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

August 2021

Kind of a slow month (must have been fishing ). Painted the back grille bars with Rustoleum Canvas White. Pulled the fuel pump and cleaned it up. Found a part number on it and ordered a repair kit from Then and Now Automotive.

September 2021

Set up my garage extension (a Shelter Logic tent) for painting. After replacing a few gaskets and seals on the engine, painted it with the blue-grey paint from Jim Carter. It matched the remnants of paint on the engine pretty closely.

November 2021 (what happened in October? Apparently nothing.)

Hibernation - Chassis covered in snow. Coated exhaust manifold with Calyx. Assembled front engine mount.

It's been fun to read and see these progress reports. There are some times I feel I've done nothing on my truck and these pictures help motivate me to keep going.

December 2021

Attempted to match the blue-green paint on the heater housing, but failed miserably. Decided to go with the “standard” Rustoleum Hammered Bronze. Took a trailer tongue jack that had given up and turned it into an engine hoist leveler. It mounts on the engine using the two valve cover studs. Hoisted the engine off the stand and installed the bell housing, flywheel and clutch. Cleaned and painted rear engine mounts. Rebuilt the generator and starter. Discovered that the generator was a Western Auto rebuild as it had “WIZARD” stamped on the housing. It got new bearings and brushes and a test run as a motor to check it out. The starter got the same treatment and a coat of paint.

January 2022

Mounted the transmission on the engine stand and opened it up for inspection. The only real issue was a shift collar that was worn a bit. I built it up with weld and had a friend machine it back to spec. Installed new shift shaft seals. Painted it and mounted it to the engine on the cart. Disassembled the steering gear (found some wood slivers inside.) Cleaned it up completely and rebuilt it.

January 2022 continued

Rebuilt the wing vent windows. Jay Kassis’ videos Part 1 and Part 2 were very helpful. Got the rivets and other parts from the Filling Station. Stamped numbers on the starter data plate and installed it on the starter and mounted the starter to the engine.

February 2022

Worked on reupholstering the seat. The frame needed a little repair and painting. Used a kit from Jim Carter in the original maroon color. Dug out the remote oil filter and cleaned and painted it. This is an S-2 style that holds 2 quarts. Rebuild the door hinges with oversize pins and bushings, which should keep the pins from seizing up in the hinge bars which they're prone to do. Replaced window regulator rollers and rivets.

February 2022 continued.

Picture of window regulator roller riveting.

March 2022

Got interior paint lightened up at a local paint shop. What I got from Jim Carter (spot on the right) was way too dark compared to the unfaded paint on the speaker grille. The spot on the left was what they could do, and I settled for that. Worked on cleaning up small dings and patch panel weld joints on the cab.

The upholstery job on the seat looks great! I didn't know Jim Carter had a kit, but will check it out. I'm liking the colors on the oil filter housing. Just a few stickers and it will look brand new. Excellent work Kevin!

Funny you should mention stickers. Stay tuned. Coming soon.

Good job on both the seat and oil filter .

April 2022

Worked on fixing the oil canning on the roof without much success. More on that later. Printed a decal for the oil filter canister lid. Vendors offer decals for the S-6 oil filters, but not for the S-2. So I did a little modification of a screen capture and made my own. Some decal material and color laser printing at the local UPS store did the trick. I may have a couple left.

May 2022

Installed stick-on sound deadening material in the doors. Nearly got my arm stuck inside. Installed the doors on the cab for test fitting and adjustment. Driver door was a little tweaked, so tried tweaking the cab to compensate, but it wasn’t going to move. But I managed got the door fit pretty close. Passenger side door opening turned out to be messed up (moral of the story is measure, measure, measure before welding) so had to trim the door edges a bit for a decent fit. Straightened upper door panel edging and painted them. Rustoleum brown was a decent match to the color of the repop panels.

June 2022

Trimmed and welded the passenger door edges. Worked on roof oil can fixing Video link. Robert McCartney (MPandC) was nice enough to advise me via facetime call on the proper shrinking procedure to take care of that. He showed me where to shrink the metal to get it back into shape and suggested how to raise the roof overall. Thanks Robert!

July 2022

Not much done this month (more fishing?) Hey, it's summer in Alaska.

I was noticing the captions added to your pictures and figured out how I can do that too. I'm going to start adding those to my pictures.

Kevin, I am curious which version of Siless sound deading material you used. I am anticipating adding sound deading material to my doors and cab and exploring different options for materials.

I used the black foam stuff without any foil. Got it from Amazon. I did the roof and behind the gas tank with it as well, and had plenty left over.

August 2022

Worked on assembling the bed. Got the front panel bolted in as well as welding and re-primering on the rear cross-sill. Test fitted the outer boards in place and drilled the holes to match the angle strips. Stored the partly assembled bed on the chassis. Put the first coat of stain on the bed wood, Brushed on and took forever to dry. Pics show what I used for stain.

September 2022

Painted bed strips, running boards and rear fender support brackets. Painted interior trim pieces with ALK-200 that I got lightened. Lays down nicely and looks good. Painted the inside of the doors (second pic is a little off-color from lighting.) Painted the seat frame. Worked out some small dents on dash trim and glove box door and polished them using a felt wheel on a dremel too and drill motor.

October 2022

Storing painted parts in my trailer, Cleaned up the firewall pad and painted it. Sandblasted and primered the speaker grille, then painted it and the center panel on the glove box door. Drilled out the top cowl vent pivots on the cab to fit the new shoulder rivets for it. Pic of rivets for anyone who needs the info to repair their cowl vent

November 2022

Took the month off. Please don't call me lazy.

December 2022

While visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Juneau, used his ultrasonic cleaner on the Carter YF 964S carburetor and rebuilt it with a kit from carbking. (Carb pics are pre-rebuild.) Started working on a frame for my old tailgate for a wall-hanger.

January 2023

Worked on the rear fenders removing dents from tire chains slapping the underside. Pics later.

February 2023

Built a painting stand for the rear fenders. More bodywork on them. Chassis buried in snow. Good thing I took my painting tent down, as it likely would have collapsed with this snowfall.

March 2023

Still more bodywork on the rear fenders. Got to the block sanding stage. Pics later.

April 2023

Still straightening rear fenders. Installing the doublers where the running boards bolt to the fenders. Riveted the fender crown braces on the fenders. Pic of some of the tools used . A PVC pipe coupling serving as a donut dolly with a crowned hammer for shrinking, and a baseball as backup for use with a pick hammer for the tire chain.dings.

May 2023

STILL block sanding and filling rear fenders. Set up the tent in front of the garage (took it down for winter to avoid having to clear snow off it.) Installed rivets for cowl vent pivot points. Another primer coat on rear fenders. Spot putty on front fenders. Completed frame for tailgate wall hanging.

May 2023 (continued)

Undercoated front rear fenders (ignore that incorrect photo caption .) Last primer coat on fenders. First color coat of paint on fenders. OMAHA ORANGE BABY!!

What did you use for the undercoat?

Undercoat used was rattle can stuff from the local parts store. I think Upol brand. I put on a couple coats. Epoxy primer was underneath after sandblasting.

I want to do some type of undercoat but haven't decided yet. I saw that you did the undercoating before you painted and I wasn’t even thinking about the sequencing but I won’t get to the fenders until next year. Thanks!

Some have used bed liner for the fenders to help with the rocks being thrown up .

I thought about using bedliner, but I'm a cheapskate. My running boards have bedliner top and bottom so that's covered (Heh!) I didn't expect them to do the bottoms, but it's all good.

Phil, I undercoated the cab and fenders before painting so I didn't have to worry about masking when spraying undercoating after paint.

June 2023

Final color coat on fenders. Sanded and spot primered bed. Primered bumper splash apron, hood center strip and gas tank filler. Straightening outer grille bars and spot filling pits. Final primer on bed, grille bars and bumper apron. Shot color on bed, tailgate, grille bars, running board splash aprons and cowl vent. Installed bed wood and strips.

July 2013

Sanding bumper splash apron and hood center strip. Block sanding hood and fitting center strip. (no pics)

August 2013

Sanding and bumping dents on hood. Used 3M Noise Vibration and Harshness material between hood support and hood skin to prevent flutter. Factory had padding between there, which was AWOL. Put NVH material between cab stretchers and rear skin of cab. Primered hood and bumper splash apron. Filling and sanding cab roof and cab back. Filling and sanding cowl weld joints. Drilled cowl for right side mirror bracket. Cleaned up cab and shot final(?) primer coat. Grinding welds and drilling holes for seat belt mounting. Prepped, primered and painted cab interior.

September 2013

Masked cab for exterior paint and shot color on the cab. Masked, prepped, and shot color on doors and bumper splash apron. Sanded hood and shot color on hood. Installed sound deadening material on cab roof and rear. Shot a second coat of color on tailgate and running board aprons. Prepped and painted steering column, steering wheel and shifter. Installed the gas tank and filler. Assembled grille.