My 1955 Chevy 3100 build

[bajabob]

Holy moly sir, your fabrication skills are out of sight!!! I had to keep reading your entire thread so I could see what cool new part you made or what mod you did to this project!!! Very nice work.

I wondered about, how or where are you going to run the brake lines with the frame enclosed ???

bb

[55 Chevy Dave]

Thanks for the kind words, Bob.

I plan on running the brake lines along the inside of the frame rails attached with clips screwed to the boxing plates.

[Advanced Design]

More nice work Dave. The swing set was certainly built from thick pipe!

[RockinKees]

Had to read back a little to see what you're about to make...
Man, you make nice parts!!
Such as the radiator core support!
Also great to see you recycle things that you normally don't see on cars!

[ptc]

Dang Dave!!!!! you've been a busy man!!!! - ITS LOOKIN REAL GOOD!!!!

[55 Chevy Dave]

Originally Posted by RockinKees

Had to read back a little to see what you're about to make...
Man, you make nice parts!!
Such as the radiator core support!
Also great to see you recycle things that you normally don't see on cars!

Thanks RockinKees! I have enjoyed watching your build as well! It is so interesting seeing how you guys do it over there "across the pond"!

Originally Posted by ptc

Dang Dave!!!!! you've been a busy man!!!! - ITS LOOKIN REAL GOOD!!!!

Not busy enough ptc, it's still not out on the road. And I keep coming up with more things that I want to do to it.

[55 Chevy Dave]

UPS delivered my new LED headlights from my recent EBay purchase and I, of course, had to install them right away complete with my new LMC headlight bezels (even though I am nowhere near ready for them). I can wire them so the white halo rings around each headlight turn amber and blink when I hit the turn signal lever. That should solve the problem I created when I smoothed out the factory front turn signal lights.

The headlights are made for a Jeep, but seem to fit just fine by deleting the rear headlight mounts and connecting them directly to the factory buckets. I don't think this will be a problem since the back of the headlights are cast aluminum.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I finally finished my steering linkage (again). I added a frame-mounted bearing and welded in a nut on the back side of the frame boxing plate to accept the bearing. This gives plenty of adjustability and allows the steering shaft to be routed around the exhaust headers. The lower angle after the frame-mounted bearing is pretty sharp, but the steering wheel seems to turn smoothly and should be much better when assisted by the power steering pump.

Hopefully, I won't have to redo it.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I've had my eye on this aftermarket gauge cluster for a while and it went on sale this month at Brothers Trucks, so I finally pulled the trigger. In typical fashion, I had to pull it out of the box and install it right away. I'm not sure if the tachometer will be big enough to be functional, but I really like the clean look created by keeping all of the gauges in the original location.

I still need to remove it and put it in the box before an inevitable accident happens!

[55 Chevy Dave]

I mounted a Summit Racing 140gph fuel pump to the frame boxing plate and ran 1/2" OD aluminum fuel line from the tank through a pre-filter and then into the pump. I mounted a finer filter on the chassis under the cab just before the fuel line enters the engine bay and then ran another piece of line from the pump to the final filter.

Now, I just need to figure out where I am going to mount the fuel pressure regulator under the hood and I will run the rest of the line to the regulator and then to the carb and the fuel system should be complete.

[55 Chevy Dave]

For quite a while now, I have been thinking about another modification that I found on this forum. I never liked the right angle on the front of the doors where they meet the front fenders. I made a round cut on the door and then welded the inner and outer door skins together and used the grinder to smooth out the weld.

I then welded in a strip of sheet metal on the back side and painted everything with a weld-through primer before bending and welding a piece of sheet metal onto the body over the new void.

It ended up being fairly easy and I think the new curvy body line is a big improvement over the original.

I obviously still have some work to do on the rest of the door-to-fender body line and I need to reproduce all of this work on the passenger side of the truck.

[l78vetteman]

Very nice, I like how you brought the cure down lower to blend into the front edge of the door. I was going to just put a radius on the corner, but I think the shape you did is nicer.

[Nut Case]

55 Chebby Dave

It's flat out incredible, I can only hope that I can do halve as good as you on my build.
A long while ago I mounted a electric fuel pump to the frame and it made a racket, I put some old inner tube between the frame and the pump and cured the noise. Boy that dates me, used inner tubes before "tubeless" was perfected.
I older than dirt, before there was color, and I have the photo's to prove it.

Keep on keepin on

NC

[Kim57]

Lots of cool stuff. Nice mod on the door.
Head lights are real nice.
Kim

[ptc]

Looking good Dave!!!!

[murd969]

Your build is looking good.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I've been busy with another project that has kept me away from working on the truck. In preparation for winter, I finally decided to install a sidewalk from the driveway to the side door of the garage. No longer will I need to trudge through the snow from the detached garage to the house and then back again!

I decided to extend the future sidewalk down past the side door to the shed and around the back and part-way up the other side of the garage for storage of firewood and other junk.

With the help of a couple good friends, we dug out the sod and several inches of black dirt to make way for the aggregate base and new sidewalk. We spread the dirt behind the garage and graded it out.

[55 Chevy Dave]

We spread the stone in the new excavation and installed the forms for the concrete. I put in a radius at each of the rear corners to make the corners easier to round on the riding lawn mower.

I then compacted the stone in preparation for the concrete.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I installed PEX radiant heat tubing in the sidewalk from the driveway to the side door of the garage. I installed it on top of foil-backed insulation board and tied it to some welded wire mesh.

I'm not sure if I am ever going to install a boiler to heat the sidewalk, but figured it was easier to install the PEX tubing before the concrete was poured!

[55 Chevy Dave]

The concrete is poured! Damn, did it come out nice!

[murd969]

Your build is looking great.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I removed the concrete forms and filled in the overdig and got everything rough graded. The yard behind the garage came out pretty nice as well. I just need to do some fine grading and put down the seed and blanket. I'll reseed it again in the spring and hopefully see some grass coming up.

[55 Chevy Dave]

Sorry about all of the non-truck posts, but I didn't want you to think I was getting lazy over here. I did manage to get some work done on the truck over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and will post that update soon!

[Advanced Design]

Wow, really nice work on the concrete! It would be nice to be able to heat and melt the snow / ice.
Looking forward to the truck updates!

[oldman3]

Nice job on the concrete, and yard...Jim