Barn raising

[hgs_notes]

I hear ya, could you tell me the original paint color code for that. I'm painting my truck that color but I would like some confirmation that I have the right one. There were not a lot of trucks with that color. Did you have the teal or aqua colored interior also. I got my color matched to a GMC color and the truck had a teal interior, which is not available as a reproduction.

Thanks

[sams60gmc]

Your tires turned out awesome!

[Mike Bradbury]

The ppg code is 511 for the '69 turquoise.
http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcod...=2098&rows=150
Here is a cross reference site for you

[GR8-68]

awesome truck, and great story, thanks for taking the time to share this with us

[Mike J]

tires are really cool man. awesome work!

[Dieselwrencher]

Very cool build, and awesome job on the tires!

[Mike Bradbury]

A little bit of an update on the "other woman" as my wife calls it.
I had Ed Hanson muffler service install a set of Patriot side pipes. The pipes come with a silly four into one collector that only has one functioning pipe. I deleted that and bought a 3.5 mandrel bent 90* pipe and had it chromed. Since these mandrel bent exhaust pipes are just pieces and not custom for the truck I had to weld a piece onto the end of the 90*. It came out great and chromed up awesome.





Here is the weld



Here is the mock up when I first got the side pipes, although I like the look of the collector, it is non-functioning so I remade it so it all works.

[Hart_Rod]

Looks sweet! How's it sound? Waiting for a video.......

[67cheby]

nice work

[BGRAFX]

Looks good bet it sounds even better
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[Dieselwrencher]

Very nice! I like the look without the collector as well. The side pipes with the collectors seem to look better on a car to me.

[Mike Bradbury]

To me I like the sound of the glass packs a lot better than the Flow masters. It has a deeper tone and does not rattle as much under throttle. I took a video of it but the speaker clipped out as soon as I started up the truck and it reduced the sound so it is hardly audible. I will take another one and post it up then.

[eagleuh1]

Nice build. The custom personal touches really clean it up and make it stand out. I like that rear suspension setup. How's the ride with it? Thanks. And a super good deal on a nice truck you picked up to start the project with. Thanks again.

[Mike Bradbury]

It rides real nice for it's stance. Most of the coil springs lowered trucks I have had or ridden in have been too bouncy. Made sure I did this one right and spent the money on better components.
A couple more tweaks to get it just right;
I had been switching back and forth from the 250# to the 300# springs in the rear and settled on the 300's mostly because I am leaving it a long bed now so it may need to hold more weight sometime.
I also lowered it another 2 inches with lowering blocks so I could still maintain 3" of travel in the shocks, it is now a true 4/6. I made the blocks myself because I could not bring myself to spend $90 on a couple of blocks of aluminum with holes in them. Although I liked the rake I still wanted it to sit a little more level.

[67cheby]

sweet looking setup !!

[RCbowtie69]

NICE,

[thirdstreettito]

Nice truck! I love it! You did great one the rear suspension! The front suspension looks like a 20 grand show truck! Word's cannot describe! What year car did the rear come from? What brand coil-overs? Man, I love it!

[eagleuh1]

That looks incredible. Great work.

[Mike Bradbury]

Thanks guys for the encouragement!
The Rear end was out of a '77 Mark V. The E-brake lever arms did not work with my application so I found some 80's Lincoln calipers levers that work better with the geometry of my suspension. I had to make special brackets to hold the cables but it all work great.

The coil overs are Bilsteins with 300 # springs. Has a real nice ride not too bouncy but not soft in the corners. I will be putting a 1'' sway bar on soon.

[67chevy1series]

looks great mike i might have to copy what you did with the license plate

[Mike Bradbury]

Originally Posted by 67chevy1series

looks great mike i might have to copy what you did with the license plate

It really is not that hard to get them looking really nice. The press we have at work is really big but you can accomplish the same thing with one half as big. If you are restoring an aluminum plate it will be even easier.

[67chevy1series]

we dont have a press so we probably have to jack up my truck and then let it down on the mold just joking

[Mike Bradbury]

My plans to paint the truck have to be put on the back burner for now since the economy has not turned around, I decided to keep the money in the rainy day fund.
With that in mind I decided to have a little fun with the already faded and oxidized paint. I got this article in my Rodder mag back in October and knew that this was the direction I wanted to go but did not have a clue as to what was going be the logo.
http://www.classictrucks.com/tech/10.../photo_01.html
I thought about making up some kind of fake business but couldn't come up with one that I wanted painted on the side of my truck for a while. Then a friend of mine came to work one day with a Callahan Auto Parts shirt and I figured that that would be awesome on the '69. Being that it is one of my wife and my favorite movies, it just fit the faded green trucks personality.

So my sign maker friend that made the Good Year letters for my tires got another call from me and we replicated the logo perfectly. $25 bucks for the vinyl and $30 for the paint, a couple hours of work and it changes the whole attitude of the truck.

Here is the before



Here is the logo I had made



Cleaned the side of the truck of any wax then stuck the vinyl on being careful to get all the bubbles that were close to the edges, but not real concerned about the ones in the middle where paint will not be.



Ready for paint, I used Omni brand MTK urethane with MH167 hardener. I don't know if this was a good choice or not but I figured that I was going to be distressing it over oxidized paint so it really did not matter as long as I could achieve the look I wanted.



I scuffed the surface after the vinyl was applied to give the paint something to grab onto since I was not priming it. Then applied several heavy coats with a soft brush waiting only several minutes between coats.



Waited about 20 minutes and peeled off the vinyl negative




Right after I got the vinyl off I used H.E.T. reducer 1380 and rubbed the patina into the paint. It really was easier to achieve the look I wanted than I thought it was going to be. I was a little nervous going into it but after the first couple of letters I was a lot more at ease.



One thing the article does not mention and I found worked well was 0000 steel wool after I was done with the reducer. The reducer is basically like solvent and leaves the thinned paint all around the letters, a careful, steady hand will get the majority of the smudged paint off from around the letters but letting it sit for 30 min or so then I hit it with the steel wool and it took the rest of the unwanted paint off leaving me with this result. I am very happy with the final product.

[spike38]

Looks great, Nice weathering job

Spike

[67chevy1series]

wow that does look good