The Stovebolt Site Forums Welcome! Welcome Centre Do It Yourself (DITY) Gallery 1953 Chevy 3100 - "Frame off Restoration"

I bought this truck in 2004, the year before Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Ironically, I purchased the truck from a man who was part of the Hurricane Hunters at Keesler Air Force Base.

I kept buying parts after the hurricane when I did not have time to work on it because of my business and hurricane damages. After much thought and deliberation, I decided to do a complete frame-off restoration and make the truck like it could have been back in 1953, except for a nice paint job and rims.

I really did not start working on the sheetmetal replacement until 2014 of which I did all. The paint was completed in August 2018. The color is a 2010 Camaro Synergy Green.

Now that it is done, I get more comments and compliments about the fact that I left it with a 6 cylinder and didn't put an LS in it.

I first took the truck to Crusin' the Coast in 2019 in my local area. I have won several awards with this truck.


This is that story.

I originally documented my restoration with many pictures but have never put much text or detail to each picture or how I arrived at my process/decisions. Here is the first picture when I began my restoration. I drove it home after purchasing it and took the picture here. I should have taken it outside in the full sun.

I researched far and wide before deciding how I wanted to proceed with this restoration. That took a long time weighing the many options. Everyone had an opinion.

I finally decided to do a complete frame off restoration putting it back like it was in 1953 except add a good paint job and nice rims and tires.

I disassembled the truck one piece at a time and bagged and marked all the smaller parts, nuts and bolts and where they went. I did not try to salvage any wiring but did keep all the switches, lights, etc.

I was working on this project at my shop. As I removed the bed, cab and front clip, I loaded those big items on individual pallets and placed them in storage racks in my shop to help save space. I boxed up all the bags of bolts, nuts, small parts, etc. to consolidate them. I placed those on top of my office space in my building, out of the way until I needed them.

The engine ran fine so I decided that I would not have to do much to it except paint it. Once I pulled it off the frame, I mounted it on an engine stand so I could have easy access.

I pulled the front axle and rear end and loaded them on pallets, too.

Once got to this point, I realized that someone before me had hacked off four of the running board mounts that were riveted on from the factory. I bought new running board mounts to fix three of the four and repaired the last one. I purchased 3/8 solid steel rivets from McMaster Carr and after cutting the original rivets loose and removing the hacked off mounts, I installed the new mounts and heated up the new rivets so they could be peened on like they originally were.

After checking the frame to make sure it was square, level and repairing any other issues, it was ready to be stripped and powder coated. I did not have to worry about the paint or lack there of since it was all coming off anyway. I took the frame to Jackson MS to get that done. Once I picked it up it looked like the second picture below.

Prior to disassembly, I had already taken the truck to Stan's Powertrain. I let the experts change the pinion gear from the standard which I believe was 4-11 gears. I also had them install 3-55 gears so I could at least keep up on the back roads with local traffic.

Knowing that I planned on keeping the torque tube rear end, I also had the bushing for the drive shaft replaced. I purchased all new lowered leaf springs that would bring the whole truck down about two inches. I cleaned the whole rear end and torque tube and repainted it with Napa chassis black. Installed the rear end and the new leaf springs back on the frame.

Then I moved to the front. The kingpins did not seem bad but this seemed like the appropriate time to address them so I would not have to later. So I completely rebuilt the front end, checking the tie rod ends. They did not look excessively worn so I cleaned and painted the axle and springs etc. to match the rear end paint.

Once I installed the front end and added the wheels, I could move the frame around to work on it.

I had purchased the dual master cylinder, disk brake conversion so I disassembled the front hubs to change from the old style bearings to roller bearings and install the disks to each front hub. I used the NAPA paint to match everything else. I really was happy with this paint for the good uniform coverage. It was very hard to make it run and you could not see any lines where you previously sprayed.

Mounted the dual power master cylinder in the appropriate location. This allowed the existing brake pedal to be used with no modifications. The hole in the floorboard with the rubber plug was no longer over the cap for the new master cylinder but oh well: much safer. I am easily able to lay under the edge of the truck and pop the cap off to check the brake fluid (stick my finger over the top). I have a nice squeeze bottle with a curved spout if it's necessary to add fluid.

I changed all the brake lines to stainless steel and switched to DOT 5 silicone-based brake fluid which will not absorb moisture. I had repainted the engine with Bill Hirsch"s engine enamel which is supposed to be the correct color. I am not sure there is a correct color since I have seen so many different variations.

I put the engine back on the frame at this point so I could crank it. I wanted to make sure I did not have any issues before I changed the intake, exhaust and carburetors out. It ran fine but noisy without any exhaust.

So I bought two matching Rochester B carburetors and a dual Offenhauser manifold and installed both. I bought a set of stainless steel headers. Before installing them, I pulled out the pins in the front and back of the manifold and drilled and tapped them so a bolt could be used instead of none at the front or back.

I know I had the engine in the last post but I had to find some pictures of the change to the dual carbs and headers. I don't want to get too far ahead but I included a picture with the dual carbs and headers, because I did not take any picture until I was just about finished.

You and see the drilled and tapped bolt were the pin was on the headers. I wanted to dress up the engine to match my intended paint job. So I added the chrome valve and side cover. In the last picture, the truck already had the external oil filter so I cleaned it up and painted it orange to match Fram filter color.

Obviously most of the work was needed on the cab. No surprises but mainly my floor board was pretty rusted on both the driver's and passenger side.

The inner cowl panel on the driver's side and the passenger side, both of the inner to outer curved pieces, were also rusted thru.

Since I was a stainless steel TIG welder that manufactured galley/kitchen equipment in a former life, replacing and welding sheet metal on a truck came pretty easy.

I removed the spot welds from the seat base at the front and cut it off at the radius on each side. This would allow me to put my joint for the replacement floorboards under the flange and hide it completely once I put it back together.

My first picture shows the seat base already reinstalled on the new floorboard. But you can see my weld on the top flange where I made my cut thru it. In the same picture, you can see the passenger side inner cowl panel reinstalled. As a matter of interest, I decided instead of trying to plug weld the inside door gasket channel back onto the cowl panel, I reinstalled it with 1/8 csk head pop rivets on both sides. There is really no strain on it so this worked quite nicely.

The second picture shows I had to replace more of the floor up into the firewall on the passenger side only. At this point I also welded in a plug where the foot starter hole was. The truck did not have any of those parts and the previous owner had installed a conventional key start which I intended to go back to an original key. Then I tackled the driver side inner, outer and middle cowl panels, virtually this whole corner. I used my truck assembly manual to verify the door opening dimensions and checked it against the passenger side.

When I got the truck, I believe someone had backed up with the door open and hit something as the bottom of the door and frame was pushed to the front of the truck. It is amazing what some Bondo can cover up.

The rocker panel door frame around the hinge area was good, just a little beating and banging to get that door frame where it was supposed to be.

The third picture shows all these parts removed. I did not worry about any rust inside of these parts since my intent was to have the whole cab dipped to kill the rust and EDP coated after to protect these type areas.

The 4th picture shows this area back together, welded and ground down.

Another thing I did to maintain the original look is, after grinding the plug welds down flush, I took about a 1/4 punch and dinged the spot to make it look like the spot welds were originally there. It's just me!!

You can see by the 5th picture showing the back that a previous owner had been in there and added primer paint to the back behind the gas tank.

The 6th picture is a nice angle frame stand that I put together and added wheels to roll around my shop. I added a leftover piece of aluminum sheet metal to the bottom to set junk/tools on. With both rocker panels resting on each board, I knew nothing was going to move vertically and I could still get under to weld or cut parts out.

The last bit of tedious welding required was the radio opening. Again a previous owner butchered the opening to put a radio in but I knew my plan was to have an original radio when completed. So I needed to fix it also and that is the last picture.

You made allot of the same repairs that I did on my cab including the butchered radio opening. I also removed front of the seat riser, not so much to hide the weld, but because the metal was too rusted to weld to. It does hide the weld nicely though.

Nice work!

Phak,
Yes, I remember noticing you did yours that way and commented about it.

This small group of pictures is when I got the cab back after being stripped and EDP coated.

The picture of the cab on the trailer is the cab, both fenderwells, and the seat frame (inside). When the cab was stripped and coated, it revealed a hole at the bottom of the cab corner on the driver's side. I ordered the patch panel and fixed this spot.

I had already bought a complete Mar-K truck bed and had it stored until it was ready for paint. (I will mention that the painter said the truck bed bolted together perfectly with no issues.) I sent him the assembly info to make sure he had it square for the truck. So that was pretty much done already.

I had also purchased aftermarket doors, fenders and a new hood. These items were ready to be test-fitted before I took the truck to paint once I got the cab back, more later on this. Of course, the existing fenders were severely beat up and would have required much more body work. Both doors were rusted thru on the inside at the bottom and slight bubbles in the paint that someone prior had put on the truck.

I decided to take this route instead even though I read a lot of negative comments about alignment issues with aftermarket parts. I felt ok, since I was going to be the one fitting and aligning everything before sending off to the painter.

The last picture shows the cab placed back on the frame (me and three friends). You can see the repair and primer on the driver's bottom corner. All of the cab mounting bushings were replaced and all the bolts were again changed to stainless steel.

I am not sure if I mentioned but I was surprised how many dents and dings were in the back of the cab in the area that would have been somewhat protected by the bed front and the gas tank. You can also see them in this picture.

Good thing you found those holes on the cab corner.

Peggy,
No kidding but they found them when they dipped it to kill the rust.

Now with the cab in the proper location on the frame and bolted down, I verified the spacing between the cab and the top of the frame using the Truck Factory Assembly Manual.

I installed the radiator and radiator support. I left the radiator support stainless steel carriage bolts loose in case it had to move around some during reassembly.

I was ready to hang the doors to fit and had already reworked all the hinges to tighten them up. Both hinges need the spring clip replaced as they were broke or missing.

Almost all the parts on my truck that I reworked, including the rear end and the front axle and associated parts, were wire brushed with either a 7 in wire brush on a large heavy grinder or a 4" grinder. I took the paint off all the way back to bare metal. I also utilized a bench grinder with a wire brush on smaller parts that I could hold to work on them. Depending on how rusty each part was and were it was located, I used rust converter or rusty metal primer.

The passenger door fit good without any real modification. The driver's door was a different story. The radius at the top of the door was different from the cab. I ground the edge of the door to make the gap a consistent radius with the cab. The assembly manual says the typical door gap is 1/8 plus or minus .062. I was happy with the what I had. With the vertical door gap in the front similar to the passenger side, the back edge of the door had no gap. I ground the hemmed edge of door until I got a similar gap to the front gap. Only issue now was in some places along this edge, I had ground thru the hemmed edge. I tig welded the edge of the door and ground it down to put the hem back together.

Now with the doors on and aligned, my focus turned to the inner and outer front fenders.

As I said earlier, these fenders were also aftermarket parts that I put on and snugged up the bolts at the back against the cab. At the same time, I installed the inner fenders (these were original to the truck). I did not worry about putting the anti-rattle gasket between the two since they would be painted later. I installed the upper gray part of the grille to help hold the dimension across the front of the hood area. I still left most of the bolts loose for realignment purposes.

I had (during spare time) reworked the hood hinges to make sure they were good. My original hood was in pretty bad shape. The stiffener on the inside was rusted thru in a couple of places and the center divider was loose and raised against the hood. I had already purchased a new center piece but in the meantime, decided to buy a new hood because I liked the look of the hood without the divider.

Using the instructions for hood alignment in Tech Tips on Stovebolt, I mounted the hood and got my side gaps close enough that I thought they would be good to after paint.

I adjusted the two fender braces to the dimensions specified in the Truck Factory Assembly Manual. The back of the new hood against the cab was inconsistent. The sides looked good but the top did not.

I got out my grinder and made it look much better than it did out of the box and followed the lines of the cab. After all the test fitting, it was ready to load up to take to the painter.

I have painted vehicles a long time ago and I wanted a better paint job than I thought I could do, especially since I had never done a base/clear coat finish. The color I wanted the truck to be was a 2010 Camaro Synergy Green color.

I took my truck and the related components to Lawless Customs over in Slidell La. for the paint job. I had seen his work on more than one vehicle and was sure that was the kind of quality I was looking for. My truck has won "Best Paint" at a couple of car show already. I asked how long from start to finish and was told it would be about 3 months. I was doubtful of the time frame from stories from everybody that had something painted not only from him but any painter. I had talked to other painters closer to home but several of them told me to come back and talk to them in a year, they were that busy already. That wasn't an option for me.

So it actually took about 8 months total to get it back from the painter. I was not too upset about the time frame knowing I had a lot of other items that still needed attention and this was the ideal time.

First I tackled the seat and the seat back. The seat back bracket that screws on the frame at the top of the back had broken off and I had to fabricate a radius piece to fit the back frame for the screw to attach to. I also had to weld on the seat bottom that was broken in a couple of places. I purchased a new seat cover for both and followed the installation instructions using the hog ring pliers. I unfolded it and let it sit a few days to get most of the wrinkles out of it. You can still see a little wrinkle in the picture but they went away later.

Next I rebuilt the gauges by cleaning and repainting both housings inside and out. Everything worked but the gas gauge prior to disassembly but on the speedometer, I wanted the odometer to start back at "0" so I replaced the whole assembly anyway. On the gauge side they also worked but since someone had converted to a 12V system and had a resistor that I did away with. Instead of trouble shooting the gas gauge I replaced it with a 12V version to make it easier. The oil pressure and the temperature gauge also worked fine so they just needed the new vinyl faces too. I had already decided to do the conversion listed in the "Tech Tips Section", Ammeter to Voltmeter. Pretty easy and clear instructions and the only way to tell is the needle is slightly smaller but who will notice. Yes it only cost about $22 or so. I replaced the gauge bezels and the gaskets around them since they were pretty much rotted too. I reused the glass after a deep cleaning and polishing.

Having stainless steel experience, I polished the window shade visors, the windshield center divider and the rear bumper that the previous owner had installed all to a mirror finish.

I purchased a new front bumper also stainless steel to match. I was confident it would hold up better than the chrome they are doing today.

Then I dissected both vent windows, both had a little rust and the gaskets were definitely dry rotted, you can see the bubbles and cloudy glass in my picture. I had already planned on changing all the glass to a "smoked" to contrast against the green color. Once they were completely apart I wire brushed both back to bare metal to get all the rust off and took them to a local powder coating company to get them coated a semi gloss black.

I wanted the whole interior floor and seat base semi gloss black to match the black seat covers. I also had the lower part of the fire wall the underside of the fenders, running board and underside of the cab covered with truck bed liner after painting semi gloss black.

I thought the bed liner under the fender would be a little more protection against upward "dings" from rocks hitting the inside the fenders. Once the vent frames were coated I reinstalled the new gasket material to that part of the vent. The rivets were not too hard to install but I had to grind down the tool used to have access to them. Even the rivet for the pivot point wasn't too bad but was a 2 person operation, balancing the whole assembly over a dolly for backing at the proper angle without hitting the glass or messing your paint up. I volunteered the wife since she was the only one around at the time and I could not wait to finish them.

Setting the new glass in the frame with the setting tape was a job but I eventually got them in the correct position trimmed off the excess tape with an Exacto knife to make them neat.

Replaced with new latches to keep them closed (the old latches were very pitted) and adjusted the nut with nylon against the spring to put enough tension so they would not blow closed going down the road.

Not a lot to add here but I did take pictures on my several trips to the painters shop to check on things.

This shows various shots of the finish coat on the truck and the beginning of the reassembly process. I did not bother with what should have been black (the painter suggested the inner fender wells and inside of hood should be black) and what should be green. I only wanted the black to be on the lower part of the fire wall and it is actually coated like the underside of the cab with bedliner. Pretty much everything else would be green except for the inside of the cab floorboard. The black seat frame and trim would contrast nice against the green. At this point I still have the original rims and tires that were on the truck when I bought it.

Man, that truck is GREEN!!!!

Sure not an original color, but it looks really nice. You may have to wear sunglasses to drive it even on cloudy days, that dash is so bright.

Your painter did a great job.

Yep, definitely bright when the sun hits it.

Very nice.

John

Beautiful paint! Bet you’re excited to put her back together. Now comes the fun part!

Nice to see these babies getting finished. I’m at the other end of the project. Finished disassembly and starting to remove bad metal from the lower front cowl all the way to the rear cab corner. Lotsa spot welds, cutting and fitting. Just now starting to put pp’s in for the inner cab corner and latch side pillar. Decided to get a small media blaster so i can clean all the brackets and areas that will be hidden once the metal is back in place. Im figuring on 4-5 years for my 58. Like you, I’m going down to the frame once the main cab sheetmetal repairs are complete.

Kudos on your determination.

Kevin, thanks, it only takes 2 things. Time and Money 🤣😂🤣😂 Both of which are hard to come by at the same time. Seems like I had one but not the other. Then that reversed
.

Not too much to add at this point. I did ask them to mount the grill and the tailgate in place and then EVERYTHING else would be on me. One of the painters was kidding with me about my trailer. He said "you carrying a 20k truck on a 1k trailer". Oh well it was fine I used this trailer all the time but it lived outside full time, so it did not look too good. Picked up the painted truck to bring to my house, a 45 minute drive down I-10 from Slidell. Funny how you worry about things flying up off the interstate hitting your brand new paint job. The real fun was when I got home trying to get a 20' trailer aligned with my garage door to get it off. Needless to say my GMC was no longer on my driveway once I got it lined up. LET THE FUN BEGIN!

One thing I did not realize until it was too late after paint was that the one piece hood I bought had some indentations in the hood where the 3100 logo was located or supposed to go into, although it did not really fit. It already had the stud holes for the logo location thru the hood and the stiffener. Oh well it is not really very noticeable on the finished truck. Its just one of those things that YOU know but 95% will not see it. It is the last picture.

Ok, so now that the truck is at my house instead of my shop (about 5 minutes away, I could work on it at all hours of the day or night. Yea!!

I think I started at the back for no particular reason except to see something done quickly on it to feel like progress was being made. Since I took it all apart myself, reassembly should be pretty easy. That is if I could remember all of it. Prior to disassembly besides labeling all the bolts and small parts in ziplock bags, I took pictures of the places and things that I thought might be an issue to recall. I saved all the pictures on a disk just in case.

The rear bumper, tail lights and the tailgate chains went on quick and easy. I was switching to all LED bulbs for better visibility so when wiring came later, I had to switch to a different turn signal relay. In the rear bumper picture notice all the boxes I had stuffed under the truck trying to conserve storage space. At the time all I could find was chrome bumper bolts instead of stainless. Pretty sure now those are available but I won't change them till they start to rust. This was the first picture I took and felt like I was now making progress. I also next put on the front bumper and was surprised how oversized the holes were unless it was intentional to help cosmetic alignment.

Before I could really do anything inside the cab, I wanted to put sound deadener everywhere and decided to use Dynamat as i went along, kind of pricey but I think it was well worth it. I eventually put it everywhere I could with full coverage not just pieces. I did not put it on top of the stiffeners at the back of the cab but did cover the flanges of the stiffeners as you can see it the pictures. I did not feel like it was necessary to tape the seams, I just fit them together pretty tight. To compare the sound difference in the doors, I did a YouTube video "Dynamat" that is in the signature lines below. Very noticeable difference in the door closing sounds. That product sticks very good and has not released in our very hot south MS weather yet.

After the Dynamat in that area, I installed the gas tank, I had previously painted the straps/brackets etc and added new padding so nothing would be metal to metal. New hose and clamps for the fill tube and gasket for the exterior. Sorry no pictures with the tank in. \\

On the dash board I installed the speaker grille, I also wanted green, with the stainless Chevy logo and the stainless glove compartment door and the lock. I had already purchased a complete set of keyed locks for the whole truck so at least if I felt like I needed to, I could lock it. After the fact I did not like the that you could see thru the speaker grille so I ended up buying some black felt like material and hot glued it to the back side so you really can't see thru anymore. I installed the gauges in place that I had already completely redone earlier. I had already been under the truck installing the emergency brake parts because I was not sure if my Dynamat would have to go around it or under it.

I did have to ask for help here about where the spring for the emergency brake return went because I could not find that picture of it.

Isn't that felt behind the grill going to impede airflow through the radiator?

Sorry about not being clear. It was the speaker grill without a speaker 👍. Thanks for the catch.

For what it's worth, my truck was originally speakerless, being a plain-jane fleet truck, and had a piece of heavy black paper behind the grille. I had some black construction paper on hand so used that behind the grille before reinstalling it.
You did good with the black felt.

I didn’t even think about black construction paper. That’s a good idea too. Without a speaker I just wanted to block the view. I put my speakers at the ends of the seat more about those later. 🤔

Haha! that makes more sense.

While I worked in the dashboard, I installed the gauges at the same time. Some times I just jumped around while reassembling depending how I felt. You can see the ampmeter to voltmeter change is not really noticeable.

I cleaned and painted the external oil filter fram orange and added a couple of stickers for looks. When I installed it, I had to slightly ream the holes to align with the Offenhauser manifold I had installed.

I also changed to dual stainless steel headers and removed the studs at the front and rear. I drilled and tapped the holes to bolt the headers down. I figured it would seal a little better.

I added tubing lines to bring some heat to the bottom of the intake manifold to help atomize the fuel. I made a stainless steel plate to fit the bottom and drilled and tapped to screw fitting to accept the stainless tubing I used. I also made two small aluminum shrouds to capture heat for the automatic chokes, even though I backed them off and don't really use them.

Then I decided to tackle the glass. I bought all grey glass for all windows. The driver and passenger windows were hard to install the glass with the setting tape just like the vent window. The corner windows took a lot of pushing and pulling to make them look good. One of them, when almost complete, looked like it was off to on side. So I pulled it out and started over.

I did get an extra set of hands when I got to the windshield and it made a difference. The sealer I used, I found on this site in one of the forums and bought it from NAPA but can't remember the specific part number.

Since the look I was going for was original, I bought the too expensive retro original-looking radio. I took all the knobs and backing parts that were originally tan and painted them with vinyl paint semi-gloss black to contrast the green. It is nice because I did not intend to add an antenna but can Bluetooth from my phone. I have added one of those hidden antenna but it's not that good. In all fairness we are not in a big city so radio signals are not that strong here.

Good work brother, keep trucking.

Very nice truck, and lots of documentation pics. I can appreciate the quality of the work, time, and effort required to get your truck to where it is now,

Continuing on the radio installation.

I knew the single speaker would not do and I did not want to cut into the doors or add extended kick panel speakers. I opted to install some teardrop shaped speakers. I think they are used a lot on boats and side by sides.

I liked the fact that they are somewhat hidden but project the sound around the seats into the cab. I had to make my own odd angled brackets that I fastened to the seat base frame and the speaker to keep them away from the cab sides. That way it would not vibrate while driving or just playing music. I know it is not everyone's cup of tea but I like more bass when I am listening to music (not as much as some).

So I also installed an 8" powered subwoofer under the seat, like the other speakers when you look at my truck you never know it is there.

I installed the previously covered seat back into the truck sticking with my black interior theme. I wanted the running board step plates that looked original also. It was nice that they were dark black also.

The step pads had studs on the back to bolt thru the running boards but I did not want to drill thru the running boards in case I decided that it did not look like I wanted. Instead I cut the studs off and used 3-M double stick tape to hold them on. It had to be run on top of the high parts of the running boards to make good contact. The longer it is on the better it holds.

I wanted and searched high and low for steel chrome rims that looked similar to the old style Cragar rims. I wanted 17" rims to fill the wheel wells a little more but used shorter tires to make them close to the overall diameter of the original tires.

Since I had kept the 6 lug wheels all around, this limited my choices unless I went with 20" wheels. Since I could not find steel, I bought the aluminum from Boyd Coddington. The rims are 8" wide with a 3.75 backspace (the rims that were on it when I got the truck had 3.75 backspace) and the tires are 255ZR-17.

Yes, I do not need a "Z" rated tire for this trucks speed but oh well.

Once the tires were on the truck and I drove it some, I noticed the tires would slightly rub the inside of the fender when I hit some bad Ms bumps. So I decided to lift the back up 1" by making new shackles for the rear side of the leaf springs. I just had to get some .375 steel flat bar. Problem solved it does not rub anymore even on the same bumps and really does not look any different.

Talking about the radio and wiring, I used a basic wiring harness kit from Classic parts modified for an alternator. It was very easy to install because of the numbering system/instructions that they used. Sorry no pictures of that but I certainly made sure to have the better half watching when I hooked up the battery (ready to unhook) and had a fire extinguisher near by. I thought I had my disassembly pretty organized but when i went to find and reinstall the door plate I could not find it. Finally I had to give in and buy a new one. Luckily I had the original serial # in my paperwork to stamp it to match the original.

I did buy the stainless steel bed strips to maintain my contrast between the paint and the bed wood. I have a brother in law that did build cabinets before he retired and so I already had all the wood dimensions and the routed dimensions and he and I needed. We did the wood bed strips out of cypress that he had laying around. I stained it with Minwax ebony stain, then gave it a couple coats of urethane gloss. It has held up really well since it had been about 6 yrs. In all fairness it does sleep inside the garage.

I looked around for the rubber floor mat to put over the Dynamat but I did not see one that l liked. Instead i decided to add black short knapp carpet which would help with engine and sound noise. The other reason I liked the carpet is because they had thin pieces that went along the side of the seat base.

The headlights were not very good at night so I decided to switch them to LED. I found some 7" that had turn signals built in but i did not use that feature. I did have to slightly modify the headlight housing for the headlight to fit but that was not a big deal. The lighting is adequate but I may change them out to a different style. On low beam a single row across lights up but on high beam they all light up.

If I passed over something that you want to know about my restoration or what brand I purchased do not hesitate to ask.

So, Donald is this a wrap? You'll need to post of few of the impressive shots you sent for the calendars. I think the Bolt Collective would like to see what HQ saw.

Peggy,
Yes I feel like it kind of is a wrap but I will post some finished pictures and maybe some of the awards from local shows.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about.

Yes, this is kind of a wrap for my project. I am already planning the next project, once I quit working I will need something to focus on. I have enjoyed documenting what I have done, even if it was after the fact. I think somewhere I also mentioned that I liked going to local car shows and cruise in's especially when the shows were fundraising for good causes. It is something both the wife and I do together. I have included just a few pictures of the finished truck and some of the awards for it.