Ol John Lee is a base model truck. He came from the factory blue with a black painted bed and not much else beyond a good small block V8 Made in Flint MI on 5 May 1964. His body and running gear were assembled in Baltimore MD sometime in 1964, maybe mid to end of the year as he was the 26082nd truck to come off the Chevy line that year. So there have been some basics that were never installed. He came with no rear view mirror, no right side rear view (though in both cases, holes are drilled, plugged and backing plates were welded in on the line). Neither did he come with back up lights or a switch. The wipers are single speed. The heater is the base model, reach under the dash to switch from heat to defrost. There was only one windshield visor, drivers side, and it is long lost. And the tranmission is the base 3 speed, unsyncronized first gear....with a 3.73/1 final drive in the pumkin....
So, for long term useability and cause GoodWife Sharps dictated "Make it So"...I went to the junk yard and scavenged two windshield visor brackets from a 1965 deluxe model. A couple of the replacement factory cardboard style visiors, in matching gold/beige and both sides of the cab now have much needed sunblockers.
All four holes were already drilled for the driver side visor, it was a simple bolt up installation, slip on the visor and finally a place to hang the garage door opener.
The passenger side, had the holes dimpled next to the spot welds holding on the backer plate...the inner skin of the roof is quite thin and the backer makes sure the sheet metal screws have enought to bite into for a snug install.
Here I drilled out the first dimple, (can't really see any of them in the pic but they are there, at least the other two were not right on a spot weld) and what a bugger, it was right on the backer spot weld....started with small bits and worked my way up till I had a hole diameter that allowed the screw to cut threads through that super hard spot welded area. Good golly, them spot welds are hard compared to the other dimples, not on spot welds.
The factory center hole on the driver side is 1 1/4" diameter to fit in the visor mechanism. A bimetal hole saw, run slow, and in about 3 or 5 rotations, a nice clean hole of the proper size. Careful not to push to hard and dent or pierce the roof!
Double checking, fit up the visor with the first screw snugged down, mark the other two holes with a sharpie and......
Drill em out now I know the right drill size, next size up from 9/64" but not quite....so work the screws in and out a bit to tap the treads. The screws are original Chevy and a darn sight tougher than anything at the hardware store, squeeks cutting into the thick backer but I am quite satisified, modern screws woulda twisted off in the holes. Not so the old stuff, made right, lasts long. A pleasure.
A couple shots of the install, new visors, new rear view mirror, Crazy Frog on the dash rockin to mono sound and holdin on to two small 8 point horns...me and Crazy are thinking how to mount the horns as part of a rifle rack.
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Just because you don't have a bed dosn't mean you can't haul cargo. John Lees first offical load under new managment is his bed....the decision is in, its pine, painted black just like original.
I have to make a few adjustments to the bed, the angle brackets are in and having eyeballed the bed postion, the bed is crooked by about 1/4" on the passenger side. Loosening the bolts will allow for the adjustment, the thru holes in the bed to frame brackets are all slotted to allow the bed to slide around a bit and get everything lined up. Here is the pile. Wood to be milled, primed and top coated with rustoleum bed paint. (Yep, it works on primed wood, I asked em.) All I need to get yet is some sheet metal so when I put in the other two cross braces I can mount a heat shield to keep some of the heat off my new bed underside.
Just waiting for Dad to roll in on the 20th. He still don't know about the project. Should be fun, I'm really looking forward to it, its always good to spend time with Pops, hunting, building furnature, sittin by the fire, fishin......