Projects Midnight Special: 1935 Chevy with a Hemi

Hello and welcome to my build thread. Having been inspired long ago by Jimmy Shine’s ‘34, I’ve always dreamed of having a cool little 30’s pickup, chopped top, low stance, and it’s gotta have a hemi. Lucky for me, My Dad had given me a ‘53 dodge 241 to rebuild long long ago, so I already knew that would be the future power plant of whatever I got.

Well dreams took a turn towards reality in 2018 when I purchased a ‘35 Chevy pickup,(more accurately a pile of body panels and a frame) but it was all there aside from a missing grille, with a title, for $900. (As luck would have it there was one 35 Chevy truck grille on flEaBAY that I snagged for $280 that same week). Dragged it home with a smile on my face and a head full of dreams, but it would be 2 years before I actually started doing anything with it.

Thanks to Project Pushing Kingfisher forward, Carl showed a excellent step by step for creating a cab frame from a pile of panels just like I had got. his thread was my single biggest inspiration for me to get off my ass and actually do something with my truck.

My other main Chevy truck inspirations from the HAMB I must credit are Lukesters ‘35, Cactus1 and his ‘34 “Patience”, also Fern 54, and Redwelter. All awesome builds and I pulled inspiration from you all, thank you!

Enough story time for now, let’s get to the good stuff *pics*

Day #1

 

Yeah Yeah, get after it. Plenty there to start with, and a bed.

What's the frame and suspension plan ? Drop that hemi in for a mock up

 

The first 2 years didn’t see much progress aside from cutting the frame apart to the only things I planned to re-use, the side rails and rear cross member. I had considered building the frame from 2x3 tubing as a lot would do, but I really like being able to utilize as much original steel as possible, it’s been around for almost 90 years, gotta keep it goin! Plus I love the taper on a stock frame that you loose when using rectangle.

 

At that point I wanted to use ford wire wheels with a dropped Model A axle front end, and coil overs out back. Would like my frame ~1in off the ground if sitting on the wheels. Got lots more photos coming!

 

Fathers Day 2020, just 1 month after coming out of our Covid lockdown, during which was when I found Carl’s project thread from 2008 which gave me the confidence boost to start doing work. The only thing I wanted for Father’s Day was to spend it working on my hot rod, so I spent all day taking a wire wheel to the rear cab panels and corners and doing a little hammer n dolly work. Then starting laying out my 4in chop, which was how Carl did his and might sound like putting the cart before the horse to some, but it works out in this scenario (*spoiler alert, nooo it does not, it was close but not good enough, put the roof on before chopping the doors..you’ll thank me later*). typically you would cut a section from the cab corners and re attach the top portion, but my top edges were fairly rusted and beat up, so I opted to take the 4 in out of the top instead.

 

I admire you enthusiasm, but the frame 1 inch off the ground? Did I read that correctly?

 

you did, I may have just explained it poorly, 1in off the ground if it were sitting on the wheels (without tires). so with the tires I plan on using having a 6-7in cross section I should be around 7in off the ground at ride height, hopefully that makes more sense.

 

Great project, and looks pretty solid for this old pickup.

 

Looking good so far,original sub frame for the trucks were 1 1/2 .
1 1/2 x 3 tubing works great .

 

Looks great so far

 

Cool pickup project, on Chevy Rails!
Chevy rails... Love 'em, so far I've based 3 hot rods on '27-'29 Chevy rails. Model A's sit on them nicely, they get that 'Deuce rail' look, without the reveal.
What was the reason for the masking tape along the top of the right hand side rail in the pic following the cross member removal?

 

You explained it right, my reading comprehension was off!!

 

I think that's the bottom side (upside-down)? If you look at the photo ABOVE that one, the rails appear wider on the bottom at the front. Looks to me like he trimmed that part off, you can see it lying on the ground in that shot with the tape.

 

Here are few of the door pictures ,mostly used 1/2 x3 tubing

 

Sooo, lemme get this straight, you’re saying that you’re gonna let the midnight special shine a light on you?

 

Excellent!
This has got to be one of the best first threads we've seen in a long time.
Welcome welcome.

 

I agree I think the rails are a great starting place and I really like that they kept em nice and straight! Sancho hit the nail on the head, I was just removing the excess material off the bottom that created the factory cross member mount, Which I wasn’t going to use.

Haha that’s exactly what I’m saying! (As did CCR) actually the story behind the name is because when it’s all done, I will have done about 90% of the work between midnight and 5am. I have a strange sleep schedule where I go to bed around 9 then wake up around 12-12:30, then go back to bed around 5:30 and back up around 8. Ergo, the Midnight Special seemed fitting.

I greatly appreciate that! Hopefully it remains entertaining!

WoodRemover, that is a most impressive build! You’re doing amazing work, and keeping the windows in there is beautiful and awesome! I wish I had more examples of work like yours for inspiration when I had started this project, I did my frame from 1x1, but will be using some 1x2 for the floor. Keep up the great work!

 

Next it was time to start building my cab frame. Again, following Carl’s example, I used 1x1 steel tubing and started cutting and fitting starting from the rear panel and moving forward.
I had Cut out a new top edge for the cab corners that I made to match the top edge I had just cut off, and had to make a small relief cut to fit the new top edge

 

Love that it has a Chrysler hemi and not a sbc like everyone else does. Fantastic.

 

In order to make the curved pieces that make up the B-pillar, I bought a harbor freight tubing roller, that came with 3 dies for 1” 1.5” and 2” round. So I took the 1” dies and chucked em up in my little 1939 atlas lathe and turned down the inside to allow me to use it with my square tubing. Then I just made a template off the best cab corner edge and made 4 pieces to match. (2 for the cab corners and 2 for the back edge of the door) then it was just matter of making the lower corners and fitting everything together and trying to match it up with the back edge of the roof. And after a bit of welding and grinding I had myself a rear cab frame.
Also got my first taste at making a patch panel. I thought it would be cool if I did mostly TIG welding, but it was extremely difficult when trying to make my patch, so I hooked up the MIG and never looked back.

 

Thank you! It’s actually a little Dodge Baby hemi but it’s all in the family lol. I don’t find anything impressive about sbc’s in hot rods, I typically won’t even stop by cars with em at shows, but any gen 1 hemi, or a flatty, olds, Buick or caddy motor will always get my attention

 

Next it was onto the doors, I stripped the rest of the splinters out that were the original door frames and got em down to just the outer skin. Then did some more tube rolling to make my frame pieces fit nice n tight. Then it was time to chop.
I made a foam board template of my window opening, and then cut out a 4in section and made a new window template. which was helpful because it showed me how much the front edge of the door pillar would need to lean back and that it was best to cut just past the top radius so you don’t have a ‘kink’ where the different angles would meet.
I know you would typically just match it to the roof line, but my thought process was if it fit from the factory and I’m bringing everything down 4 inches and keep the exact same shape, it should still fit when it goes back together. (Spoiler repeat: it doesn’t, I had to cut the passenger door and raise it 1/4” during final assembly to fix the gap. So pro tip, first get the roof on, then match the door to the roof)
After cutting down both windows to match my template I finished fitting the frame pieces and welded em all up

 

Next it was onto the cowl, more of the same process. I rolled the A pillar pieces so match the front edge of the door and made myself some hinge reliefs that will hopefully make life a lot easier down the line when I start hanging the doors, I’ll also be adding another piece of tubing to make it 2” wide eventually.

 

At this point I received some great advice from a good friend of mine who builds some amazing hot rods out in Colorado, (Justin Brunmeier, if you don’t know of him, you should), he told me not to finish the cab until I had the truck frame to build it on.
So, I made a simple wooden cart to hold the cab and tacked all the pieces together, it felt great to see my cab together for the first time in probably 30+ years. Rolled her outside and took the wire wheel to the rest of the cowl and roof paint, snapped some photos and wrapped her up.
It’s funny that before I started this project I thought it would be years of work before I saw my cab together, and it was only 4 months after Father’s Day to get it to this point, nothing to it but to do it.

 

The proportions of your cab look great. Nice work. You must be in a very dry climate if you can get by with wrapping up a bare metal cab and letting it sit outside. We could not do that here in the southern part of Missouri.

 

Thank you! And yes we’re very spoiled here in the southwest, you’d have to really work to make something rust away out here.

 

Very nice work on the cab !!! Should make a very good looking truck !!

 

Thank you very much! I’m envious of your cab frame work, it’s amazing!

 

No need to be envious, you are doing a great job with your truck ,a few things I learned from your build as well!! Lots of knowledge here on the hamb and a great willingness to share the info, take what you need and let the rest slip by..
Anything I can help with ,just ask
Joe

 

Totally agree. But you should hear the flack I get when I voice that opinion. I get accused of calling cars with a sbc s#!t. And that from people who say "I built car to suit me. Your opinion doesn't matter". But they still go away crying.