 pounds. Right after Christmas last year, it was extremly hot here, and after being trapped inside for so long-we got motivated enough to cut the truck off of its original ch***is. A 10-inch section to get rid of the rust, and laid it on its back under a building. I was going to have to re-do the floors, rockers, and everything anyway, and the bottom of the truck was so rotted and kinked in its 70 years of abuse and neglect that it was pretty much gone. So, about 2 months ago we managed to roll it back over and get it ready to make the 1/4 mile trip to my garage. There was no substructure or floor, only two pieces of s**** wood wedged inbetween the back of the cab and the dash that stayed there until i beat them out after rebuilding the floors later.
After getting it where I could work on it, I had this to somehow get square, tie together, and make it once again sturdy. To be Continued...
Frontend loaders have lots of uses...huh? Looks like you have quite a project ahead of you, have fun!
After alot of head scratching, scrounging, and measuring (which still didn't turn out quite right in the back somehow) I decided on a 3-inch channel up front, and a 1.5 inch channel in the back. The back piece was about 1/4 of an inch too short, and wouldn't jam into the door jamb area. So I came up with some old Police Cage brackets, hammered them to a right angle, and welded (along with plug welded) them in place, then put the bedframe on top, and done the same for it. Flux cored Wal-Mart welder and wire combined with burning paint, rust, and spray paint makes for some healthy fumes. My floor is made out of 3 pieces of bed frame (all three different pieces, yet one of them made both "tie-together" pieces) which were free and couldn't be put to no better use. Their pretty rigid, and after a little more bracing courtesy of an old BBQ Grill cart that was my Mom's first Mother's Day present, its extremely rigid. It was pretty much 16-gauge square tubing that was pressed in such a way that I couldn't warp it, so I figured it was good for some corner braces. I still plan on tieing the cowl and toe boards into the sub-rails with some square tubing. The back of the cab is also going to get all of its support tied together, and then welded into the sub rails itself. Should be better than the screwed together stamped sheetmetal with wood insert that was Stock. I'll still have to cut my original front rail for the transmission tunnel.
The body on this truck was pretty rough. But not actually as rough as it looked. It was originally orange, then Maroon, then Brown from what I can tell. Combined with surface rust, it made this thing look like it was not much more than some rust in the shape of a truck. It is however, pitted pretty bad almost everywhere. The roof looks like its had a many dance party held on it, and had more than a few trees ram into it over time. The first place I started testing out on was the upper 1/4 of the roof on the p***enger side. It was pretty badly pitted, but cleaned up pretty nice after about 5 coats of primer/sanding. Same Area, after some old Krylon I had laying around. Stress crack was also welded and filled, but I kinda screwed up a little bit on it towards the drip rail Been using quite a bit of spot putty on this thing, especially around the cowl area, where it had some huge craters, and the area of roof where it used to have a light bar. Switched to emery cloth sandpaper too, which helped quite a bit. Next thing I need to do is cut the doors to match the body, patch the enormous void in the back of the cab, put some actual sheetmetal over the floor, trim the dash out, and get the old mirrors and whatever other old accessories are still clinging to it.
cool truck ! aren`t projects fun ? I started my shop truck with just a cab and doors I found in an old fallen down shed , there where two 2 1/2 ton trucks inside I got both of them ..... keep up the good work !
Thanks for the comments, right now I'm trying to sort out the problems with the interior. Built my seat out of a Chevette "rear seat" bottom, which was acutally just an enormous foam cushion with a vinyl cover over it strapped to the floor pan of the 'vette. Used the same cage brackets, and the actual cages to build my seat frame, and laid it on the floor. The back of the seat should just be foam padding glued to the cage and upholstered. The only problem I ran into is that because of the 13 inches that I lost in the front during sectioning/channeling the truck has left me without much room at all. I've moved the steering column around quite a bit, and would rather not have to cut the entire dash out to get leg room, but it looks like I'm going to have to. I'd like to be able to drive with one foot (its going to be an auto, not much room for a third pedal or a shifter) but there isn't all that much room between what will be the floor and the dash, especially where the transmission will be. I don't really think cutting the dash insert out would help a whole lot, since I would just be tilting the column up and out a little bit more, and probably just nearly blockout the windsheild. I've thought about doing a really short steering column with the box and such being directly behind the instrument cluster, with the drag link either being through the firewall, or out the side of the cowl (the version i wouldn't really like to go with) The only disadvantage of the firewall method would be it becoming a spear in a collision, or getting things hung in the moving parts. I also saw a thing in Rod and Custom a while back that is sort of like a big cased timing chain, that connects from the end of the steering column to the box below. This would let me go Model Car style and clear up a whole lot of room underneath for pedals.
A couple of "interior" shots. The lawnmower wheels, white rope, old wire and stuff holding the column up won't be there much longer. I've already decided to just cut the whole dash insert out, and maybe do a small cluster in the center. Still, ain't got a whole lot of room.
Keep it up, making progress can seem slow, but every bit helps toward the end goal. I still miss my 37 Chevy truck, it was my daily driver for a couple years. Someday I will get another.
Ch***is Donor. The fenders that came with my truck were pretty rough. A little too big and had too many cut/bend/stick weld repairs done to them. I'd planned on not using any fenders anyway. The direction I wanted to go was what a "modified" '37 Chevy would actually look like if it was put together back in the day (Stranger vehicles have turned up) I don't have the right pick-up frame, but I started looking around at an old F-1 Frame I had (but was too rough for me, as it had flexed so much it tore in the middle) and figured there wasn't much difference other than an inch or two in track on this bottom dollar F-100 ch***is compared to the '37. Not really sure what direction I want with it, might turn out a little g***er like-I'm not really into the bottom s****ing look anyway.
This truck really didn't want to be seperated. When we pulled it off, the floor collapsed and the roof buckeled-the big back window got screwed up too. All the bolts got torched off, the thing was already completly stripped of any interior and leaves so we didn't have any fires except when some cardboard sound deadening caught on fire-but went out on its own. Pulled the motor for parts for my '54 Ford Customline. My plans for the F-100 cab are to salvage what I can of it-might become a roadster tub to make some turn around on and try to get what I have invested in the ch***is back. Front clip sure made an interesting body. Now I just need to clean up the frame, figure out how and where the Drivetrain and Body goes, and it should all come together.
What really ****s is that today some guy asked If I was building a Rat Rod. Nothing pisses me off quite like the m*** media attempting to ruin everything. Wanted to build a cheap, fenderless, and "go-anywhere" old truck ever since I was in Seventh grade after watching American Graffiti. The first time I read anything about a "Rat Rawd" was in the Hot Rod feature "Homebuilt Hot Rods" about two years ago, which those were actually pretty interesting. I've never liked updating a car with "new" stuff. It looks stupid as hell five years later and I got over the JC Whitney bling bling stuff when I was 9. I dont' care much for "RADICAL RATZZZ" and stuff either, thats why my truck is keeping some of the proportions of the original. I plan on evetually painting it also-as well as cleaning other things up too. Possibly even doing a transverse set-up in the front. The frame as of now. I manged to ***ault the old '54 cab also.
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