The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Project Journals 1949 Chevy Panel Truck

I've been kicking around posting my project on here for some time now. I guess it is now or never since I have a little spare time on my hands. I must have stumbled on this site a few years ago after I bought a '48 Chevy truck and needed some help fixing a few things. It has really helped me out on a few things that left me scratching my head. But that is a different (future) project for a different time but maybe I can give a little back or at least spark some ideas or convos about some of the things I plan on doing.

To prime the pump and kick things off, I am about 2+years into the build of a '49 Chevy panel truck that I purchased off of craigslist. I estimate that I have about another 2 years or so of work left but I have taken some pictures (but never as many as I thought at the time) along the way so I plan on posting periodically (weekly?) to bring this post up-to-date with where the project currently stands.

This will be my third frame off restoration, but the first of this era of vehicle. I did a '67 Camaro protouring in 2005-2009 and an '81 Camaro Z28 with an LS swap after that one. I have tinkered with my '48 Chevy truck but it is pretty much a stock truck so I have resisted vs digging into it other than routine stuff. So this one will be slightly different than the others that I have done, especially since repro parts are rare. I have also had to purchase some new tools and equipment and then learn how to use them. That slows things down quite a bit but I have 2 years of backlog to post.

I have always liked the Chevy AD trucks and since I did not want to cut into my solid '48, I set out keeping an eye out for one a little more far gone. I really wanted to build more of a street rod out of it so cutting up a solid one was a no-go. After searching craigslist for a while with an open mind on my next project (rat rod, COE or others were considered), I ran across what was listed as a '52 Chevy panel truck. (Later it would be decoded and found to be a '49 ᠁.but it is more likely a '48, '49, 51, etc). This truck had been purchased by a young man with the intent of turning it into a gift for his dad. He was going to turn it into a canopy truck that his dad used to drive as a young man to sell fruit and he planned to give it to him as a bday gift. So he (unfortunately) had cut the sides out of it. Below are some pics of how it was delivered to me.

Hello FrankenChevy,

Welcome to the Stovebolt and the Project Journal forum! Your 1949 Chevy Panel Truck will be of great interest to our forum participants. I'm really looking forward to watching you refresh the '49. Be sure to ask your questions in the appropriate forum(s). There's a wealth of knowledge here on the SB. I recommend that you check into the Welcome Center and introduced yourself, an excellent first step.

I'll send you a PM with some additional Project Journal information after you make a few more posts. You can just click on the flashing red envelope in the upper righthand corner to open it.

Once again, welcome. You're gonna love it here!

To continue.....My guess is that he cut the sides out and then sent it off to get it sandblasted and primered and discovered that he was in over his head. He said he found one in better shape so he decided to buy that one and sell this one. You can see that the lower portions are pretty rusty and since this one seemed to be cut up already, in need of some fab work and already looked to have some monkeyfisted repairs then I came up with a plan to turn it into a 5 window truck like Dave Kindig did on his show (albeit quite a few less $$$ involved).

These pics conclude the starting point of the project. In the next few days I'll post a quick explanation and pics of the teardown in the next post.

Familiar with the Kindig It build. If you can accomplish something similar you will have a show stopper. Good luck.

Once I got the truck into the shop and crawled all over it, there were a few surprises but not anything I would consider a show stopper. But it did make me realize that I would have to step up my metal fab game. I had done a ton of panel replacement on my previous projects (i.e. my Camaro is more foreign made than my Acura) but just a small amount of panel fab from flat stock.

So, to get started on the metal work and wave goodbye to all my spare time in the near future, I decided to pull the body off the frame. It wasn't really fastened to the frame... which was good for me but could have been bad for the flatbed truck that delivered it. I have a rotisserie that I built for my Camaro project that I thought about modifying to use but decided to build a simple wood dolly and transfer the body to it. There was plenty to do that was accessible without needing to roll the body over. I jacked it up and slid the frame out from under the body and pushed the frame into the corner of the shop and started the metal repair.

The first thing that I decided to address on the body were the areas the previous owner had cut out on the panel sides. This gave me a chance to brush up on my rusty welding skills and avoid jumping into the deep end with panel fab.

Unfortunately on the panel sides the previous owner had cut below the fore/aft body line and my plan was to cut just above this feature for installation of the bed cap. The sections he had cut out were included in the parts that he had sent, so a simply cut the small portion out I needed and grafted it to fill the void. I really didn't take a ton of pics on this particular effort but I did find a few pics of the area. It will take some work later to trim down the welds and re-establish the body lines with filler but it was good enough to move on to all the many other repairs.

If your door has provisions for vent wings, it is a '51. If no vent wings, it is a '50 or earlier.

Here is a link to Ray Stanley, Wheelwright Restorations. He makes panels and patches for the Suburban and Panel. Some things, like rear lower corners, you won't find on his web site because he sells them through Jim Carter. Wheelwright Restorations

Jim Carter

Welcome to the Stovebolt!!

Love the idea of a fleetside! Great way to address the cut panel sides. Looks like some panel replacement has already been done adding another layer of frustration to your build. Good luck and I’ll be following!

If y’all haven’t seen the build FrankenChevy is referring to, check out “Bitchen Rides” on Motortrend TV. If I remember correctly Dave Kindig started out with a Suburban not a Panel but the results were quite impressive. For the custom fans not the purists.

Saw this one in Spring Tx about 18 years ago.

DOORS

The lower driver and passenger doors were very rusted. So luckily aftermarket patch panels were available so I bought replacement panels and cut the lower portion off and welded in these in place. It was fairly straight forward with the tricky part figuring out where to cut and splice. It was helpful to have my stock '48 truck from which to take measurements and to make templates.

I also took a little time to treat some interior rust with the Eastwood rust converter. I didn't really worry about the panel gaps at this point because I expect things to shift a bit when I cut the roof off and when put the body back on the frame. Plus the top of the door will need some attention (rust and fitment).

(P.S. - Thanks for all the comments, suggestions and encouragement. As of right now the metal work is about 85-90% complete so these posts and pics are from the last few years. I have been going back thru my photos and writing up what I have done and appending proper pics (if available). I'm trying to show them in order of what I worked on but some of this was simultaneous work (waiting on back-order parts, etc), so it may not be 100% accurate. I'm trying to be relatively brief (especially at these early stages) to keep from being a bore but if there is something that you want know to see a little more about let me know and I'll see what I can do. Thanks again).

Some more pics of the doors:

I was starting to wonder about your welding skills with those first photos of the doors. Whoever did those didn't have a clue, or at a minimum needed WAY more practice.

Your repairs look pretty good.

Looks like your project is coming along well.

SIDE COWLS

The side cowls had some new patch panels installed but the installation was poor. If you look at some of the previous pics you can see the rather large gaps that existed in the side cowl repair. Since these panels were fairly cheap, I splurged for a new set and installed them as well as new inner kick panels. The installation was fairly straight forward. The transitional area at the firewall threw me a bit but after looking at my stock truck I decided to close it out with a metal plate instead of using the typical rubber closeout used on the stock build. Hopefully this won't cause problems down the road with the fender fitment (it did not look like it would). If it does, then I'll cut it out and modify it later.

BED CAPS

Now I started venturing into the great unknown and coloring outside the lines. I decided to fab the middle portion of the bed caps and closeouts. When the side panels were cut out by the previous owner the side collapsed and deformed a bit so prior to reestablishing the side contour local to the cut I had to use some wood boards to push the remaining side panel back into shape. I then laid a piece of 1x6 poplar & traced the contour onto it from the panel truck and then laid out the inner profile to create a wooden buck to form the upper cap. I rounded the edges of the buck so that I could hammer form the edge of the flat metal to create the caps. I used the same form board/buck for both sides so I could keep the contours between LH & RH as symmetric as possible.

Once I formed both sides then I went ahead and welded these hammer-formed caps to the outer skin panel of the truck using various angle iron and multiple 2x4's and such to make sure they were relatively straight/even at this point.

I also needed some support structure within this span. So I decided to make some sheet metal ribs to space longitudinally. I really didn't take any good pics of these but I did find one in a larger pic so I zoomed up on it and cropped it. They standout in the photos because they are copper colored due to the weld-thru primer on the flanges. I again made some wood bucks for these much the same as my upper cap buck (multi-use for LH & RH). They were flanged on the bottom surface to plug weld to the horizontal portion of the existing bed structure, the inner flange is contoured to match the inner contour of the existing bed as if it continued up (and will be plug welded to the new inner panel) and the outer flange is an approx .25” offset inside of the outer skin panel. The outer skin will not be welded to this rib, this flange only provides stiffness to the rib. I used a separate small angle at the top surface of the rib to fit under the the bed cap so I could place the rib in the void and float the position to maintain some degree of flatness on the cap installation. I also created a separate inner flange to mount on the opposite side of the rib (that matched contour-wise the integral flange of the rib) so that I would have plenty to plug weld the inner panel .

After the top cap and ribs were installed then I took some blue painters tape and created a flat pattern of the closeout panels that I needed to cut for the new inner panels. (I didn't have any pics of this but I do the same thing later when I close out the back portion and there are pics of that in the future). I then plug welded these inner panels (after going thru the ol' knee brake) to the ribs. Next I butt welded around the perimeter of the panels, and ground the weld flat and that was that.

BED CAP PICS....

MO BED CAP PICS...

Great idea using the top to keep everything in place. Nice work!

REAR VALANCE AND SURROUND

Back to replacing rusty stock parts on the panel truck. So the rear valance and the lower portion of the rear tub was rusted through. The closeout under the valence between the rear bumper and body was also toasted and needed to be discarded. Someone had scabbed on some fiberglass repairs on the outboard portion of this closeout so it was removed and trashed. Later I hammer-formed a new one on a wooden buck. I then cutout all the rusted areas on the aft end until I got to decent metal and treated the rusted substructure as required.

Once I had all the corroded metal removed then it was time to start adding back good metal. I had ordered replacement rear lower tub patch panels for both sides so I repaired some of the under structure that was rusted out since it was open and accessible with flat metal that I formed and then I welded in the replacement outer panels. Then I moved to the under door structure rework.

The center support for the bumper to body closeout (what I call a hat section) was rusted on the aft end so I cut it off and formed a new section to weld into the removed area. I also had to fab the outer most supports that bolt to the tub since the existing ones were too far gone but good enough for making a pattern. They were simple brake-formed sheet parts. I purchased the repair panel for the under door threshold (two-piece) and welded it into place. I then had to fab the drop portion (the vertical portion) on this panel. I again created a wood buck to help with forming these parts. If I remember correctly I hammer-formed the horizontal return flange on the bottom side of this part (the flange that the bumper to body closeout bolts to) along the middle portion that had a slight curve but welded the flange on the tightly curved area to make the fab a bit easier.

Rear Valance Pics con't

Rear Valance Pics con't

Rear Valance Pics final

REAR FENDERWELL & SURROUND

The LH rear fenderwell had some rust all along the fender interface...some of which was on the exterior above the fenderwell and had progressed to inside of the bed. I ordered a patch panel for the external portion since it was available.

I cut out the rusted areas on the fender and fenderwell and treated the inner rust while it was open. I did not address the rust on the bed at this point since the area would require a bead rolled panel. I then welded in the patch panel on the fender.

The patch panel did not include the substructure in the fenderwell so I had to fab that portion from sheet. I made a simple wood buck out of a 2x8 or 2x10 that I had laying around to make the upper fenderwell portion. I had to temp install the new upper fenderwell with sheet metal screws and bolt the rear fender to it so I could locate the weld nuts that are welded to the upper fenderwell before welding it in place.

The RH side was in a little better shape. The fender was in good shape but the fenderwell was rusted so I used the same wood buck and process to replace this area.

REAR FENDERWELL & SURROUND PICS

REAR FENDERWELL & SURROUND PICS CON'T

REAR FENDERS

I found out pretty quickly that replacement rear fenders are hard to find (if not impossible), since they are not common to the pickup, so I had to make the ones I had work if at all possible. Unfortunately they were in very rough shape. Both sides had rust all along the attach flange and the forward and rear lower areas were also in bad shape.

The first portion I focused on was the attach flange. I made some patterns from tape and cardboard and cut out the rust and welded in the new flange. I also welded in a fender washer on the inside of the flange to spread the bolt load out a little better.

For the forward and rear lowers repairs, there we some patch panels available for the truck fenders that I used on the forward section with some modifications. I also had to replicate all the inner doublers and stiffeners. At this point I decided to spring for an english wheel. I bought a (relatively) cheap one from Jegs. I used it to rework the forward patch panels but it really came in handy on the rear lower repair since there was not a patch panel available.

Luckily the contour in the area I need patch on the rear area was not too severe so I was able to fumble my way thru forming these small areas.

REAR FENDER PICS

SON OF REAR FENDER PICS

BRIDE OF REAR FENDER PICS

Good luck with your project, .
The vegetable trucks didnt have rear doors, just a short tailgate., Which you probably already know. Youre doing some very nice work, Keep it up!!
Marty

I agree. You’re doing VERY nice work. This truck is going to be something to see when done.

Ah, rust is fun. Nice work! If you don't have one already, those cheap bead rollers from eBay or other places, do a pretty good job once you fine tune them.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. MNSmith, I finally did splurge for a beadroller. I went with the cheapest model Woodward Fab had and and controller motor from Eastwood. It is probably about the same thing as the models you referenced... not a heavy-duty unit but good enough for me and my skill level and usage. I went ahead and spent some time building a stand for it while I was at it. I kept pushing the beadrolled parts off until I absolutely needed it....same as the english wheel.

REAR TAIL LIGHTS & TURN SIGNALS

After doing some internet searching I decided to use '37 Ford taillights for rear tail lights and turn signals. I sourced some aftermarket parts and located then as shown on the sides of the bed. I also had to create a small access panel to connect the wiring in the future since the area is fully enclosed.

LOWER SIDE PANELS

The lower side panels, the portion between the door and the rear wheelwell, was fairly rusty. Both the outer skin and inner structure were crusty as well as the lower LH door jamb. There were replacement panels for these areas available so I ordered them. I then cut out the bad metal and installed the new stuff. Since I am moving the fuel tank to the rear frame, then I had to delete the side fuel accommodations. I also had to fab the removed understructure from flat sheet. I took the opportunity and treated the inner cavity above the repair with Eastwood rust converter and rust encapsulator. On the inner structure below the bed floor I drilled some ¾ dia holes to allow future rust treatment in the rust cavity. I will eventually plug these access holes with plastic/rubber body plugs after final paint.

LOWER SIDE PANELS PICS

LOWER SIDE PANELS PICS CON'T

REAR DOOR HINGES

The stock rear door hinges were in rough shape. Three of them “could” have been salvaged with a ton of work and one was totally gone. So I figured that I would try my hand at fabbing new hinges.

As well as fabbing hinges, I also had to relocate the upper door hinges lower on the tub since the top would be cut off eventually. So I removed the upper door hinge attach plates and welded in a lower position. Once the attach plate was relocated, I cut a slot in the skin for the hinge to slide into for mounting to the tub side.

I planned to use ¼ thick bar stock for the hinge as well as using some tube/pipe that fit some generic hinge pins that I bought. Using a straight edge and along piece of all-thread (with a diameter that matched the hinge pin diameter), I was able to locate the tub side of the hinge and drill and tap the holes to match the mounting holes in the tub.

Once I had the tub portion of the hinge bolted in then I used the all-thread to locate the hinge tube assembly and keep it in line so the door would not bind. I also built an integral stop into the hinge so the door would only open so far. I tacked the pin/tube assy in place and finish the weld on a table.

Then I focused on the inner portion of the hinge... the part that connects to the door. This would need to have a bend in it to make fit the door interface. I figured out the angle needed needed to figure out how to bend the kick on ¼ thick steel. Instead of cutting it in two pieces and welding it, I just sliced it about 60% thru and bent it one a bench vise and a large adjustable wrench. Then I welded up the sliced area.

Right now the hinge pins extend below the hinge bottom and the pins are a fairly tight fit but can be removed relatively easily. Once the build is more complete then I plan on trimming them flush to the hinge bottom and knurling under the pin head to retain the pin.

I also have the rubber closeouts that go around the hinges at the body mate,so that should clean up that area a bit.

REAR DOOR HINGES PICS