1953 Awakening

[1956cameo]

Last summer I was getting a little burned out on my 1972 Blazer project. I had been working on it for almost three years and needed a break. I didn't want a break from working on old trucks, just a break from working on that particular truck. As I walked up to my dads house from the shop I noticed that he had a lot of project vehicles in his storage sheds that just needed a little attention to become fully functional vehicles. They might not be the most beautiful old trucks but there was no reason why they couldn't be on the road after a few weekends of tinkering and a little bit of money.

I talked to my dad (Muleman100) about the idea of slowly pulling some of the future projects out of the sheds and doing just a little bit to them cosmetically, but doing whatever was necessary to get them operable and safe. That way they would stay in better shape, and we would have a break from the monotony of a total restoration. Up to that point we had been getting vehicles out of the shed one at a time, doing complete restorations on them over the course of 1-3 years and than going to the next project. The problem with this was that many vehicles that were waiting on restorations were starting to sit too long and trucks that were once quick fixes were starting to look like trucks that needed total overhauls.

After explaining the benefits of at least mechanically fixing up the "down the road" restorations my dad was on board. The first project that we pulled out was a 1957 Suburban. We bought it in 2003 out of a junkyard in Midland, TX. The junkyard owner said that it had come from Arizona. Unfortunately I did not document this project but below is a picture of it at the Austin Hot Rod Show earlier this year.




Since the Suburban is as finished as it is going to be for now it was time to turn our attention to the 1953. We found this in a small junkyard back in 1999 on the east side of Houston, Texas. We told the junkyard owner that if he could get the truck started we would buy it. After hot wiring the truck and hooking up a gas can to the truck it fired up and idled smoothly. We bought the old 53 and brought it home. It sat for a few years and than one boring summer day back in 2002 I fired the truck up again. It drove great, but since it didn't have any brakes I hit a pole and busted out the passenger side headlight (put another headlight in but the trim never went back on properly as seen in pics). It also died every time I took a sharp turn because the gas can would slide off of the fender. After that day it sat for over another decade until we pulled it back out of the shed last week.


Nothing fancy. A three window with painted bumper and grill. It is a factory black truck which I like.


Not sure what happened but the paint flaked off of the drivers side door real heavily a couple of years ago.

[1956cameo]

The passenger side is a little straighter.


I am not sure what the truck was used for in its former life, but it had poles welded to every corner of its bed.


Not much left of the bed. Just enough to hold the original seats.


Hopefully that old engine can still run as good as it did that first day I heard it in 1999.


The original seat and frame used to be in the cab, but for some foolish reason I stole it for a 1954 truck that I worked on years ago. We do silly things sometimes when we are teenagers.




So this thread won't be a complete restoration. Instead it will be a thread showing a dormant truck come back to life as a usable and safe vehicle. Some cosmetic details will be taken care of. If any rust needs to be addressed immediately we will take care of that as well. The whole project should take a few months to complete and just a little bit of money. Hopefully everyone enjoys seeing this old truck get ready to hit the road again.

[Bubba54]

Sounds like an interesting build. Are you leaving the suspension and drive train stock ?

[1956cameo]

I want to say yes; but that was also the plan when we started working on the 1957 suburban and it ended up getting a hotrodded V8 and bagged suspension. Right now the plan is to lower it but keep everything else fairly stock.

[Muleman100]

Ordered and received brake shoes, wheel cylinders, master cylinder, wiring harness, conversion bracket for an alternator since we are converting to 12 volt. Rims are being sand blasted and painted in the next week. Now looking at mono springs to lower it 3 inches all the way around. The front spring on the passenger side is broken so we might as well replace all the springs to get the stance we want.

[Muleman100]

All sheet metal repair panels ordered. Mono leaf springs for front and back ordered. All spring shackles, u bolts and spring bolts ordered. Now we must invent time to do the work. Will have the stock rims finished sand blasted this week and early next week we will have a new set of rubber so we can roll her around.

[chevyboy73]

love the patina, you are doing what i hope to do to one truck someday. excited for more

[1956cameo]

chevyboy73, Thanks! We were originally hoping to keep the patina but after we do all of the necessary rust repairs probably have to paint the truck.

[Marte_Mcfly]

Cool, can't wait to see more. I'm starting on my '53. looks like it is in similar shape as yours. Subscribing!

[1956cameo]

Marte_McFly, Thanks for subscribing. I will definitely keep you updated starting right now!



So the more I look at this truck the more crusty I realize that it is. It isn't anything that we cant handle, it is just going to make this project take a little longer than we thought. This also means that we wont be able to leave it in the original paint.

The first thing I noticed was that the side and front bed panels were pretty well corroded around where the bed floor would have originally been. I decided the best thing to do would be replace them with better ones from a parts truck. I will keep the fenders and rear cross sill but everything else will be replaced.
So here is a picture of the original bed on the truck for the last time after 60 years of service.



After about three hours of grinding and breaking off bolts I finally got the bed torn completely apart and removed from the frame.



Now that the front clip and bed are removed we have nothing restricting us from performing the metal work on the cab. We will completely do everything on the drivers side than we will tackle the passenger side. We wen't ahead and took the door off for more access.



As usual there was plenty of rust in the cab corner.



I was able to remove the outer cab corner without much effort. Since I did not have the replacement inner cab corner I left it in place for now.

[1956cameo]

Next I started to review the rust situation along the firewall / front door jamb area.



As you can see someone's failed attempt to mix old newspapers with bondo did little to fix the rust issues.



I removed the outer skin to see how this area was put together at the factory and decide how to go about everything. I have never done metal work on a 47-54 style truck so all of this is new to me.



It looks like the best way to go about it is going to be to remove the rotten floor and toeboard, inner kick panel, and repair the from the inside out. I started to remove the floor but than found that I am going to need to remove the emergency brake set up before I can get all of the floor board and toeboard out.




So I was able to remove the emergency brake set up and we ordered all of the patch panels that we don't have yet. Next week I well remove all of the rotten metal and start building everything back up.

[Katrina/10]

When you cut away so much rusty metal, how do you know the patch panels are oriented correctly? I don't see good reference points with so much metal removed.

[1956cameo]

Katrina 10, As I remove a panel I do all of the fitting and trimming to the replacement panel for that piece before I cut off the next rusty panel. My process looks quick in a long string of pictures like I just posted but every panel usually takes a few hours to fit and some even take up almost an entire day. After I trim the replacement panel and it fits well to the old existing panels I make marks on the existing panels as to where everything should line up; than I remove the existing rusty panel. Once the old panels are removed the replacement panel will be fit into place and the marks from the removed panel will be put in the same spot on the replacement panel. I don't know if any of that makes sense, but all I can tell you is there is a lot of measuring, trimming, marking, and comparing.

[Katrina/10]

It does make sense. I have replaced a few small pieces before, but nothing as extensive as what you have. I see many pictures here of people hacking large parts off their trucks, welding new metal on, and everything looks great. I guess the pictures do make things look easier than they really are. Thanks!

[FarmerSid]

I hear ya on the patch making and new sheet metal in stall. One little piece can take all day! I just got done what you just did. Keep on keeping on.

[1956cameo]

FarmerSid, Thanks for the encouragement!

[1956cameo]

I have a little more progress to show. I finished putting all of the new metal into the passenger side cowl / door area.

[IMG][/IMG]

I had to cut about 3 inches out of the repop kick panel in order to get it to line up properly for the heater box opening.

[IMG][/IMG]

It needs some grinding and filling but everything is back into place and lining up great.
[IMG][/IMG]

Since I am getting to the point where I am going to start needing donor pieces from a parts vehicle versus just using repop panels I drug my 1949 parts truck around to the back of the shop. The truck has very little rust but it has a lot of body damage across the roof.

[IMG][/IMG]

[1956cameo]

Next I finished up all the work in the passenger side cab corner.
[IMG][/IMG]

I didn't get a picture of the panel before putting filler on it.
[IMG][/IMG]

The last thing to address was the door itself.
[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[1956cameo]

There was quite a bit of putty on the cowl vent so I assumed there must be some rust issues. So of course after I removed the putty there were small rust holes all around the cowl vent.
[IMG][/IMG]

I was able to use the cowl area off of my parts truck since it had no rust around the cowl vent. So the next step was to remove the rotten area from the cab.
[IMG][/IMG]

Then I simply cut out the donor panel and welded it in.
[IMG][/IMG]

[dwcsr]

Nice resurrection on this, keep up the good work....

[1956cameo]

Thanks! I wasn't planning on this turning into such a project but it kinda ended up that way. I am hoping to get it done by New Years but realistically I will be lucky to have it done by next 4th of July.

[dwcsr]

It always turns into more. I have to ask customers often. Where do you want to stop? A lot of money is spent on things that don't really show but if not fixed will turn a good looking truck into an unsafe pile of junk. Get the body and chassis done right first and you can always dress it up later when money or time is available

[1956cameo]

I completely agree! By the way what part of Houston are you in? Do you ever get out to the Pearland cruise night?

[dwcsr]

Originally Posted by 1956cameo

I completely agree! By the way what part of Houston are you in? Do you ever get out to the Pearland cruise night?

I'm over between Barker Cypress and Fry rd off 10 at the Houston/Katy line. I have never been to Cruise night there. Its a bit far for me.

[1956cameo]

Plus all of the traffic!