Where do I start.....
We recently acquired a 1954 Chevy 3100. It belonged to my girlfriend's father who passed away about a year and a half ago. It was given to my girlfriend and I recently.
It's definitely a project, and one I'm looking forward to. We want to have a 'resto-rod' when all is said and done.
The truck is in Alabama (where my girlfriend is from) and I'm going to have to get it here to Dallas.
The truck is a rolling chassis with cab. There's a 6cyl engine in it (235, I believe, but unconfirmed) that may or may not run. Supposedly there's a bed, but it needs to be located. I don't know that it exists. The cab & frame look to be in reasonably good shape. Lots of surface rust. I'll need to inspect further to see if it goes deeper than surface.
We also have a 350 pulled from a Camaro, also of unknown condition, that we'd like to transplant and beef up a bit. The 235 will likely be cleaned up and sold at some point down the line.
I've got a few issues.
The big one is that we live in an apartment with no facilities for working on a project vehicle. I'm looking for a storage facility that would suit my needs, not only in terms of space, but also to allow work on the truck, have electricity and so on. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to any/all.
The second major issue is my knowledge and skill level. There's some knowledge and zero experience. This is going to be a learning experience for the both of us (the girlfriend is a car junkie as well). I'm investigating some education at local colleges to learn some of the things I need.
I don't have any photos yet. Those will be coming soon, when we get to Alabama again (in the next few weeks). I'll be sure to post them here for all to see.
I picked up Tom Brownell's book on restoring, and am reading it and formulating ideas.
Here's some things I know we're going to do:
- Independant suspension front and rear. We plan on cruising in this, and we'd like to be comfortable doing it. I've seen what Heidts has to offer and some comparable setups. It will give the truck a lowered stance for street.
- Decently potent 350/350 setup. I'm not going to be dragging this thing, so modest HP is the goal. I'm figuring 300-350HP, which can be easily achieved with a 350.
- Interior upgrade. again, for comfort. A/C is a must! We want to cruise in comfort. Some comfortable buckets and a decent stereo should accomplish that, I think.
- Paint will be a deep, dark green. My daily driver is an '03 Toyota Tacoma in Imperial Jade Mica. Something close to that would be the ideal. Some simple silver pinstriping and a bit of chrome. We're debating having the grille & bumpers painted silver instead of chromed for a little bit different look.
If anyone has any suggestions or tips or anything of any use, I'm all ears.
I'll be sure to keep y'all updated as to the progress of this project. I'm hoping that in due time we'll have a sweet little hotrod pickup.
