First we start with the find. A 1937 GMC pickup my friend found in a junk yard up around Amarillo, TX. She don’t look like much but look close, she has potential. Someone had got to her before us as the old truck was sporting a Camaro front clip with disk brakes. I swear if she had headlights she would have winked at us. Other than that she was bone stock and missing a lot. No engine, no transmission, no seat, no tailgate (that's a story I'll tell later) well you get the picture. We didn’t have a lot of hope but hauled her back behind the pine curtain to East Texas. Now for you Yankees that don’t know anything about Texas. Amarillo is in the same state, but a hell of a long way from East Texas. Hell those people up there are damned near Yankees, no offense to anyone from Amarillo. I will post more pictures later to show where we are at with this project. Click on the picture ------------ Ain't she a peach? This thread is going to be about two old men doing a project without a big budget. Making do with what you have laying around the shop, doing a little horse trading for parts and making what you can rather than buying new ones. Rule number one, only buy a new part if you can't find it around the shop, at a swap meet, or make it yourself. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll shake your head in disbelief, I know we have. She may wind up with two headlights on the left and one on the right, but like Johnny Cash said "when you pull out the switch all three of em will come on".
Nice start....I hear what you are saying about a shoestring budget. Basically what I started with. Good luck....
Before you spend any money on this project, talk to the DMV to find out if you can get it ***led in your state. Don't ask the question here, you will get many opinions and responses as to how I did it, all of which may not work for your situation. Shoe string is my kind of build.
***led???? Yeah, we have been down that dusty road before on other builds. We can get it ***led but like Johnny Cash says in his song "the ***le weighs 40 pounds".
Looks good to me - grille will be tough to find if you have none - guess that could be a made part in your make/buy ****ysis. The rear fenders look staighter (if thats even a word) than the rear fender were on my first truck - a '40 GMC I drug out of the blackberry bushes back in the '70's....
Yes, we have no grille, but true to our shoestring rule, we have been thinking about it. 1. Using polished copper tubing to fab a grille, clearcoating to keep it shiny. 2. Using stainless steel tubing. 3. We found an aluminum chanel that they use on the end of 1/4" plywood at the local hardware store that we could fab one out of. We haven't got to that point yet so we are still trying to "think out of the box" on that. Like I said in my opening post, some of you will laugh and some will cry over our ideas but when you are building on almost no budget you have to keep your options open.
Tailgate should not be difficult,,,I just bent some tin and welded a frame on the inside,,I am sitting in the kitchen looking at my stove door,,DAMN that would be easy to make a tailgate out of...next time I see some members have some suitable donors for cheap
A couple of pieces of chain-link fence rail some flat sheet metal and a couple of raised pieces saved from the stock gate all welded together will work. At least yours is a Chevy, you ought to try to find good International parts, then take out a bank loan to buy them if they are any good. That's why I made mine out of what I had and could salvage from a stocker.
Here's my attempt at a home made grille. I did have the shell original for the car but the insert is just 1/8 x 1/4 steel cut and spaced and welded. My skills aren't as good as some guys who are able to re-create the shell and all.
The Jalopy Journal
