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

By Moderator: Richard’s Journal started here in the Welcome Center.

When I took on this project, I had an idea of "must haves". I wanted better suspension, power disc brakes, A/C, V8 power with auto trans. But I wanted to keep as much original as possible. No tilt steering, door locks, power windows, etc, etc. My son Clayton was pushing for an S10 frame build which would have given me almost everything I wanted. However, I really didn't want to deal with fabing body and running board mounts, radiator core support, bumper mounts, etc etc. Original frame with everything already there was my decision. The rotisserie made frame work much easier.

What I ended up doing

I bought a Danforth front end kit that uses S10 control arms. Found a 1996 2wd S10 Blazer and cut the front end off in the guys front yard. Disassembled, cleaned it up and painted. Boxed in the frame to install the Danforth crossmember. Had to do some cutting on the original GM crossmember. Not knowing exactly how the control arms should go on, I welded the perch pieces on backwards. Had to carefully cut off and reweld them on. Bought a '94 Lincoln MVIII steering rack and salvage yard. Used grade 8 bolts to mount the rack to frame. Mockup of control arms with the 2" drop spindle. Boxed in rear frame to relocate shock mounts. Didn't want the power brake booster on the firewall so went with one in the original location. Fabbed up lowering blocks for the rear axel. The rear is from 2003 4X4 S10 Blazer 3.73 posi. Had to strip everything off the rear end. New perches, brake pads, ubolts, etc.

That's about it for the frame for now.

I'm going to break this build down by phases but not necessarily in chronological order.

Body work.

Today I'll focus on the body work and I won't go into all the dents and bondo work. Just the major issues.

Started work on the body with it on the dolly I built. Worst issue was the floor and firewall as seen in the pic. Required extra bracing underneath.

Pieced in lower kickpanels. Welded in the 3 speed floor cover. Had lots of holes to fill in for the jump seats and tool box.

Also filled in the mounting/hinge holes in the rear where the clam shell doors would be mounted. Filled in the majority of the firewall holes.

The 8" roof vent hole and emergency light holes were quite a job. Took a day or two of heating, shrinking, hammering to get it all flat and no oil canning.

Had some rust in the rear fenders to body seam and a couple of rusted spots in the two rear side window channels.

Had to cut about a 10" square hole in one rear door inside panel to access work on a large dent.

Last couple of pics taken after body was put on the rotisserie.

Some great, detailed images. Enjoying the progress.

Great pictures!

On a slightly different subject, I'm curious about that unstyled John Deere tractor in the background of one of those pics.

Rich, FYI the Johnnie Popper is a 1933 model A. I need to rig up an electric motor friction type starter because of a rotator surgery. Just can't spin that flywheel like I used to.

Richard

I hear ya! I have a '36 A, and it gets a little harder to turn over every year!

Body Work continued.

Continuing on with the body work, once we had all the dents, rust, and holes welded up and taken care of it was time to go to the media blaster. Just left the body on the rotisserie and loaded it on the trailer. Couple of days later it was back home. Then a good coat of epoxy primer and it was ready for bondo and lots of blocking and sanding. Clayton working on the interior. Shots of the finished prep work then first coat of primer.

Just another short post of the floor. First pic is of the plywood floor as original. Second one is after I put several coats of left over house paints I had lying around the shop. Last pic is of the underside of the floor after many hours of scraping and wire brushing the factory tar undercoating off. It had about 70% of the coating still there leaving the wood in remarkable shape. I also seam sealed the new floor/firewall sheet metal as you can see.

Well I've thrown in a pic of the mostly ready frame, primed and painted with POR black. Before I got the body on the rotisserie I wanted to do some mocking up. I bought an engine/tranny off Craigs List. 5.3/4l60e out of a 2004 Chevy Silverado 4X4 with 120K miles. Purportedly running and was removed to swap in a larger engine. How scary is that?! Guy seemed honest, looked like a mechanic, so what the heck. After I got it mostly stripped down I did a compression and leak down test. Amazingly passed with flying colors. Felt good about that. Now what? Clean it up and run with it? Clayton of course said NO. I pulled the pan, no sludge, intake galley cover, no sludge, heads, clean also with plenty of crosshatching. I think we got lucky. A mechanic friend gave me a pair of "243" heads which have a little bigger valves than the stock 706 heads. Had the 243 heads milled and valves cleaned up with new guides and seals. New oil pump and water pump to be sure. Also a Competition Cams RV cam. New gaskets all around to assemble. With some research and trial and error I found some Camaro exhausts that fit very nicely and hopefully would improve the performance.

Now it was time to put the body on and do some fitment. Wanted to make sure the wheels looked OK in the openings. Also make sure engine placement was good. Then welded in the engine mounts and trans crossmember.

Next post I'll show the seat placement and mounts.

Just a short post before I shift gears again. Just placed the seats inside to make sure they were going to work. Wheel/axel placement isn't perfect but not that bad either. While I was at it I fabbed the steering in. Picked up the column shifter at the recycle yard and reworked the shifter box to eliminate the horizontal movement so it would only move vertically up and down. Keeping with the resto look. Steering wheel is really big for power steering but I like it. Needs a lot of repair work though. Also thought that the S10 front torsion might be a good idea so fabbed some mounts to the frame and relocated the holes in the control arms to match the bar.

Todays pics are of the interior ready for first primer then after primer. As I mentioned had a couple of window frame rust repairs and all the extra holes in the rear cargo door opening to fill.

Without a specific reason I thought it would be a good idea to put spray foam inside the roof ribs and outer skin. Maybe to stiffen up the roof and insulate where I couldn't get the stick on insulation put on. Razor knife and sharp scraper cleaned it up nicely.
Now it was time for 1st prime of the exterior of the body. Couple of pics of Clayton priming.

Not to be a nag, but I'd recommend a respirator for spraying, even outdoors. That is unless you enjoy gray snot.

Looks like good progress.

The biggest danger is risk of inhaling isocyanates which is something you will want to avoid at all cost. Do a google search on isocyanates. Chances are you’ll be wearing respirator’s in the future. I did that search and now I do wear a respirator.

Looking good.👍

John

Misc. rust throughs in bed floor, fender, and window frames. And that is it for the rust that needed attention.

Back at it after a busy Easter week. A few pics of the cargo doors repairs. Don't know what the bottom holes were for. Both doors. Maybe something to do with stretchers or something? Big dent in bottom of one of them. All the hardware for the latches, etc. was still there. Just needed cleaning up and fabing one of the vertical rods.

Minimum work required for the cab doors. Right door had couple big dents. Very little rust on the bottoms.

Put up a make shift media blast booth using scaffolding and tarps. H.F. blaster. It came with hood and gloves and I did wear respirator. Blasted the parts shown and lots of little parts. Being the frugal type, I swept up the media a number of times and recycled it through a window screen to remove the paint chips and crud. It did loose "bite" but worked enough for me.

Like the underbody, the fenders, hood, inner fenders and mud splash pans front and back were coated with the same black tar. I found that regular mineral spirits/paint thinner worked well in dissolving the nasty stuff. With the part out in the sun and a spray bottle to apply it, the thinner did the job. It was a messy job though. Ruined a pair of jeans doing it. After all was cleaned up I was ready for new undercoating. Should have taken pictures of the fenders before cleaning them up.
As you can see, the fenders needed a lot of dent repair and skim bondo to get them flat again. Note the GI identification on the front fenders and the white pencil numbering on the underside of the hood halves.

Just a quick note on the glove box lid. Of course someone used it as a foot rest at one time. Was able to lift the crimped edge of the outer skin and separate the 2 halves. Once straightened I glued a strip of 1X 1/8 flat steel to the backside to reinforce it. A little skim of bondo, sanded and primed.

While working on the body, also worked on getting the frame and "underneath" things done while I could still get to them. (Of course there were things I forgot about that required creeper time later on). The gas tank was in great shape...until I mashed in the bottom a little rolling the car off the trailer when we first got it home.;) Cleaned it out good and it was good to go. First installed the tank then went to work on the fuel lines to the engine. Oh, fuel gauge sender was installed too. Used the original supply line and fitting near the top of the tank. First came the pre filter. Then the HP fuel pump. Then, to avoid having to run a return line all the way from the fuel rails, I used a Corvette fuel filter with pressure release return built in. The ran that return into the bottom tank drain fitting. Also found this neat coupling device to let me use the original parking brake to connect to the S10 park brake cable. Battery cables, A/C power, fuel pump, tank sender, tail light wires were secured.
Next for the only other time it left the shop was a trip to the local muffler shop in Mesa. I know I couldn't do justice to that part of the build. They ran the two 2" pipes from the manifolds into a 2into1 Flowmaster muffler with 3" tailpipe. Very pleased with their work. (And the sound!)

Looking at the pics reminded me I put all new steel brake lines in. New pads were already installed.
Of course before the body went back on brake lines were bled and checked for leaks.

A few pics of the undercoating. Hood, fenders, inner fenders, and mud splash shields were also treated. I used Herculiner. Should say that I used the air gun that came with the Herculiner. Made getting into all the nooks and crannies so much easier. Then the big flat bottom and other flat pieces were done with a long nap roller. Masked the whole body.

Since I'm still sitting here I might as well post a few more pictures. First three show installing 7/16 SAE nuts for installing seat belts. Made a good size hole to place a large fender washer for reinforcement and the nut. Four of these shoulder high for retractable belts. The other pic is for the rear seats mounted on the wheel well. Fronts will be on the inside bottom of door post.

I'm not going to show all the final sanding and priming. We all know what that looks like. I would post if anyone is interested. Remainder of shots are of interior final color painting. A few more in the next post.

More little parts in color. That front mud shield is new. Original was a real mess. New one came crunched on the end and I thought I shouldn't have to repair something I bought "new". Company sent another new one that wasn't crunched as badly. They told me to keep the first one. Anyone need a slightly damaged GMC front shield?

Coming next, body and door color.

AUGUST, 2020

Body and rear cargo doors paint. Base color and clear.

Oh my goodness! This so incredible. You are going an awesome job putting this build thread up here. We are so glad to are doing all this for Stovebolt!! Thank you.

Back again all. As I mentioned earlier these pictures are not in chronological order but that doesn't matter. Just highlighting what was done. First pic is of the original grill after I did a little straightening of the bars and primered. I did finish paint them in the white as I originally was going to go as originally built. I understand that 1952 didn't have any chrome due to the Korean war. Am I right? Grill and bumpers were painted. Kept the bumpers painted but Clayton said I have to have chrome grill. So that's what I went with.

The rest of the pictures are of work in the interior that I wanted to get done before taking off of the rotisserie. That way I could still roll it over. Firewall mat. Accelerator pedal (drive by wire), A/C unit and hoses.

I installed 2 layers of insulation and sound deadening material. First was a self stick foil backed sheeting like little bubble wrap. Don't remember the name. Got it at the automotive paint shop. Second layer was heavier with self stick black tar with a foil backing. It got rolled on with a special roller. Last picture shows the name of it. Same stuff went under dash, floor of cab area, firewall, cab doors as far as I could reach, and some in the rear doors but they were not too accessible. Don't remember if I mentioned that this ambulance came with 2 dome lights instead of a single one. They got new wiring and LED bulbs.

The previous post showed the final painting of body, hood and rear doors. Fenders and cab doors were finished a month or so later. Then hood and fenders were stored in a spare bedroom and the four doors went in my little office in the shop for about 2 1/2 years.

MARCH 2021

Well, noting the date above, it was 3 years ago that we finally reunited the body and frame. Hoping that I had done most of the work required under the body, we rolled the rotisserie and frame outside and proceeded to join them together. I borrowed a neighbors tractor with front end loader and improvised the forks and covered them with blankets. His tractor had much more reliable hydraulics than my skid steer. What a nerve racking few minutes as we drove the forks through the windows of that beautiful body! Carefully put pressure on the forks and unbolted the rotisserie. With the frame on wheel dollies it was easy to position the body. From there on it was pretty much by the seat of our pants. We just made all the bolt holes in body and frame match and hoped that it was square and straight. We did do some measuring of course but the results were the same. Of course all new oak wood blocks were fabbed with rubber pads between wood and body. I ordered mounting blocks from Truck Parts in Cali but they looked like they just threw in extras from the pickup bin. That's why I made my own blocks. IIRC there are 4 body mounts an each side. Then it was roller 'er back into the shop and keep pecking away at it!

yeoman's work on the ambulance. Well done!

Thanks for the kind words Mike!

Richard. That is some impressive work all around. I was especially amazed to see the pix of getting the cab onto the frame with a tractor. Way to go! (BTW, who's in the pictures? One has to got be you! )

Peggy. The fellow in the dark shirt is a neighbor, retired farmer from N Dakota. Red T-shirt is son Clayton, my body and paint guy and helping hands for most everything we've done. Then me in the light shirt.

Well here I am in the build Project Journal. Phil and Peggy thought this would interest some readers. I'm going to pick up where I left off.

When I purchased the 5.3 engine and tranny it didn't come with the "computers", wiring harness, throttle controller, accelerator pedal, or fuse block. While in Washington UT visiting daughters families I found all these things at a salvage yard. All the electronics must exactly match the engine. ie year of manufacture. Did a lot of research on a LS1 forum. Decided on a DYI harness using the OEM salvage one. Sent the computers off to a fellow in the midwest. He removed, deleted, or whatever all unnecessary programs for a swap. that meant door locks, security/antitheft, any smog management, rear two O2 sensors in the exhaust, ABS, and not sure what else. Anyway, also downloaded detailed instructions for removing all the corresponding wires from the harness. Pictured is the harness stripped and laid out on a table. Then the harness installed (pic of frame and engine only). Wish I had taken a picture of the ball of wire that was removed!

Must admit this was one of the tasks I was really dreading. With more research and reading I got spooked about using that original harness. There could be broken wires inside the looms, bad connectors, and the fact that I didn't have a fuse block. I did get an OEM block from a salvage truck but it was looking more and more like an added nightmare. Long story short, after the many hours spent prepping that harness, I bought a harness from PSI. Everything there. Fuse block, fan, fuel, start relays etc. Saved myself so much time and grief. Only downside, that I didn't realize, was it was made for the computers to be mounted on passenger side. With the A/C and glovebox over there that wasn't going to work. Required some extra work and wiring. Thinking maybe I would have been happier with a Painless harness.

Some pictures of the under dash and my "work station" on the seat pedestal. Wish the wiring looked like you see on the cable "builder" shows! I tried to keep things organized, just not loomed, hidden, etc. Hey, it's from a farm shop. Also a couple of pics of the installed PSI wiring to cab and front lights.

A side note... ignition switch, brake sender, headlight dimmer switch checked good. Did buy new light switch. Also original wiper motor no bueno. Bought electric wiper, arms, blades. Also installed dome light switches on cab doors and pass side rear cargo door.

March/April 2022

I purchased the Classic gauges early on in the build. Liked the ivory face and red needles. My originals were toast, no glass, face paint all cracked. I started buying parts as soon as I got the car. Every time I got a little extra money I'd add to the inventory. I now know that was not the way to go. Classic Instruments came out with gauges not long ago that are original in appearance. I would have liked them. Anyway, I wasn't looking forward to the install. working with universal brackets behind the dash in such a confined space with miniature nuts and lots of wires in the way and my large hands is not a good combination. You all know what I'm talking about. But I got it done and am happy with the results.

If you zoom in on that pic you can see all the cracks in the steering wheel. A tapered Dremel bit made fairly easy work of notching out every one of them. Talk about a nasty black mess! Nest 2 pics show how I filled in all the cracks. Used PC7 2 part epoxy putty. Then a couple of days forming and sanding and filling in pin holes til I had it back close to original. Son Clayton said it needed to be painted white. Done. I didn't like that at all. That big ole white steering wheel stuck out like a sore thumb. Then I had the idea it should be the darker blue of the exterior belt line. Done. That was just as bad as the white! So settled on body blue. You'll see it in later photos. You can also see the Vintage Air bezel under the dash painted body blue. I also cut the cables off the back of the choke and throttle knobs then glued them back into the dash. I just think it looks cool as original.

The Vintage Air bezel painted the same as the dash looks near factory installed. Nice!

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!

I apologize for taking so long to continue my build history. I have to confess that I stepped off of my four post lift (6 ft up) onto a "not so stable" folding step ladder which scooted out away from me causing me to fall onto the concrete floor. I fractured my T1 vertebrae and 6 ribs. Today I'm at 12 weeks in a neck and chest brace and headed to Dr later this week. Anyway, some days are better than others and sitting here at the keyboard doesn't have a lot of appeal at times.

I left off getting to the glass install. Another task that needed some thought. With no glass in the car when purchased I thought I wanted to go with original front fixed/slider and a single fixed glass in the rear similar to a modern suburban/Tahoe. The problem with that was finding the mounting rubber for the single and what to do with all the extra space that would need to be filled in. Son Clayton came to my rescue again and insisted I restore the windows as original. A couple of the trim pieces were in not so great shape, dented and some rust, but maybe could be used. Amazingly all the pieces (inner and outer trim) were stashed there in the back of the burb when we bought it. Even the 4 stainless bars with pull tabs for the sliding glass with bits and pieces of glass still in the channels.
I bought side window glass patterns from Carter thinking I'd have them cut locally but didn't really have alot of confidence in the accuracy of them. Nothing against Jim Carter! Then I found Auto City Classic, Inc in MN. They had a complete glass kit for the AD suburban for IIRC about $800! Brings up the case of me buying things before they were needed. I found the barn door glass used not long after buying the car. Then bought windshield, vent, and door glass from Truck in CA a few years later. Would have saved several 100 dollars waiting and getting everything from Auto City. Lesson to any new bolters, think ahead, plan, do your homework and don't buy too much stuff ahead of time. I thought I was doing Ok buying when I had some "discretionary" cash on hand. That thought cost me.
So I'll start with the glass install, have too many pics and comments so will split it up in 2 posts. Apologize for this long wordy post, I'll stick to procedure and pics next.

Sorry to hear about your accident but glad to hear you’re on the mend. I’m enjoying your posts. Keep up the good work!

Part 1

Installing the side glass requires following the correct order in the steps. First 2 pics show installing the outer trim. I taped the surround to hopefully prevent scratching the paint. #1 No trim, but you can see the window ahead of this one has the trim installed. #2 Trim on ready to connect at the union on top. If you zoom in on #1 you can also see the driver side windows with trim installed.
#3 Shows the forward stationary glass for each window with the square U shaped rubber seal installed. I put a small bead of black silicone RTV inside the trim. In this step you place this pane in the opening and make an exact mark on the frame top and bottom where the glass/seal ends making sure the glass is fitted tight in it's opening. Now remove the glass.
Next step is pic #4. There is a solid square rubber seal that will now be glued into the outermost edge of the frame. You begin at one of the previous marks you make and continue rearward and around back to the other mark you made. Cut exactly the right length or an 1/8 " or so extra. Just to make sure you get a tight fit to the stationary glass and seal. You can use black RTV or black weather-strip adhesive to install. This square seal is a spacer for when you install the run channel for the rear slider. pic #5 shows the spacer on the right and the slider and channel next to it on left. You can now install the stationary glass with seal as shown pic #6