My 1955 Chevy 3100 build

[Scottish58chev]

That's looking really good. Really nice work, bed sides look great

[oldman3]

Nice job building the bed from scratch, looks great...Jim

[Scott2]

Great job!

[nuke1]

Cool build so far. I must be getting old. But those 295 s look sweet. Lol. Turned the clock back some there.

[Advanced Design]

Impressive work Dave! For the spongy brakes, bench bleeding the master is worth a shot though with the vacuum bleeding, if the master never went dry, it should have handled any air. Just some random thoughts...new master is bad, caliper upside down, drum brake adjustment, wheel cylinder sucking air.

Do the brakes pump up and hold firm? If not, I suspect a master cylinder problem if the other ideas are proved wrong.

My $0.02 for what it’s worth.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I'm back. I've been away for a bit, but I have been getting plenty of work done on the truck.

I decided the back end of the truck was sitting a bit high. The rear coil-over shocks were already dropped as low as they could go. I decided to make some new upper shock mounts. I picked up some tube that measured the same ID and OD as the tube that came with the rear suspension kit I bought. I made the rest of the mounts out of some plate I had laying around.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I cut off the original rear upper shock mounts and welded these right over them. This dropped the rear about 2-1/4". That looks better!

[55 Chevy Dave]

Oh, I also got the tailgate on my bed.

[55 Chevy Dave]

The back end of the bedsides were not as rigid as I would prefer, so I made a new rear roll pan frame. The top of the roll pan frame is two angles welded together. Each side bolts into the rear stake pockets. Both bedsides were very rigid after bolting this piece in.

[55 Chevy Dave]

Early on, I knew I wanted to install the factory rear bumper, but I also liked the look of the rear roll pan. The aftermarket roll pan I bought did not hide the gap between the bumper and the roll pan, so I decided to make my own.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I made a frame for the license plate with some small round rod. I then made a box to inset the license plate and frame.

[55 Chevy Dave]

And here is the final product, well, before body working anyway. I think it came out pretty good. Nobody will ever know the amount of work that went into this piece!

[55 Chevy Dave]

My wheels finally came in. I bought them from a local shop that was good to work with. He came over and measured everything. When the wheels came in, he brought them over and we test fit them on the truck before he ordered the tires. Everything fit fine, so he ordered the tires.

The fronts are 18x7s and the rears are 20x14s.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I found out that lowering the rear end 2-1/4" caused a problem. The axle was hitting the frame. A friend had some big tube laying around in his yard where he works. I cut off a strip and made reinforcing arcs that I welded in on the underside of the frame. I had some 1/4" wall square tube laying around that I cut up and used to reinforce the top side of the frame.

[55 Chevy Dave]

My wheels and tires showed up. Mickey Thompson Sportsman S/Rs all around. 26x8s on the front and 29x15s on the rear. Picking the tires and wheels was the toughest decision yet, but I am happy with the look. And, I'm glad I went to the trouble to lower the rear end. It was definitely worth it!

[55 Chevy Dave]

And here she is at the local cruise night. A lot of people seem to enjoy seeing it "in progress". And I enjoy taking it out and showing it off.

[oldman3]

Nice work, looks great...Jim

[Scottish58chev]

Truck is looking awesome.
Some great touches in the bumper mod and you're right, like a lot on these trucks, only you and those who know whats involved in even the supposedly smallest of mods will ever fully appreciate the work actually involved.

[mongocanfly]

very nice work..!!!!

[55 Chevy Dave]

I haven't posted on here in quite a while. But, I have been working on the truck. I finally turned my attention to the bed wood. I purchased some African Mahogany boards from a local exotic wood shop.

They look awesome, but I was a bit nervous working with the expensive wood fearing I would make a bad cut and ruin one of the boards.

After hand-picking each board, I determined the placement for each board.

In the last picture, you can also see the flush, polished bed strips with hidden fasteners. I picked these up from BedWood & Parts. This is a very nice setup.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I carefully cut each board to width and cut out for the wheels on each side.

I then used a dado blade set on the table saw to cut the grooves into the edges of each board so the bed strips would sit flush to the wood (3rd pic).

[55 Chevy Dave]

I then trimmed up the inner fenders and welded flanges onto the bottom so they would sit on top of the bed wood. I also had to weld in sides to the inner fenders.

[55 Chevy Dave]

The wood strips in between the inner fenders will be hinged so that I can lift them up to fill the gas tank and to show off everything underneath. I made a structure out of flat bars to connect the center boards together. I wanted the structure to be flush with the bottom face of the wood, so I used a router to cut grooves into the underside of the boards to accept the bar stock.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I welded plates to the frame to mount the hinges for the center section of the bed wood.

I purchased some heavy-duty stainless steel awning window hinges and mounted them to the plates.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I cut some steel angles to mount the center bed wood panel to the hinges.

I also had to make relief cuts in the edge of the side boards to accept the end to the under-structure when the panel is closed. None of this will be seen when the panel is closed.