The Stovebolt Site Forums The Side Lot Legion Hall Veterans' 1955 1st project

I have been on the stovebolt for several years under the name mwalt. I work for a non-profit here in Idaho and we are going to do a build on a 1955 1st series 3600 pickup. It is a 1 owner with 63,000 original miles and has been here in Nampa Idaho its whole life. It was placed in storage for the last 36 years, now we get to see it put back on the road, while we hopefully raise a bunch of funds for our local military veterans. It is in really solid condition and about the only thing not original on it is the bed. We are holding a design contest now to see who can come up with the coolest build plan. If anyone wants to shoot us their ideas you can download a form off of boiserm.org/1955chevy and get it to me by 6 October. I hope to pick everyone's brain as we start wrenching on it next month. I will try to post picks later, but you can see it on our website if you want to check it out.

welcome under the new name! Sounds like a fun project!

what do we win if we turn in the winning contest plan

We are going to have a blast with it. I am going to trailer it to the last public showing this Saturday at a local car show, then it will go to the shop we are going to do most of the work on. The guy who stepped up to manage the build and do the video and photos is a Marine Corps veteran who did his own cable TV show in Texas for a couple of years. We have the paint and interior guys lined up. October 7th we will sit down and sift through all the design suggestions and decide what to do with it. I hope all the guys and gals here who love these old trucks like I do will jump in with their creative expertise!

A $75 gift certificate to Indian Creek Steakhouse in Caldwell. If someone from the Stovebolt wins it, I am pretty sure I could talk my wife into getting that person a Visa gift card that they could use and I'll eat the apple wood grilled rib-eye steak for you!

You face some challenges doing a 3600. For a fundraiser you may have to get pretty creative to draw interest. You didn't indicate if the build is a restore or a restomod. Maybe a full blown (yes literally) hot rod. How much you are willing to spend and which direction you plan to take would help in the project idea aspect. Sounds like a real hoot, good vibes your way for helping out our Veterans.

I would give it a Navy/Marine theme being I spent four yrs aboard
this transport hauling our fine Marines to their journey

good luck with the project

We are taking all design ideas and input on which direction to go with it. The build team is going to meet October 7th and sort through everything and pick what we decide is the best build idea (not necessarily the coolest due to all the factors you mentioned and others we may run into). So far we have the truck, the shop to do the build, a good start on a build team, and we are into it for $50 for title transfer and a couple cups of coffee. Not a bad start.
My preference is a resto-mod that will keep close to the original looks while making somebody a very cool daily driver. I only get 1 vote though, so there is no telling what we will settle on when the dust clears.

good suggestion Joker, but Mike's truck is a first series '55

oh, I need to study up.. would they have a
54 grill??

Yup.

make it look like this, is this a winner or what

plus call it Marine green instead,or some type of paint scheme to reflect all branches of Military.. am I on to this or what

Yes. Chevy wasn't ready with the TF series at the end of 1954, so the did a couple of minor changes and sold the Advance design until about May I think. This one says it was assembled in Oakland, so it might be one of the very last ever put together. I like the Patriotic theme. I was thinking one of the 1 piece plastic paintable headliners with some very cool mural painted on it.

I knew that, just wasnt thinking, at 75 I often do that..

all I know is that we need this sucker completed within a yr. no if's about it..roger that

you might also consider the tail gate with the paint scheme,
or the entire truck.. or something just painted on the doors, how much budget you got to do this...


I like this but then I love Red

I will stop hogging your post, sorry

The restomod is a very practical idea. Looks fairly stock but you can get in it and drive anywhere in relative comfort. Mural on the tailgate as a tribute to all branches would be cool. Headliner mural could be more personal.

You aren't hogging anything Joker. We won't set a budget until we decide on the build. Our two main goals with the project are to obviously raise as much money during the raffle phase as we can, and get as much attention as we can to let people know how they can make a difference helping out their local veterans. The fact that we plan to have as much fun along the way is just a bonus. Hiding and watching some of the amazing stuff guys on the Stovebolt have done over the last 9 years really makes me wish we could import a bunch of you and really do something over the top. There is a lot of talent around here in the car arena though, and several of them are already jumping in on it.

That is an even better idea. The bed will be a blank slate since everyone seems to agree the TF long-bed and fenders need to go. It will be just as easy to get an aftermarket tailgate w/o the Chevy logo if we want to do a backside mural.

I had a great time at the show Saturday and gave out about 25 blank build sheets. We will see how many get returned. There was a very cool red and black 1945 Chevy truck at the show. The first time I have seen an actual 1945 civilian production truck in person.

Had you seen this tech tip by any chance, where Bruce Michaels painted the American flag on his fire wall?

63,000 original miles. Heck the engine might have only had 1 or 2 rebuilds?

I'd vote for an authentic restoration - all parts similar to original, and original paint scheme.

The 1955-1st exterior paint scheme is slightly different from 1954 (mostly the grill colors). Also, both 1954 and 1955-1st trucks had several factory 2-tone exterior and interior colors/trims (the 1955-1st at the HEmmings link abobe is a 1954 paint s heme).

No matter what you do with the drivetrain and suspension, if you want original interior/exterior color schemes, post questions here.

That was gorgeous. So sad to lose something like that to a fire. I haven't decided what I think would make a great mural for the headliner. Fortunately there are a lot more creative people out there than me.

That is why I started this thread Tim. Seeing the work the folks here do and the advice everyone shares with less experienced owners is amazing. I would love to have about a dozen of you guys come up here and see what came out when you guys finished with it. We have some really talented guys lined up, but none of use have the knowledge base on Advance Design trucks that can be found here. I'd love to print off about half of the Stovebolt Gallery pictures and plaster them all over the shop we will be working in, just so everyone gets the motivation of what can be done with one.

WE have been getting a few design ideas, but not as many as I thought we would. I know several people are procrastinating until tomorrow. So far I like 4 of the ones submitted. They are original or resto-mods with most of the mods being drivetrain type stuff. I am going for either the Mariner Blue, or the burgundy and black two tome paint. We will see what the rest of the team votes for. I know one local Korean War vet that insists we need to paint it hotrod red. If you have a better build idea, send it my way. The build team will meet Friday and pick a plan!

Here is a 54/55st "color wheel" (exterior colors).

There were also at least 4 original exterior/interior two-tone color combinations (if you want pizzazz and originality), with complementary pin-stripes.

What's the chances it has the wrong rear fenders on the bed ?

Nope, It is 97" long and has the horizontal stamping in the bed sides instead of the arch matching the Advance Design fenders.

MY advice. I did.

Well as I expected the team decided on a retro-mod build. It will look very much original from the outside right down to the Ocean green paint and white grill. SBC engine in front of a TH350 automatic, front discs, front and rear sway bars and a rear end geared somewhere between 3.08:1 and 3.79:1 hopefully with a positrac, power steering, under bed spare tire and gas tank.
The interior will have a retro look modern radio, AC, and new gauge panel. OCean green inside with the original bench seat covered in white vinyl with green accents. The same with the door panels. The headliner will be padded white with an ocean green Chevy emblem in the center.
The winning design was from a Navy vet here in Nampa. The coolest design wasn't something we thought would work for this project was to make it into a true Idaho truck by putting it on a modern 4X4 running gear and frame. The young man htat submitted that had a lot of cool details in it, but it also entailed a lot of fabrication.

More appealing to the masses by going restomod. Good choice.

well, at least a Navy guy won.. good luck with the project,
post pix when you get it all finished.

We will. I will also post links to the build videos and veteran's interviews we will be doing during the buils.

I got back Monday from hunting to find out the deal for the shop we were going to start the build in fell through. Back to searching for a build site. It is really hard to resist the temptation to start tearing into it in my driveway. I keep telling myself it won't hurt anything to tear the task force series bed off and get it sold, but I will try to be patient and wait until it is in a shop.

FYI, only posting in the Greasy Spoon isn't getting your post count up to where you leave moderated status. You need four approved posts outside of the 'spoon to gain full site permissions. Posts in the 'spoon don't count. Every post you make in the 'spoon until you reach four is requiring a moderator to manually approve it. It would be beneficial to all if you make three more in other forums. We know you have knowledge to share that could help folks in the technical forums. You could probably teach the best of us a few tricks. I know I could use some help in the Short Bus forum at times.

I am sorry I haven't been posting on this project much, but it has been a crazy year. Way too many funerals this year and not enough garage time. We finally are making good progress with the build and I am confident it will be finished in plenty of time for it to go to its new home on June 17th next year. Dutchman Motorsports customized a 1978 GM full float 14 bolt rear and after All American Powder Coating worked their magic on it and the frame, we hauled it over to Idaho Drivetrain for a total rebuild and new gear set. The new Mar K bed is sitting in the boxes waiting for the rest of the body to get painted. The TH350 will be back from rebuild at General Transmission next week and I should be able to get our 283 small block at the same time. We are still sticking with the original plan to paint it Ocean Green with the white grille and bumpers and black running boards and wheels. Les Schwab came up with a nice set of 8 lug that look pretty close to the split rims we took off it.
As you guys know better than me, we still have a long way to go with this, but we finally have a lot of guys helping now that we have enough things happening and room for more people to jump in. Somebody next Father's Day will win a very cool $10 3/4 ton Chevy!

Who would have thought the hardest thing so far is finding the right set of front wheel bearings would be the hardest thing so far. As far as I can see from the Chevy data, the 3600 and 3800 from 53-59 have the same bearings, but every catalog has something different, and my search on the forums has guys giving 2 or 3 different bearings for the 3/4 ton. From what I can tell, Rock Auto is showing the correct bearings and for quite a bit less.
We did decide to bite the bullet on the sound system and get a retro radio with speakers so we don't have to butcher the dash. For about $600 it is worth it.
Jarred has the outer cab corners cut and the inner replacements installed. Big surprise the aftermarket patch panels are taking some massaging to make them fit. I will be heading over tomorrow evening with a Navy welder and another Army vet to continue prepping for paint and getting the steering wheel refurbished.

We are trying to get as much done as possible before Christmas. We have the new 8 lug disc brakes mocked up and test fit the wheels. Plenty of clearance, so I will call today to get the others and take them over to powder coating. The steering box and pitman arm for the power steering setup should be here early next week. The rest of the patch panels for the cab go on Saturday and we can weld up some holes in the firewall. Our current plan is to assemble everything in primer and take it to Boise Spring works for them to do the springs and suspension setup. Once we have that we will tear it down and do the rest of the painting and final assembly. At least we won't have to go all the way back down to a bare frame.
I dropped off the 12v mini starter, 100amp alternator, and Pertronics Flamethrower distributor off at the engine builders Saturday night, so we should have the engine this week or next, along with the custom GM 14 bolt rear end and th350 tranny.
It is starting to look like we might actually finish this thing.

Hey Mike, please consider re-naming this thread to better tell us what your doing ie; "My ---- project build". If you can't edit it yourself send Baldeagle a PM and ask if he can do it for you. As it reads now your just telling us you have a new work name. Many may not care, but would look/comment if you said in the header what it is your working on. Thanks.

I will give it a shot.