1965 Chevy C20 - Ideas

[BillyFrank]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here, though I've been using these forums for a long time now. A while back I picked up this thing of beauty and have been slowly making improvements as time allows.



This is my first Classic car, so I don't have much experience with anything restoration related, though I have learned quite a bit about these trucks.
It's a 1965 C20, Longbed/fleetside 2wd.

I've a few major goals with the truck, but am on a tight budget.
- Reliability (relatively speaking)
- Comfortable/decent looking interior
- Clean exterior look, but maybe not a full paint job

I was able to drive the truck home without issues, but it was a little nerveracking. The engine seems to be running great,
w/out smoking, although I eventually want to put in a bigger motor. Maybe a 283, or 350?


You can see the freshly painted valve cover I was experimenting on with my dad (who knows a fair bit more than I).

I also re-built the bed wood, which was rotted out.



To save money I built the bed out of exterior plywood, which I painted with a deck sealer. The image above is roughly 6 months
later. It turned out much better than expected, and I don't have to worry about scratching shiny oak boards worth a third of the whole truck xD


Here is the interior:




I stripped all the old matting and sound deadener because it was pretty bad. It exposed the main rust in the cab. You can see the rust
at the bottom of the kick panels (Passenger side is worse) and the rocker panels, which also have drilled holes in them for some reason.







Not sure yet how to deal with it yet, but I have a decent welder and have seen some good Youtube guides. I'm thinking I need to replace
both rocker panels, and then fabricate pieces that will replace the rust in the corners.

The cab corners, fenders, roof, bed, doors, hood, and pretty much everywhere else is rust free. Rust repair is my major priority at the moment,
as the floor must remain stripped out until It's fixed. After that I want to dynomat the firewall and floor and then carpet it.

As far as painting goes, I'd like to have the interior painted eventually (dash, roof, floor, everything. I'm leaning towards keeping the original fawn
color, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to. What do you guys think?
I really like this cab look


For the exterior, to save money, I'd like to keep the current blue paint but repaint the white top half. Here's a good example:

It looks much cleaner, but maintains the ratrod feel in my opinion.

Can anyone give some sort of estimate on what something like that might cost at a local body shop?
The top half of the truck does not need any bodywork thankfully. I'd do all of the rust repair in the interior, so it would only need to be sanded
down and painted. I don't think the neighbors would approve of me painting it myself, and I neither have the setup, nor the skills to paint.

I hope at least someone here can be inspired from my trials and ideas. Trust me, if I can do it, anyone can do it.

Any Ideas, criticisms, and tips are welcomed! I'll try to put up updates as I go.

- Bill