"1950 GMC" -Charlotte

[iowaboynca]

well that +3 for the astro seats and I think I have to agree!

Yeah the fabbing the shoulder belt doesn't look too hard. Here's a link to Deve's Tech Net where he goes over installing a shoulder belt.

http://devestechnet.com/Home/SeatBelts

He as some good stuff on his site, more along the restoration side of things but still great information.

Yup, I think I'll go with the astro seats. At least the tahoe's fold up and thus don't take up much space!

[solidaxel]

Good choice, but leave off the head rests!

[iowaboynca]

Alright, alright alright!!!

Hope everyone had a good easter! I had a chance to get some work done. Goal for this weekend was get the cab on the frame. To do that, I needed to:
1. Finish the exhaust
2. Move steering wheel hole/clean up the firewall

So in the pics below, the steering wheel hole and patch roughed in. Also got the exhaust is burned in, hangers and all. I haven't burned in the turn downs yet but I like the look. (as yes they won't have the female ends on them when i'm done...)

[iowaboynca]

So got the welds on the firewall cleaned up and was able to get the cab on for now!

I new i'd need to fix the toeboard and work on the firewall but it doesn't look like its going to take too much. While i was messing around i decided to look and the OE transmission cover and how it lined up. Man, you gotta love the General.. It looks like they like to keep the length of the shifters the same in their trucks! Of course I do realize this was all dependent on where i mocked my engine in the first place which still looks good!

So with the cab on I can get to work on the steering linkage and work on the fuel lines. I can also get going on the brake M/C bracket and lines...

I will admit if feels good to have the cab on, if it is just for a bit.

No rest for the wicked...Stay tuned...

[99 to Life]

nice job, those little accomplishments give the build a whole gust of wind. there is alot of pre planning when doing a build. I'v had cab off once, then back on. ready to come off for finalization of cab and frame. hope to only have to put it back on for the second time.

[lower50's]

So nice to get to this point, big motivator.

[iowaboynca]

Alright...alright...alright! ACK!

Man, life.
So in late april, early may we decided to retire the family mover, a 97 GMC conversion that was not going to pass smog without some serious work, for a '14 GMC Yukon. (I'm really not that much of a wonk, but great deals keep falling in my lap ) Anyway that's another ~$500 out of the monthly budget, but that's ok.


In the meantime, I've been trying to tinker here and there, and i'll admit i was/am getting a bit of "builders block". So I mentioned the trans tunnel in a previous post and trying to dink around with modifying the original cover. Well after a couple of weeks of fiddling, i took some inspiration from a few of the builds on here and made a more modified tunnel



I would like to thank our old washing machine that gladly donated some of its skin for this mod, and the wife thanks you too! I want to clean up the lip a bit and the mounting holes so i have some fresh metal to screw into.

[iowaboynca]

Now the fun...

So the Thursday before last, we started having concerns with the A/C and it crapped out that Friday, blown compressor. Now for those of you following CA weather we just went through the mother of heatwaves out here, so the wife was pleased, to say the least. Long story short, we decided to replace the whole unit as the house is 10 years old, the compressor and coil will be matched together and 10 year parts and labor vs. 1 year warranty if we just replaced the compressor....so cha ching! $$$$

So with all that and the girls soccer the budget, both time and money is tightening, but hey we've all experienced that right?

So today I go out to tinker, and for some reason i decide to grind the cowl, just to see what kind of condition it was in. If you remember i stated way back when that I wanted to take to bare metal because I had seen some wonky stuff done by a P/O. Yeah!

Looks like ol' Charlotte was in a wreck or at least this cab was...



As you can see there's a pretty big crease...the bondo was close to 1/2 thick in some places...

and another rust hole, but that was to be expected with the work that was needed on the front of the cowl.



Just for the sake of it I checked the passenger side and there's a crease there too.



I guess my frustration is that this could have been fixed in the time to slap all the bondo on and wait for it to dry. Now i'm not going to cry too much because this is still better that a lot of work you guys on the east coast fight, but I'm frustrated and the extra time hit...oh well...such is the nature of these trucks.

I still need to finish up the brake bracket but that shouldn't take too long. I'm taking a playbook from you S10 guys and using a S10 brake/clutch bracket. I also need to get my hands on a steering column. Was trying to make a full size work and shocking, it won't.

Well that's about it for now, thank god the temps are coming down as the A/C should be installed by Wed.

Stay tuned...

[iowaboynca]

@mikesAD50, yes send some pics my way. (your inbox is full )

[OutlawDrifter]

If I was a guessing man, I'd say the door was whipped open by the wind and bent that area. I have a similar dent on my GMC. It is a common theme on an AD cab, I can't believe how many have that area creased or banged in from the door! Great work, I'm planning something similar, looks wise, for my 6.0L.

[99 to Life]

nice reuse of parts on the tunnel. I would also second that crease on the pass side for sure was from the door. My 51' has the same crease. your DS crease is prolly not from the door as its too close to the pillar. I used s10 brake on one truck and a fullsize on another truck. The s10 is ok but it makes the booster mount a iddy bitty bit low for my liking. you could always extend your arm on the pedal. I had to do that on current build, using a corvette brake assembly. I wouldn't recommend using that.

[lower50's]

It's amazing how many curve balls we all have to overcome in life.

[MIKESAD50]

I'm not finding them but will keep looking and let you know. wish I would have looked before opening my mouth.

[MIKESAD50]

This is what I got for those panels.
Free if you want them

[iowaboynca]

PM sent Mike! and thanks for the offer!

[iowaboynca]

Alright, alright alright!!!

It's been a while since I posted but I have been tinkering, just not enough to post. (In my opinion)

So the panel...ugh...but first, BIG shoutout to MIKES50AD!!! As we left off, both front cowl panels had some serious creases in them and someone it the trucks lifetime decided to cover up with filler almost 1/2" thick in some places. So thinking how i'm going to fix this, did some research, and low and behold, there was some advice on here (of course) but there's an old article on hotrod magazine that did the exact same repair.

So lets get to it! Cut of the spot welds to get get access and pop the old panel (pic 1)

You can see bad the crease was, its the peak on the right (pic 2)

Now in pic 3 is the panel that MIKES50AD gave me. He's a real nice guy and took time out of his busy day to talk trucks with me and my nephew when i picked up the panels. I appreciate that. Well you can see it fits nice. In Pic 4, i've got the welds cleaned up.

I also have been working the upper section with the combination of a stud welder/puller and a hammer and dolly once I had the panel open. I was able to get most of the passenger side with the stud welder but i don't have a suitable pic...

I will say it was nice to get to this point. It will still need some filler to clean it up but not the almost 1/2" that was on it before. Time to check off some more items that need to be taken care of.

*edit* I did hit the exposed area with a wire wheel as deep as i could and sprayed the rest with rust treatment and let it work for a bit....didn't cover that.

Stay tuned...

[Advanced Design]

Nice work Iowa.

[iowaboynca]

Hey everyone. Its been way too long since i've posted. I'm still tinkering away...life has thrown some hurdles. Good hurdles, but hurdles nonetheless. This summer has been hell. My daughter's quincenera, (think sweet 16), my middle son's wedding and heavily involved with my 3 daughter's youth soccer club. And oh yeah there's that 4-letter word, WORK...So time is a premium.

Plus, my build feels like 2 steps forward, 1 step back. I finally committed to doing the pedal brackets to be frame mounted which required a new trans mount and new exhaust. just finished up the trans mount, nothing fancy.

But, more importantly, i'm corrupting one of my daughters to the dark side. In the pictures attached is a 52 Chevy that we brought home today. Originally it was my buddy's great grandfathers that was abandoned out on their ranch. I helped him get it re-titled in his name last year. He doesn't have the time or energy to fix it up so he offered it to me and i jumped on it.

So this will be my middle daughters truck. Thinking of throwing in my 235 with either a TH400 or 700R4 i have lying around. MII w/8.8 in the back (like mine). The interesting thing is she's saying she wants to keep the patina. I've already told her we'll need to fix the problem areas but that will add to the character. It was sitting on the ground with no wheels for a while so i'll need to really go over the frame, that's my biggest concern right now.

Anyway this build won't start until next spring, but at least i'll have a helper! When we kick it off i'll post a separate build thread. In the meantime, i'll keep plugging away on Charlotte.

Stay tuned!

P.S. If the wheels look familiar, they're the same ones that were on my truck when i brought it home. When we slapped them on, my buddy was like "Wow, it looks like a truck again..." I asked him if he wanted to change his mind and he said, "No. It need to go to someone that will work on it, otherwise it would go to the scrapper."

[99 to Life]

very cool congrats. Most of us are in the "time" boat. its either that or money. Its not easy getting one of these on the road. Best wishes to you gusy.

[5winElJefe]

Was going over your thread and ran across this last post. Reminded me of the conversation I had with my wife. I have a 1975 Toyota Landccuiser that I was in the middle of a frame off, when I passed by a 1952 GMC sitting on the side of the road. It was a little rough but hey it ran! I convinced my wife that it would be the running project while I built the other. Now I have two projects tore apart and halfway done!