Hey all, I am 17 years old and I just acquired my first HAMB-worthy vehicle. I plan on keeping this car for the rest of my life. I want to be one of those guys that says, "this was my high school car" It is a 1954 Chevrolet 3100. It has a 4-Speed on the floor. I do not know how to drive stick nor do I have my driver's license yet. Hopefully this truck motivates me to learn standard shift and get my license. I live in Arizona and this truck is rust-free for the most part as it's been in the southwest all of it's life. It has a 235 Straight Six with the original 6V System. Here are the two ads that were posted about it when I was looking for a truck: I paid my friend for gas to drive me to Wittmann, AZ from Peoria, AZ and we went and checked it out. Usually the pictures look better than the vehicle actually is, in this case, the pictures didn't lie. In fact, it might've been a tad bit better than I expected. The owner was kind enough to take a deposit and wait two weeks for me to get another paycheck to come up with the rest. He even had another serious buyer on the line with cash in hand waiting to come get it. I called first and he said he would hold it for me and let me look at it first before anyone else. He held true to his word. Here are more up close pictures from the ads: After going back and forth about how/when I should get it home (it runs and drives), we finally settled on having the previous owner tow it to me because I had no way of getting out there as my uncle died 3 days before I got the truck and my family was busy because of that. He towed it to me while I was actually at work and my dad handled the transaction after I gave it to him. I couldn't wait to get home from work that day. Two weeks later I got paid and on September 27, 2012. This truck became mine. Here it is when it got to it's new home: A couple of days later when I wasn't busy I put it in neutral, took off the E-Brake and rolled it down the driveway a little bit to take some better pictures.
Congrads on a great truck. Plenty of parts are available and they are easy to work on. Below are 2 links to info on old Chevy trucks. http://stovebolt.com/ http://www.chevytrucks.org/ and here are a few parts houses http://www.classicparts.com/ http://www.oldchevytrucks.com/ http://www.truckandcarshop.com/
Cool Truck Kiddo. Take your time and rebuild it into a cool street truck. Good luck with the build. VR&C.
Nice dude, be prepared for a lot of research, and a lot of work. Don't give up either, if you get frustrated take a break and research some more for awhile, don't just resell it. I got my f100 when I was close to your age
Awesome truck!~ I had a 50 with the 3 spd on the column. Have fun with it. Definitely an easy vehicle to find parts for!
What a score!! You south westerners have such luck with mostly rust free metal. Keep us updated on your progress and best of luck to you!
Nice truck, i have a 49. Looks like a great start. Bought mine when i was 14, me and my dad rebuilt it and now 17 and having a blast. Do some research and have fun.
Hey all, new update today. My grandpa stores his trailer in our back yard behind the fence and in order to get it out my truck has to be moved. My grandpa comes over as I just got this truck and I hand him the keys, he starts it up, gets a huge grin as he backs it up. He loved it! Heres some pictures of him and the truck: He kept saying how jealous he was. He backed up his 2006 Toyota Tacoma and backs it it up, pulls out the trailer and instead of making him get out of his car walk over to my truck, touch the hot steering wheel and drive it back up, I say my friend who knows how to drive standard and I will take care of it. After he leaves my friend says do you want to drive it up? (I don't know how to drive standard yet) I figured sure, I'll just be in 1st or 2nd gear. We feel like it'll be too tight of a turn to get up the driveway so I take it around the block, I cruise around the whole way in 2nd gear. I was honking at neighbors who were waving and giving thumbs up having a ball in my very own classic truck that I saved up and paid for in cash. We get back and my friend says you need to gas it to get up the incline of the driveway into the flat parking spot. I give it the gas it needs and when I get up the incline I hit the brake. It doesn't stop. My friend is repeatedly yelling at me to hit the clutch which I either ignored or didn't comprehend, I don't know, but when we are a foot away from the brick wall I finally hit the clutch after letting go of the brake. BOOM! I hit the driver's side of the truck into the brick wall at about 5MPH. I get outside and am thinking of a few choice words and wanting to blame everyone besides me. The radiator is spewing out and the front fender is smashed and the front bumper bowed a little bit. I think upon impact the fan hit the radiator and cut a hole in it or something. Not sure if that can be repaired. Here's the damage: I pulled off the fender: These two pictures bother me the most because I'm not sure how fixable this is: And here's the fender off the truck: All in all, I'm pretty distraught. I've owned this truck for 6 days and something like this happens. At first I was cursing old cars thinking who in the right mind would buy one and then I was considering selling it. I calmed down a bit and just thought of all the compliments I've received in 6 days alone. From what I can see I need a new fender with all the headlight stuff and either the radiator repaired or a replacement. I just feel sick when I think that this could have prevented if I woulda just let my grandpa put it back instead of trying something new. I have been told since the incident today that if I slammed on the brakes the truck should have stalled and died. It didn't happen so my conclusion is the brake system wasn't in good enough shape to do that to the truck. I'm not sure if that makes sense. I feel really really bad writing this and just thinking of everything that happened. Not sure what I'm gonna do now. Consoling thoughts would be helpful. How bad is the damage and what do you think It'll cost me to get it back to the way it was 10 hours ago? Thanks and have a better day than I did today -Chad
My first vehicle was a '49 Chevy 3100 my Dad gave to me. I rode with him all the time, so by the time he let me drive, I already knew how to shift.
Congrats on getting the truck, ouch on banging it up. The corner of the cab is fixable but it will take some work. If you were closer or had someone headed down US 97 from Central Washington state to Arizona I have a 54 left front fender that's in pretty good shape sitting in the shed. It came with some stuff I bought at an auction a while back. There is a book that you probably need Called the 47 -54 Chevrolet truck assembly manual. 360469973686 is an ebay number for it or you can find it on Amazon. Less expensive on Ebay though. It shows how each section of a 54 cab goes together and shows where all of the spot welds are. It also has lots of exact measurements to go by. Several vendors make and or sell a new panel to replace that panel with or you might be able to straighten that one or get a good used panel and replace it.
Congrats on a great find! I see lots of good, not much ugly. And let me say this: you take great pictures! Seems like you have an artfull eye. Don't worry too much about the damage, it's only metal, and metal likes to be banged around into shape. Stick with it, and enjoy the truck forever! I recently picked up a '48 Chevy truck. They are cool old dogs!
Haha, its all about learning, and what better way to learn what to and not to do, than on your first truck? As curbfeeler said, you got all the time in the world to fix it,
I took the fender to Grayhound today and shipped it. It is supposed to go out tomorrow. It doesn't have a headlight bucket and I'm not sure I have a good one left in my stuff.
Enjoy the truck. I had a '50 as my first vehicle, loved it. Sold it, when life came about and needed the money. I now have a '51. Life is full of mistakes, just don't be mad at yourself too long, then learn from the the mistakes you made. Just keep enjoying the truck.
You can fix it. I wrecked a bunch of vehicles, really nice ones. I'm looking at a pair of 54's they're both Midwest trucks and need work on every panel, owner wants until spring to decide if he wants to sell them. I'll be following along on your thread, what did grandpa say?
this my project.height superide front-link rear-4 wheel wildwoog brakes-the engene is 2006 ls2 gto and tranny. it runs. If this turns out like I think I'm selling my 57 f100 ls powered truck.
He should have the fender I gave him pretty well squared away by now if he got the cowl pulled out. Between us we figured out how to get it there on Greyhound for under 50 bucks. Updates Chad?
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