49' Patina bagged in PA

[99 to Life]

8-30-13 FINALLY, getting this thread started. Some of you probably followed my 51' build on here. The 49' I picked up about a year ago. Its going on a bagged s10 frame with a full roller vortec sbc with carb, 5 speed trans and wide whites. I just really like the patina so its staying, hard part will be matching a door that didn't come with this, bed and rear fenders. All of which I have from other parts, but I might have to really source some fitting patina parts or do a little fauxtina to get them to match.

The rims will be a bronze/gold as will the interior, with some white highlights. Shooting for a really nice vinyl seat to compliment the color scheme.

The dash as you can see is destroyed, but my (already pressed for time self) decided to bring it back to life, rather than buy a replacement. Its been about 30 hours of messing with so far.

The engine is a Vortec 350 that I got as a bottom end with heads. I put 7/16 screw in studs, new springs and seals in the heads. Bottom end has new HP King racing bearings. Will be putting a Lt4 hotcam (roller cam) in with 1.6 roller rockers. High rise dual plane intake and probably an eddy carb until I get a quickfuel carb to try out. I'm just about done with heads and bottom end, I'm waiting on cam. Compression should be 9.5 to 1, max lift will be about .522

I have a ford 9" right now I'm hoping to put in to handle the torque and HP, but its gonna need narrowed, so we'll see when that time comes. Shooting for a nice street/strip truck that I'll drive for a bit and probably sell so I can get some other projects done. More to come on those.

[iowaboynca]

sounds like a fun build. Looking forward to it.

[99 to Life]

Here is the mangled dash, tons more pics to show you. This is the frame, ripped the rear end out to put in my daily driver. The garage its in is almost done, need to button some things up than get electric in it. So by this fall I'm hoping to really get the frame started, cab mounts done and get all the placement of body parts, engine, trans etc. Should be easy since I have my 51' to reference. The ride height will be exactly what my 51' is now.

I also picked up some decent chrome bumpers that will go on this truck, I got drop spindles, bags (still have to get from 98layinframe). I plan on building my own 4 link. Hoping I can score some tubular Aarms for the front.

I already have the trans, engine is almost done, will get picks of that soon. Then I need to get a clutch and I can drop them in once I get frame going.

The engine that is in here is actually a 235, so thats cool. I got a few of these now, one of which is going in my 52' (thread coming soon)

Much much more pics to come, just have to upload and resize them.

[99 to Life]

On the dash for a while here bare with it all. I pounded out the delete plate area, welded in a new patch there, on the upper right corner of dash it was in dire need of replacing, actually a bit of a compound curve there but I eventually made it work.

Now the hard part, I was weary of. First let me say this, at the moment of this particular work, I had no bandsaw, no shrinker, no anvil and the list goes on. So I had to do the gauge section in multiple pieces. I actually cut the radius with a cutoff wheel, I know what am I thinking. I actually like to use on most of my patches I make, this clear film. I use it for screenprinting, and it comes in handy making templates.

What I did was obviously get my diameter figured out for the gauge, then make the circle in a program, printed it out, traced it onto this film, lined everything up, then cut the film and transferred that to the metal.

This piece I had to shape to the curve of the dash and also the eyebrow up on top I pounded to get it close for now. This is a section I wish they made a patch for but now way would that ever happen, lots of hard factory stuff to create around the gauges.

[99 to Life]

so next move was the bottom part, you can see I skip a step on the one little patch above the long strip of patch I made. Next step was the bottom of the gauge and that was probably the hardest because of all the compound curves. I did use a planishing hammer (yeah actually have one of those bf basic tools) it helped some, but really stiffens up the metal. I shaped the bottom curve with a dolly, anvil would of helped there.

Anyway, you'll see that piece shaped in the next batch of photos. So its all roughed in and at this point I think I had 10 hours into tear down, gameplanning and making these patches. Then shat hit the fan with making the radius of the gauge area look right. I'll get into that later on here.

[99 to Life]

After I got the pieces all roughed in, I had make a lip around the whole radius of the gauge, since its not flat. So I welded a thin piece of rod all around it, no pics of that process, lots of back and forth with that, making the radius look right. But once you have the bezel in there, like the one pic, it really makes it look good.

I'm just about done with the shaping all around the gauge, I was going to lead all the welds, but I think just cause of time and money, I'm gonna duraglass all the seams and fine tune some radius shaping with it.

This last pic, I had to make some bolts for the gauge to mount to, I also didn't post on here, the section that the steering column goes in between the gauges, from the factory is offset, I later on and did not show, I moved it so the column will be centered in the gauges, its subtle but took a bit to get that right.

[99 to Life]

Ok, so I kinda skipped some riff raff to sum up the dash progress. I go the speaker grille hinged on there, still gotta make a box behind it for the cd player. If you look real close you can see up on the delete plate opening some hinges, I really tried to make that section hinge too, but just wasn't getting it and decided to give up after two tries, would be cool to have my air pressure gauges behind there or something. So I had to make little patches to fix the areas that I cut out for the little hinges, so wasted my time and I don't want to waste yours by showing you.

The one pic you can see a good angle of the eyebrow area on the gauge section how that shaping came out, once the gauges are in there, primer, filler paint etc, it should look flawless. I still have to fix the defroster areas. You can see in the one pic, some little patches I had to make, there have been a few of those throughout the dash.

The biggest thing I gotta do now, you can see I ripped out the spot welded strip that runs inside the dash on the bottom, its a support strip basically. But the dash is so rusted behind there, I wanted to rip that out, blast everything then weld it back together. Once I do that, all I gotta do is weld some nuts behind the dash for the steering column to bolt to, and work on the hidden cd player box. Some little metal shaping, then duraglass, then epoxy primer. can't wait to get it in primer, then filler primer then paint. Then I'll redo up my gauges and get them in there.

I am going to keep the stock gauges, only I'm going to make one of them a tach. Seen a really cool one on the hamb someone did and boy it blends in and looks factory.

I'll post more progress on the dash later, up next are the engine pics. Both the dash and engine I worked on back and forth. I get about 2-6 hours during the week to work on stuff and one day on the weekend, so thats all the time I got to work on my projects right now. I have been slacking cause I been doing so much yard and fence work, and garage work. I'v not been able to get cracking on the frame or cab etc. So if I didn't have all that and didn't have to waste so much time no this dash, I'd be much further along.

[chevyboy73]

whoho! another build by 99 to Life! wow. looks like a rough dash. good luck!

[av8tr33337]

Wow man you are taking this one to a whole other level. Can't wait to see it unfold!

[_Ogre]

looks like someone used a beaver to cut that dash hole

[69CST-V]

I'm in. Nice work so far. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.
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[99 to Life]

Here are the last of the pics for now, engine is waiting on cam, timing chain, cover, head bolts, oilpan, odd and ends and paint.

Rings are Steel with moly coating, gaps where good. Bearing clearances are on the tighter side, as is the endplay. Engine spins with like 12flbs, so its pretty smooth. can't wait to finish it up and get it on the start stand to get it dialed in.

This truck is quite a bit overdue, I'll be working on body parts for my 52' over the winter during the week. So I'll only be able to work on the 49' one day on the weekend. But I feel like I can get this this driving next year. can't wait.

[xpickup]

Henry, looks great so far. I can not wait to see it come together. Great job on saving the dash.

Shannon

[99 to Life]

9-5 Here is another shot of the dash roughed in. I'v since fixed a few more things. The delete plate I had to redo because I cut it up to try and hinge it, so I had to then put it all back together and finesse the dash around it because it was so badly dented in there.

My HF media blaster is a POS, can't get it work for crap. Worked for a tiny little bit, now just sprays out media but with no power behind it. Pressure gauge gets up to 120 even. Sooooo all I gotta do now is clean up inside of dash, duraglass the welds, smooth some things ups. Spray with epoxy. Then I'm going to spray the dash support in the bottom separately so everything is coated. I'll then just rivet that piece back in. So this thing should be done soon.

[99 to Life]

thanks shannon, yeah dash is almost done. Hooked up my HF media blaster last night. Can't get that to work for shat. Worked at first then just seemed like the system needed burped, blew out a ton of media before it would build pressure again, but just didn't make sense you'd waste all that media before it build the pressure to blast anything off. I dunno, I gave up on it. Even put sand in there when they told you not to, I didn't care and don't care if I ruin this thing. The only thing holding me back right now is the back of the dash, very heavy rust and spots that are impossible to get to. I took a couple pieces and sprayed them down with vinegar mix and scrubbed them, works a little bit. also took some ospho and did the same thing, just not a huge fan of that method.

[69CST-V]

Looking good.

[cleansquare]

Love the metalwork!
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[99 to Life]

thanks fellas, I'm very pressed for time with all my projects, work and family. However I wanted to bring this dash back to life to day I did and make me get better at metal work, I like doing it and I like building engines, I just like doing everything from the ground up. I cannot wait to see the body setting on the frame, then a perfectly clean painted frame, then a running truck, then a nice interior, then the test drive, then ironing out the kinks, then just driving it like ya stole it. Then sell it, whaahhhhh. I got soo many more of these builds in mind, I can't keep them all.

[chev3600]

Wow. You're determined, that's for sure! Great work on fixing that busted dash.
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[99 to Life]

chev3600 thanks man. BTW your build link doesn't work. I'd like to check out your build.

[chev3600]

I think the link is fixed. You can see how I tackled a chopped dash-smooth it!

[99 to Life]

chev3600, cool truck

[99 to Life]

9-28 Ok, well fall is in full effect and flying by wow. In a hurry to get some stuff in epoxy and painted bf it gets too cold. Speaking of, I got some single stage gold paint, will be for the dash, some interior and rims. We'll see how it goes, got white for interior too. dash should be in epoxy hopefully this week, then highbuild, sealer and paint. Going to be working on my custom gauges as well, will be keeping stock look, but instead of buying new gauge panels, I'm going to make my own and color coordinate them with the dash. I'm planning on making the speedo a tach. Also found some good vinyl suppliers, so I'll be ordering that too. Going to make some custom interior pieces myself and probably have a professional do my seat.

Got some 2600 lb airlifts off of dave aka 98layinframe, thanks for the hookup. Also got a bunch of tubing and a piece of 18g sheet metal for 84 bucks today, should be enough to all my mounts and work with my floor framing and start some patches with. Was going to buy all the DOM tubing and make my 3 link, and still will but do to time and welder, I'm going to get a bolt on link kit again from dave. It will be the same concept as I'd be building from scratch. I'm getting it for a really good deal compared to the 1200 new it sells for. Should be ordering bag cups and control arms soon as well, had these belltech drop spindles for a minute, should be able to lay this out no problem and hoping with minimal rear notch.

put the engine on the back burner for a minute, just trying to get stuff in primer and paint bf weather hits. I'm basically waiting on cam and timing gear bf I can really button things up. then I'll need waterpump, oilpump, pan, pullies, alt, and pws bracket, still got to paint it too.

[99 to Life]

10-2 Finally got dash and some other parts in epoxy. I'll get some better pics tomorrow. Might use a little filler here and there, then high build primer then sealer then paint. Waiting on rims from blaster before I shoot any paint. Got probably 40 plus hours in this dash right now. Don't ask me why I did this!

[99 to Life]

couple more pics with some stuff moched up. Should look really good with the paint scheme and new gauge clusters. Getting there. Hoping to have the front end of my frame tore apart and possibly cab and front clip tore off the 49' this weekend, get it inside my tiny new garage so I can feel claustrophobic.