My 1955 Chevy 3100 build

[55 Chevy Dave]

I did a fair amount of work on the fenders as well. I filled the mounting holes for the badges, repaired stress cracks at some of the mounting holes and filled the antenna hole.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I put the front end back together to see how everything fit and to see if anything else needed to be fixed at the connection points of the panels. Everything seems to fit pretty well.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I filled in the rear sections of the floor above the cab corners where I cut out the cab corners and ground everything smooth. Based on the posts of others here on the forum, I decided not to weld the seam solid to avoid warping the cab corner. I will fill the gaps with seam filler later.

[55 Chevy Dave]

Finally onto the first of the front fender patch panels. I hung the doors to make sure I had the fenders lined up properly and then fit the patch panel in place. Everything seemed to go pretty well.

The last pic is from the other night when I was putting a coat of wax on the new truck.

[Advanced Design]

Really nice metal repairs. Great progress.

[oldman3]

Repairs looking great...Jim

[Kim57]

Very nice job on all the repairs.
Kim

[II_Slow]

I think mine is getting exactly the same repairs, plus a little work on the hinge pockets. Thanks for posting the pictures, gives me more confidence to proceed on mine. Yours is looking great, rock on with it!

[RockinKees]

Nice repairs Dave!

[ptc]

Originally Posted by II_Slow

I think mine is getting exactly the same repairs, plus a little work on the hinge pockets. Thanks for posting the pictures, gives me more confidence to proceed on mine. Yours is looking great, rock on with it!

Ditto here! - I am just getting ready to do the fender lowers and the door lowers. did you have any problems with warping any of the panels due to heat? or just take it real slow! ???

Also on assembling the fenders to the front radiator support, do you have to assemble the inner fenders first before installing onto truck? cause mine dont seem to fit afterwards.... thx!

[made2drag]

WOW! Amazing build so far. Your metal work is stellar man!

[55 Chevy Dave]

Thank you for all the compliments. I appreciate all of you taking the time to look at my thread. It makes the time spent working on the thread worthwhile.

[55 Chevy Dave]

Originally Posted by ptc

Ditto here! - I am just getting ready to do the fender lowers and the door lowers. did you have any problems with warping any of the panels due to heat? or just take it real slow! ???

Also on assembling the fenders to the front radiator support, do you have to assemble the inner fenders first before installing onto truck? cause mine dont seem to fit afterwards.... thx!

PTC, I did have problems with the first fender warping. When I did the second fender, I had a rag soaking in bucket of water nearby. After a few welds, I would put down the welder and soak everything down with the rag. It took a lot longer but made the difference!

I assemble the inner and outer fenders on the truck. If I leave everything loose, there is enough play to move all of the panels around and make sure everything fits together properly.

[55 Chevy Dave]

The passenger side took a bit longer than the driver's side, but the fender ended up nice and straight.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I took the fender off of the truck and welded up the back side, stopping frequently to cool everything down with my wet rag. I then smoothed everything out.

I cut off the bottom of the old brace on the back side of the fender. It wasn't very rusty, but a previous owner had attempted a repair and did not do a very good job. I welded in a new brace and went back to grinding.

[55 Chevy Dave]

Here's the final product. Too bad the driver's side didn't come out this nice! I'll be going back to fix it up soon enough!

[55 Chevy Dave]

I moved onto the dash. I started by cutting out the two holes for the switches to the left of the gauge cluster. I cut out two filler pieces out of 18 gauge sheet metal, welded them in place and grinded everything smooth.

[55 Chevy Dave]

The dash will be completely smoothed out without any knobs or the glove compartment. I cut out most of the sheet metal to the right side of the gauge cluster. The dash is indented on the right side to allow the glove box door to close flush with the dash. I cut out the indented part and removed a section of it. I then cleaned it up in preparation for reinstallation.

[55 Chevy Dave]

After removing a section of the removed piece, I was able to slide it forward and line it up with the rest of the dash. I clamped it in place, welded it in and smoothed everything out.

[55 Chevy Dave]

After a lot of trimming, test fitting, trimming again and test fitting again, I was finally able to clamp in the smooth dash panel and weld it into place.

[55 Chevy Dave]

And here's the final product after grinding it up, welding up a few spots and grinding again. It looks so much better than the mess that was in there before!

I'm feeling good about all the work I got done this weekend! To bad I have to go back to work tomorrow!

[oldman3]

Nice job, you should be proud...Jim

[Kim57]

Looking very nice.
Kim

[Advanced Design]

Really good work Dave. Came out nice.

[slck57]

Very nice!