The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Completed Journals 1952 GMC Panel Truck - "Army Ambulance"

I'm reposting a pic of the 5.3 as purchased Feb. 2, 2015. I did that so I could post the initial start up of the engine on April 18, 2022. Just one push of the starter button and it fired right up. However, I don't seem to be able to post video.

The next project I was really dreading was the headliner. I ordered the headliner kit from Truck Shop in CA. Claimed to be ready to install. When it got here it was in a large cardboard tube that looked like it had been around a lloonnnggg time. Looked like it had been shipped out and returned a number of times. Pulled it out of the tube to find the front piece was cut ready to go with holes for the visors and all. Then there were several pieces of just rectangular cardboard that I guess were for fitting the rest of the roof. Did I mention that the kit pieces had a permanent rolled "set" to them? They stood up on the floor on their own. They went back to CA. Return shipping was half their original cost. Expensive lesson learned. I did make a copy of the front piece though.

I bought some poster board and proceeded to make patterns. What a job! Poster board is flimsy. Took four hands to hold up for marking, fitting, etc. I discovered chip board when I upholstered the visors. Wish I'd known about it earlier. It's much thicker and stiffer and also comes in larger sizes than poster. Anyway, I used 1/8" white PVC for the liner. Not real flexible in the compound curves. We tried warming it with a heat gun to form it but that was a disaster. Warped like crazy. No fixing that either. We did get it in though. Took a week or more. Not perfect but if you don't look too hard it looks nice.
First pic is of the pattern pieces in and the next three PVC in place. Don't you pickup guys complain too much about headliner installs!