I'm going to try to keep this updated but if work gets in the way, it may be a slow update. This pic has been posted before. I bought this truck this summer. I call it 'beautiful from afar but far from beautiful. It was a running, driving (albeit shakey) truck I'm not much of a flat-black guy so I decided to tear it apart and see what's hiding. The front springs had no give and the rear end was mounted totally wrong. I should say the heavy lifting of this job was turned over to my next door neighbour who runs Performance Vintage and Restorations. He mainly focuses on muscle cars but has built a few hot rods. All high end builds I removed the box before I drove it over to his shop. We live in the country so there is no problem with Johnny Law One of the first things we did was use this gizmo to measure tire size and backspacing. I'm getting rid of the wheels, caps and tires. I don't know about you but I'm getting tired of the whole wide white 'trend'. And that is coming from me who has wide whites on my 36 Ford coupe The truck is on an S10 ch***is. Some guys don't like it but it is what it is and I don't mind the S10 suspension. It also has dropped spindles in the front. As I said, I'm having John (owner) do the heavy lifting stuff where my skills are definitely lacking. His fabricator has repaired some rust with new metal. Door bottom Hinge The box was pretty rusty so I bought a new box from Pro's Pick New front fenders The 305 that is in the truck now is pretty baffed out so I picked up this Vortec 350 from a club member at a smokin' price. I just painted it and threw on a set of Corvette valve covers I had laying around At this point, the truck is being sanded down and will be getting its first coat of primer this week The plan is to paint it Folkstone gray (1940 color) and have some type of black wheel/polished rim to offset the gray. This is sort of the color I'm heading for. I saw this on the 'gray' paint thread. I am not sure if this is Folkstone but it's a good reference anyway This is a pic of how it sits after John replaced the springs in the front. The grille was dragging with the old springs This week I will bring the box over and see what we need to do to make it fit. Then measure the backspacing for the rear wheels. I admit I paid too much for the truck and have/will spend a ****load more of hard-earned cash. The best part, my wife totally supports my addiction/hobby. More pictures to follow later this week.
One more thing..........I'm on the lookout for a new cowl vent. Any leads? Forgot to mention, the rear fenders were stripped and coated with epoxy primer. I have the first layer of filler sanded. My life over the next year will be prime, sand, prime, sand, prime, Sand..................
You didn't pay too much but you might have just bought it a little early. Lots of us do it! Many 32 guys take it as a way of life if they find "a good one;" which can mean anything! You're doing good. Keep workin', Al
Funny how work gets in the way of a lot of things. Truck looks good to me. Keep up the good work! Pete
Stick with it! Mine is on a Ranger ch***is so I understand "it is what it is". I will be tuning into this build for sure!
Having just finished the sand prime sand prime dance myself...I feel your pain-but if you need a hand-let me know..will work for 'Tims'
I may take you up on that Jim. I know I will reach a point where I will say enough is enough and will need someone to say, 'just one more primer and sand'. I have Coor's in my garage fridge!
Love them 40 pickups. Mine is near completion now, if that is possible. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/my-40-ford-pickup-build.527407/
As the shop is digging deeper into the body of the '40, it became clear the cab corners will need to be replaced. It's amazing the things left behind by previous owners. Not only were the cab corners filled with spray foam but we found these too. I'm not a gun guy so I have no clue what size they are
The advantage of having a skilled professional as your next door neighbour is I can pop over whenever I want to check on progress. The disadvantage is when you get a text message at 8:30am that says "come over when you have a minute" My adventure today witnessed two cab corners that looked like a dog's breakfast. By tonight, the dog's breakfast had been cleaned up Now you can use one of the two sayings for the next part; 'Where there is smoke, there is fire' or 'In for a penny, in for a pound' What that means is as the metal was being cut away, they found more rust holes behind the seat in the cab. Plus, a section about 12 X 12 at the back of the cab needs to be replaced. Pin holes and metal that is about thick as tin foil. I'm in for a few pounds!
Tough on the old wallet...........hey maybe that's why mine is so thin lately It is nice knowing all of that time and money you are going to spend on that nice shiny paint job will be laid on a good foundation...right?
Just my opinion(which doesn't account for much)-but I think that color looks better on your truck than it did on the 'bird
Day 5: Project creep You know the drill............grind a little rust off a 4"x4" area and it turns into a 2'x2' area. That is what happened when trying to clean up the back of the cab. What looked like a few small pin holes turn into a huge area of pinholes. The only right thing to do was cut most of the cab back out and replace with new metal. This is one of the reasons I turned over this job to the shop next door I mentioned earlier that the shop working on my truck restores muscle cars and cl***ic, it doesn't prevent them from taking on other pre-war cars. This Chevy needs a ton of work and the shop is up to it. It's actually in rougher shape than my truck In the shop there is a '70 Cuda, '68 Mustang GT, '56 Ford pickup, '68 Mustang with the rare drag pack 428 SCJ, Boss 302 restoration, and this wild fully custom '68 Mustang convertible that has a lift off fastback top. Powered by a supercharge Coyote engine, 6 spd and a bio metric dash for recognition. John, the owner can do anything the customer requests. Not HAMB friendly but interesting nonetheless
Great project. We just did the same thing on our 40 pickup project. That back panel is a lot of work to keep from oil canning.
The shop is owned by John Miles, Vintage & Performance Restorations. He started off restoring Mustangs/Shelbys and other muscle cars. He prefers to restore them back to factory specs including over spray and chalk marks. But he will do anything the customer wants. Although he is very meticulous. Lately he's been doing a lot of custom work. I've known him for about 20 years and it was by luck we moved next door to him last August He has done a few small jobs on my Corvette and '36 coupe. At any given time he has 6-7 cars on the go.
There was some serious oil canning on the panel cut out. I took at look at the new panel today and I don't think it will ever oil can again!
Yes a 39 Ford frame. My other 40 pickup wasn't that close and I used the factory frame holes too. The only thing I can see is when I welded the bed frame works in I used the measurements from my old truck and may have moved it forward then. It didn't matter because I bought a new bed and the fender holes weren't drilled out yet. We used an old frame to jig up the bed when we welded everything in place. Here is the gap on my old truck.
This is the back of the cab with the welds ground smooth The further we get into this cab, the worse and worse it looks. The mount behind the seat was almost rusted all the way through. Plus, one of the bolts holding body wasn't all the way through. It was just sitting in the hole. There were only 3 bolts holding the body on. Scary ****. The good news behind this is it is now being done correctly. Here is some new metal installed. And yes, you see right, that is a plastic fuel filter close the hot exhaust pipe. You know for sure this will be fixed!! There is good news behind all of this though. A fellow club member (Flapper here on the HAMB) gave me a smokin deal on these rims and tires. I may have to play around with the profile of the front tire but they will work. Like I said, I am tired of white wides so these fill the wheel well and at a great price. What I saved in tires wheels will be spent on making this cab right.
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