Hot Rods Official 1959 Chevy Apache Build Thread

Yeah it is A LOT of stripping and yes, it is epoxy. I had to get the rust under the paint that was shot on and I can't afford to get this thing sand blasted.. Total for getting the interior stripped and put into epoxy was right around $90. A hell of a lot better than $300-500 for sand blasting and then another $300-500 for epoxy primer. One day in the future I will shoot this whole thing again and get some decent paint on it, right now it will be in epoxy, while I work on other stuff on it... like finishing up the body work. She is getting close!

I have your diagram btw but my scanner is down and pictures turn up crappy. I might have to do it in Microsoft paint!!

 

Your pics are giving me flashbacks. I just did all this same stuff over the past couple of months. It's a lot of damned work!

 

Yeah and not fun either...

I just found out the passenger side step is trashed.... I started blowing through it with the wire wheel just cleaning the scale off of it... son of a....

I put in an order to classic parts for stuff on Lucy (my '64) and some sheet metal here on the '59... I will have to call back and have them add the step too... It bums me out a little... They arent exactly fun to repace as I recall.

I decided to then go to the drivers side and start stripping that and got a lot done there. I still need to pop the door off, polish the rest of that crap on there then I can get that side shot in some epoxy primer. I think I will go ahead with my plans and get the floor done anyway or at least start on getting the little metal work finished that needs to be competed before the interior can go back in.

The saga continues

 

Here are some shots from tonight... We landscaped the back yard most of the day, so I didn't get a chance to do what I really wanted to do.

This thing is going to be bad ass, just saying....













Is it just me or do I look like a WWII bomber pilot??




Here are some shots of the primer:








Tomorrow I will get your stuff dubie, I have it out in the garage still.. I will be working on putting everything back together, so that will be done finally. Thanks for being patient. More to come tomorrow!!!

 

Thanks for taking the time to do that for me bud. You're right, your truck is going to be badass when it starts rolling again. Here's a quick shot of where I'm at with mine right now

 

Sweet! It's looking good, any progress lately? I have been checking your thread, but haven't seen a whole lot.

Here are the shots of the drawings... let me know if you have any issue reading them or whatever. I am colorblind to red and green so learning how to use a meter is a must for me... I did all of this just using the meter and reverse engineering the switches, so to speak. So some of the colors may not be accurate.. I will try to find the names on the wire, but I have them bundled.... Let me know if you don't see something that needs to be there...

The ignition switch is a spring loaded start (I eliminated the start button) so if you are using something different then I would change how it is set up from mine and follow the instructions in the Rebel Wire kit:



Here is the light switch (same switch that 55-57 chevy passenger cars used). Notice I didn't use all of the spade terminals... I didn't see a need to add a bunch of crap I was not going to use yet. I didn't have the dome light hooked up at the time of wiring this... I can tell you where it goes later when I get it figured out... which shouldn't be difficult. Some of the spades not used are for the 235 that was in it... I am now running HEI on this since I had it sitting on the shelf... Here is the shot of the drawing:

 

Well I didn't get a ton of crap done tonight, but was able to do about 3.5 hours of yard work and landscaping, walked the dog, went out to eat, and cleaned up the cab... I installed the two switches that I was drawing up for dubie... I then dropped the main gauge cluster out to install the new face and nice chrome bezel... I will do that after I am finished grinding in there.... I shopvac'ed the cab out... a lot of crap in there... and I prepped for what is to come tomorrow (patch panels and more welding, fixing of the cab in certain areas)... I will also drop the column out of there tomorrow in preparation for doing the floors.... I will also have to remove the gas pedal and maybe even the brake pedal (dont want to remove it, but I need to figure out the ratio to fix it. Plus I sucked up a tranny cover screw... so now I have to dig around in the nasty ass shop vac dirt to find it... here are some shots:







I also found out that one of my wires got chaffed and was shorting out on the back of the dash, thus draining my battery... I am glad I found it!

 

Thanks again for the diagram. I'm going to double check it against mine and see how close they are.

I stopped updating my build thread because I was the only one looking at it, it seemed haha. We are a few days away from firing up this new engine. After that, all it'll need is paint

 

I was lurking in the shadows. Make sure you post something on the engine firing! That will be cool.

 

I got my parts in for the '64 C10 (speedo cable and other random crap) and my patch panels for the '59... I will start dismantling the step tonight and with any luck get the new step prepped to put in. It would be nice to get it all the way in... but I shouldn't push it... I also will be replacing the lower door hinge part of the frame (where it bolts up) so I can adjust the doors a lot better. More pics tonight

 

Jambs look good!!!!! I liked it in bare metal also!

 

I stopped posting for the same reason. seemed like no one was even looking at it. i will be posting again soon anyway, lol.

 

Looking great! I wish I had the time and motivation to do all of that right now, but I'm itching to drive it. Maybe this winter....

 

Lookin good buddy

Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app

 

Well I think that the ceiling is pretty close.. I won't really be able to tell a lot until I get on the roof and make sure everything is sound.. That will be this winter probably... Here is the roof:



It doesn't look like much, but I got the rear supports welded back onto the back of the cab and the floor... since they were just hanging there.... Not really good....

Here are the shots of those, I will clean them up later.. One kind of burned through so I had to compensate by starting out with a larger diameter... plus I couldn't see in my welding helmet, damn battery is dying:





I started on drilling the spot welds out of the step.... A lot of spot welds for this thing... holy crap... I will have to find out where the spots are on the main bottom part of the step... I may saw zaw some crap to make it faster.... I wish they would show themselves... Anyone know where they should be? Everything else on the face is loose and it will fall out when the bottom part of the step is done, I just need to cut the welds. Here are the pics:

 

Thanks guys, it seems like all of the 55-59 Chevy guys restoring one just posted today... WEIRD lol.

 

I keep track of this build, along with Taylor Crawfords and Buzznut all at the same time. It's interesting to see how many similarities and differences there are in each individuals build.

 

Hey Scott, forgot to mention earlier... some advise I was given from Dave Kinnaman (the guy that built my 55) was to make sure I hang and align my doors on my Cadillac before I replace the metal in the door sill. He has had cars come in his shop where the bottom of the doors scraps or the doors can't be adjusted for proper fit because someone replaced the door sills at the wrong height.

Not sure how trucks are for door clearance with the door sills, nor how the doors are adjusted for fit, but you might want to take that into consideration before welding everything in place.

Jason

 

Yeah I do too, I had a routine down for a while where I would check everyone's even the newbies to the forum. You never know when you will see something cool...

Cool thanks for the info dude! I will do this for sure here. I got a lot done tonight, so I will try to get the door hinge pocket replaced first then just tack the step in, hang the door and check.

 

I started off tonight by removing the step (the saw zaw helped a lot) and got the replacement step out to check to see how close it was… This step was so rotten in places that when I started to drill the spot welds the steel was thin enough that it just tore out so I didn't have to drill anymore.... Good thing I am replacing it.

I then started trimming it up and got it pretty close. I will have to go through and clean up the flange of the original setup and then go through and get everything trimmed and fitted. I will have to also take a look at the hinge pocket and replace what I can there with my patch panel. Does anyone know why the hell they would put a flange on the forward and rear part of the step (where it butts up to the door jamb)?

Here are the pictures:

 

Nice, clean, strait metal...love it. I need to replace my drivers step one of these days. Was it difficult, easy? Scale of 1 to 10...

 

Thanks Buzz

for you.. we will go with 11

just kidding

Well the hard part is finding the spot welds (had to strip the paint off to find them), I have one of the stepped drill bits... so I went ahead and predrilled with a small diameter all of the welds I could find (so I didn't burn up the $14 bit on the first few), guessed on the rest and was correct. The beauty of the stepped bit is that I can go as large as I want, so if the original bit walks then I don't have to worry about anything. I just pop the ones that are close enough with a screw driver... The bitch were the ones on the horizontal face and the supports for the floor. I used a saw zaw once the drilling was finished to easily remove the step (cut it in half) so I didn't bend all of the sheet metal that was good on the floor/framework to the step.

I have about 3 hours into it as of right now... it is just a lot of time consuming work. I think there were 40 something spot welds just holding the step in itself, not to mention the ones I couldn't find that I just cut out. I would say about a comfortable 6 to 7 maybe just because of how much time it takes.

 

Oh and I spoke with the parts guys and they said that even the step patches, like the one in the pictures, even made in the USA have that weird flange thing.. I am guessing that when people remove them they just cut the bottom flange out and that piece goes along the back of the steel instead of how it was originally made. Since I salvaged some of mine I may reuse it... so that means the flange has to go.... YAY..... more work

Also, as a side note... waaay earlier in the thread (when I first got the truck in 2009) the shoddy patch work on the front fenders was done by the kid that stole a bunch of stuff (money, collectibles, etc.) from me when he was living in my house.. He went to Wyotec and I think he wasted his money... I have the new patches and will install them the correct way and make them look good. That will come later after I drive it for a bit.

 

Funny guy

Yeah, with the little crappy box welder I have, 11 for sure.

 

Most of the hard work is getting the patch to fit and look right.. I can tell you right now I will have to adjust this thing a lot, so no big deal, you can do it.. you have the skillset I promise, if all else fails use a BFH

I trimmed this thing up tonight, it took a lot of in and out with test fitting, but I found where my problem areas were and took care of most of them. Now I am going to have to mess with the base material on the floor and all of the little flanges to get everything where it needs to be. Here's another hour and a half gone...

 

Well started working on the door hinge, it went swimmingly. First time that has EVER happened. I cut it out and decided instead of making more work I would cut up the patch to match what I cut out so I could ensure that the patch was accurate. The patch that I received was a little off anyway, so I was kind of forced to do it this way. I think it turned out pretty nice, I don't think I could have done any better.

Here are some pictures:

 

Nice work Scott, looking good.

 

I've never used an entire patch panel, just what I needed to make it work. You did an exceptional job replacing this patch bud. Good job

 

you did the same as I did, cut the patch. I have yet to use a whole patch. they are always oversized, which I like so I can cut it to fit how I want.

 

Thanks guys! We spent all day on the lake and were beat. Then I saw that the Saturday car show was down at the old dog n suds so I took the c10 down there just for fun. I got some info on a pin striper and had a couple more offers on the truck, which stroked my ego a bit I will finish up this patch to tomorrow, hang the door, and get the step in