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

Loved your 12,500 mile trip visiting friends and family, national parks and last but most importantly, truck parts! Got a camper and inclosed trailer in the process. You are not only a talented restoration artist but a schemer to boot. Great job!

That is neat to see the sign still in place .🪒

LOL! Yeah the National Parks bit was needed to get the wife on board. We also visited the Botanical Garden in Wichita. She's a big gardener.

July 2019

Dug out the heater and tested and painted the core. This one was painted a hammered green color, which seemed a bit rare. I have tried matching the color, but without much success, so will eventually paint the housing with the usual Rustoleum Hammered Bronze color that’s a pretty close match to the more common bronze colored heaters. Also arranged for a sandblaster to come to the house and sandblast the cab. He set up a tent and went after it, spending nearly all day. I also managed to track down a nice used air compressor, a 60 gallon vertical 5 HP unit

August - September 2019

After spending some time working on my boat (complete rewiring), got into welding patch panels on the cab. Started with the bottom of the passenger side A-pillar, and replacing the rocker panel.

December 2019

Restored the gauge cluster. Used decals from Jim Carter, along with a replacement glass and bezel.

January 2020

Worked on straightening the front bumper splash apron that I drug out of that wrecking yard in Nebraska. Someone apparently wrapped a chain around it and the bumper and crushed it in the center. I welded some tabs on it and tried stretching it back out with some all-thread and wound up building a fixture to stretch it back into shape. I finished it off by flattening it with the press I built to straighten the ribs on the running boards. Also worked on installing the passenger side inner cab corner and floor patching around the battery opening. Installed the rocker on the passenger side. Fit and installed the passenger side cab corner.

February 2020

Worked on patching the passenger side of the firewall, fitting inner cowl, inner-to outer cowl panel and outer cowl panel. Fitting passenger side floor.

March 2020

More fitting of passenger side cowl & floor, including reinforcement of transmission opening. Welding passenger side floor in place, fitting and welding flange on toeboard panel.

Still March 2020 (it was a busy month)

Welding in passenger side floor support. Fitting driver side floor patch panel with recess. Fitting driver side rocker panel & inner cab corner. Welding floor patch in place. Trimming floor patch. Fitting driver side floor panel. Fitting seat riser patch.

Your metalwork skills and tenacity to get it right is impressive. Great work and thanks for the great detailed narrative. It will no doubt help guide other ‘Bolters thru their issues.

Thanks, Phil. As of that latest date, the bulk of the metalwork was done. Then got on to the tedious part of getting the exterior parts ready for paint. Still working on more posts running thru all the pics.

That hammered green is nice .I have the same round heater that is the same colour and another spare that was grey .When I refurbished my recirculating heater I was looking for the hammered paint and realized mine was a silver originally. I think the heaters may have been a different color for chev/gmc .

Kevinski, I recall another bolter had a green heater as well, back when I was looking into it. Maybe it's a Canadian thing, as this truck may have been driven up thru Canada and they had the heater installed en-route to Alaska. This heater definitely had a "Chevrolet" sticker on it. I sure wish there was a close match in green hammered paint. If so, I'd put it back the way it came to me (less the rust of course.)

KL ,
You inspired me to get after my leaky Heater Core. I was dreading taking it back out of my truck. But last summer when it started to leak i install pex tubing ball valves in line of the heater hoses and put it on the back burner. It took me less than five minutes to remove it from the truck. probably just was putting it off because of past experiences with other vehicles and heater boxes being such a PITA.
Luckily I had another heater box that came with my truck and that one tested good with no leaks. When taking apart the unit I had in the truck I also discovered mine to be a shade of blue green on the back side and inside the box that you speak of. Shined up nice with rubbing compound.
Headed to my local Lowes. They had quite an assortment of hammered colored paints. Gonna see what I can find.

Jeff, If you find a paint that matches, I'd sure like to know what you find.

No luck. Nothing even close. I bought matte hammered black. Looks gray.

A little different logo but same green

I saw that Rustoleum has hammered clear coat. That might be an option if the base color could be matched to the color of the heater.

April 2020

Spent some time patching seat adjuster mounting point. It got beat up pretty severely with chunks cracked out. I welded in a patch to secure the seat adjuster. Checked the fit of the driver’s side floor/toeboard patch and inner cowl patch. As you can see there’s a fairly large gap that needs to be fixed on installation.

May 2020

Working on installation of driver’s side floor/toeboard patch panel and inner cowl panel.

June 2020

Working on driver’s side inner cowl panel and inner-to-outer cowl panel. Trimming and fitting outer cowl panel.

June 2020 (another busy month)

Working on doors. Removing run channel and recording clip locations (wound up using screws in place of clips.) Weld repair on loose door latch and building up worn areas. Working out crease on passenger door. Welding in outer cowl panel.

July 2020

Welding in driver’s side outer cowl panel. Primer on inner fenders, radiator support, aprons, doors, and LF fender.. Final paint on inner fenders, radiator support and radiator aprons.

August 2020

Converting parking lights to dual filament for turn signals. Straightening minor tweaks in the frame with a ball joint press.

September 2020

Working on passenger side inner cowl panel, inner-to-outer cowl panel, and outer cowl panel.

September 2020 (yet another busy month)

Patching windlace tracks. Welding holes in cab for the mickey mouse ear turn signals. Completed cab floor and cowl.. Primer coat on completed cab. Undercoated cab floor.

September 2020 (yep, still busy)

Patching rusted lower inner door panels. Patch panels from Jim Carter.

October 2020

Primer on lower door panel patches from last month. Removed the engine from chassis. Patching rusted spots on frame. Dismantling chassis.

October 2020 (another busy month)

I picked up a free 1954 3100 chassis that netted me a couple wheels, and a few other miscellaneous parts. The front springs were totally trashed, with the rear eyes broken and the berlin wrap on the second leaf the only thing holding the springs to the rear hanger. Someone had driven it that way for quite a while. Got my frame stripped down and tucked away for the winter. Started hammer and dolly work on the nose of hood.

November 2020

Repairing door latches. I built up worn spots with weld metal and ground them down. Used copper strips to protect areas that didn't need weld metal spatter on them. The doors on the truck had been sagged for years and the wear on the striker parts showed. I was able to get them back in usable condition. Also fabricated new rear lower shock mounts. Had a spring shop bend the bars and drill for me. The new shocks came with the mounts which I welded to the bars.

December 2020

Set up a zinc plating arrangement and plated some parts including hood hinges, hood latch spring, & door lock retainer. Hood hinge springs didn't work so well, but they‘re clean. Got some replacement door hinge faceplates and worked on rebuilding the door hinges.

January 2021

Recast rubber in the transmission support. Used a torch to melt out the rubber, and made some molds to support the pieces in the proper position and used Simple Resin Enduro-Soft 2-part polyurethane. It turned out that wasn’t up to the task, so redid it with Enduro-Flex, which is advertised for use in poly bushings.

February 2021

More zinc plating. Hood supports (plated half at a time as my bucket wouldn't submerge the whole part- worked OK) , Miscellaneous clips and screws. Door Latch before & after

March 2021

Repairing steering arm balls. They were severely worn and undercut. I got new balls that were press-in style and peened over the opposite end to secure them.

April 2021

Zinc plating hood latch. Retrieved the frame from sandblaster and got it on a rotisserie for painting. Primered and painted the frame, axles, and miscellaneous frame parts.

May 2021

Rebuillding rear axle mount pivots. Used some PVC pipe couplings for moulds. First try was with Enduro-Soft by Simple Resins. As it turned out it wasn’t durable enough and I had to redo it with Enduro-Flex, a harder polyurethane resin. Replaced front axle kingpins, but had a little oops on one side (I coulda been one of those negative camber ricer guys that seem to be the rage now. ) Fixed that and got the front springs mounted to the frame. Also bolted on running board brackets, battery tray, etc. after finish painting them. Bolted the front axle under the frame.

May 2021 (continued)

Got the rear axle mounted to the frame and found that the mount pivots didn’t hold up. Bolted on replacement running board brackets, making the frame essentially complete (except for fixing the rear axle pivots.) Found that the rear axle bump stops I got from Jim Carter didn’t line up with the holes in the frame, but got them bolted on anyway.

June 2021

Back to working on the cab. The right side cowl panel weld needed to be pulled out a bit, so used a pin welder and got that close to the right spot. Also pulled out a couple dents above the rear window using the pin welder. Got that profile pretty well cleaned up. Found a rattle can paint color that matched the rear grille bars and brackets - Rustoleum Canvas White a darn close match. Shot primer on the hood, grille pieces, window frames, etc. After a couple issues with the resin setting up too quick got the rear axle pivots recast.

July 2021

Ordered some copper-nickel brake line and fabricated new brake lines. Installed all new master and wheel cylinders and hoses. Drug the engine out from under its cover and went after it with the pressure washer. Pulled the transmission and bell housing off and found the rear core plug nearly rusted thru and clogged with crud. Got it cleaned out and got the engine on the stand.