The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Project Journals 1951 Chevy 3100 “Alaska Road Commission” - A restoration saga

This saga begins in March of 2015 with my son-in-law, who lives in Juneau, sending me a link to a Craigslist ad for a 1951 Chevy pickup that was originally owned by the Alaska Road Commission, a Federal agency charged with developing roads in Alaska that traces it's roots to 1905. For those interested HERE's the wikipedia article about the ARC. I had always liked the style since my dad’s plumbing shop truck was a 1951 GMC ¾ ton, and I worked for him in summers when I was going to high school and college. Picture #1.

Since I was nearing retirement I needed a project to work on so as not to annoy my wife too much hanging out at home. Don’t remind her about how she wound up losing her garage - she’s still not happy about it. But maybe I can blame that on my son-in-law.

So I gathered up a buddy and we drove about 50 miles north of Anchorage to look at it. The thing that sold me on a restoration as opposed to modifying it was the brass label screwed to the valve cover indicating that it had a short block installed in 1954. Since it was a fleet truck, it must have been rode hard and put away wet. The most recent registration was from 1982, and it was pretty complete, although a rust bucket, with the front floor gone, along with cab supports. The cowl had been kinked where the fenders bolted on, so the cowl panels needed replacement. The right front fender was bent up and eventually deemed unrestorable. It was painted blue with LOTS of the original Orange showing through, and had a white top on the cab with some stupid looking mickey mouse ear turn signal lights on top. I made the guy an offer a bit below his asking price, and he agreed. We agreed that I would pick it up within a couple weeks. I conned a co-worker into borrowing his dad’s tilt trailer with winch, asked another buddy if I could keep it at his place for a while and we picked it up.