Project '64 Cheapskate

[iehotrod]

You can make the plastic look like new if you use the same headlight cleaner sold all auto parts store. I just used it on my 62 it looks like new.

[chevyrestoguy]

That stuff does work good on lenses, but this lens will need to be replaced because many of the numbers became dis-bonded and fell off.

[iehotrod]

keep it mind for your replacement. They do sell them aftermarket if you want it new. They make any for 60-63.

[wutnxt]

Hey i love the ratrod shop look.....I started one myself a couple of days ago...but it's on slow mode....to many other thing on the go right now. Looking good and i think you should make you own shop logo for the door

[chevyrestoguy]

Originally Posted by wutnxt

Hey i love the ratrod shop look.....I started one myself a couple of days ago...but it's on slow mode....to many other thing on the go right now. Looking good and i think you should make you own shop logo for the door

I've got a real good one in mind. This particular logo and theme are something I have wanted to do for years. Me and the painter (hotrod49) are bouncing ideas off of each other and are about 90% sure of the layout. I'll post up the in-progress pics when we kick it off.

[chevyrestoguy]

I got busy on the interior last weekend, and got a bunch accomplished. First of all, I did the CLR and soft Scotchbrite all throughout the interior and took the majority of the surface rust out. Then, I waxed the painted areas. I re-installed the gas tank, installed the new dome light and fished the wiring through the cab, changed out the seat brackets, cleaned the dash, installed my Custom Cab steering wheel, and temporarily installed my gauge cluster. I say temporary because I am not done with the resto on it. I had to see what it would look like.
The interior went from this:


To this:



I am definately keeping the cool rear window cover. The truck had a cab-over camper for a good part of it's life, and there was no window glass, and that was the "privacy curtain". I am actually trying to find a lot of the "old man" stuff that was in the truck before I got it. There are holes drilled everywhere, and after a bit of thinking, I figure that he had a fire extinguisher bolted to the right hand kick panel, a compass next to the rear view mirror, and an emergency flasher unit in the truck at one time. I am on the hunt to find those items. I hate seeing holes drilled for no purpose, so I want to ensure that you won't see them.

The next step is to: replace the fuel filler hose, clean the floor, fix a small rust area in the left hand kick panel area, replace the firewall insulation, take a good look at the underdash wiring and fix what's bad, remove the clutch pedal and linkage, remove the transmission, and remove the exhaust.

I'm getting real close to getting the '79 Suburban back to the house and start the suspension swap. It's going to be fun!!

[iehotrod]

BIG improvement in the cab. Looks good!

[65Pickup]

Great steering wheel and gauge cluster, what is the multi colored gauge ti the upper left?
Don't forget the gun rack (my guess) for the holes by the rear curtain, mine has those holes too.

PS- that CLR really works, great tip.

[chevyrestoguy]

The gauge on the left is a vacuum gauge. It was originally out of a '66 442, and I bought it off of ebay for $28. The lens was cracked and the housing was in fair condition, but that was OK, because I wasn't planning on using those parts at all. It tested good, but the only issue (to me) is that the font isn't an exact match to the factory '64 cluster lettering. It's temporarily mounted right now. I'm trying to design a vinyl overlay that looks like the stock vacuum gauge, and the gauge needs to be lowered in the cluster about a half inch. I used the factory holes, and so far have not done any drilling or modification. I'm holding off on doing that because I may have to make a new gauge face. It HAS to match the font and style of the factory tach, or it won't look right. I see gauge overlays on ebay, but the main sticking point to me is that they all have white numbering, which is wrong. The '64-66 clusters have light green numbering, not white.

[65Pickup]

Nice, I like the looks of it. Great combination, good luck with the overlay.

[fryer1979]

Wow, that interior came out nice. I need to use some of that CLR on my own truck. Nice job!

[kustombrad]

I've seen this way cool truck before, I just can't put my finger on where...
Posted via Mobile Device

[iehotrod]

Originally Posted by kustombrad

I've seen this way cool truck before, I just can't put my finger on where...
Posted via Mobile Device

which one?

[chevyrestoguy]

Originally Posted by kustombrad

I've seen this way cool truck before, I just can't put my finger on where...
Posted via Mobile Device

You may have seen it if you have the proper clearance to access AREA 52, which is even more secure and classified than Area 51. This truck is at such a high level of classification that even my wife doesn't have access to it . Well, not yet.

She'll get access on the day I roll up it in the driveway and tell her. "Hey honey, check this out......I got this truck for almost free and built it with almost no money by using all the extra stuff I had laying around!"

She's been on me about having a work truck ever since I had a brain fart and sold the '76 Bonanza because it's "just sitting around not being used". As soon as I signed the title over, I knew I had made a bone-headed move. Then not long after, the truck got totalled by the son of the guy I sold it to, and that made it even worse.

[chevyrestoguy]

Well, a week or so ago I added some pictures showing the dash all cleaned up, along with the unfinished gauge cluster. In the left corner of the cluster, I had temporarily mounted a vacuum gauge from a '66 Oldsmobile 442, and promised that I would post up more shots when I had the vacuum gauge finished. Here's a step-by-step pictorial showing what I did:

I love the look of the gauge clusters when they're fully optioned with the tach and vacuum gauges, but finding those gauges can be an expensive endeavor. As the title of the thread proudly proclaims, I'm building this truck on the cheap, so I had to put my thinking cap on to figure how I can duplicate this look without throwing down a lot of dough. I started going on ebay and looking at all the GM vacuum gauges, and the prices were all over the board. The Chevy truck gauge was seemingly impossible to find, and the car gauges were pretty spendy. The beauty of GM stuff is that a lot of it will interchange, and I was taking a gamble on whether it would all fit. On ebay, I started watching one gauge in particular, one from a '66 Olds 442. It was thrashed, and it seemed like nobody was interested. The seller proclaimed that it worked, and that was good enough for me, so I placed a bid with 20 seconds left in the auction, and got it for $28, which is a steal. The housing was nicked up, the chrome was flaking, somebody had put a prisma decal on it, the clear bezel was cracked, but I didn't care because I wasn't going to use any of that stuff. Here it is. Trust me, it looks nicer than it really is:


Here it is all disassembled, pretty simple:


I took the gauge itself and held it up to the truck's cluster and the mounting holes were identical to the ones in the truck's gauge cluster (gotta love GM!) and I bolted it in to see if it would work. It was about 1/2" too high and didn't look right. Plus the font wasn't identical and wasn't the sea-green color of the rest of the gauges:


So I started researching what the factory gauge looked like, and lo and behold, I discovered that the faceplate of the vacuum gauge was exactly the same shape and size as the truck's block-off plate. Now I was on to something. If I could use the block-off plate as the gauge face, then a huge part of the puzzle could be solved.


The block-off has two tiny rivets that secure it to a sheetmetal tab that bolts itself to the mounting plate. I made some measurements on the center-to-center spacing of those rivets and compared it to the tiny bolts that secured the faceplate on the Olds vacuum gauge, and they were identical. So I carefully drilled out the rivets and removed the tab from the block-off plate. I also made some measurements of where the hole needed to be for the needle to protrude through and drilled that with a 11/64" bit.


Now came the tricky part, the fonts for the gauge. I had been in contact with a well-known gauge company and had sent them a pdf file showing the decal I wanted them to make. They agreed that they could make it, and I was about 5 minutes from pulling the trigger when I went on the site and saw the thread that Parklane410 posted concerning the gauge overlay kit he was selling. I immediately bought the overlay kit. It was like it was meant to be. Here's what Jason's kit looks like, minus a couple of the overlays for the little gauges that I already installed before I took this picture:


Here's what the old cover plate looks like with the holes drilled and the overlay installed:


Here it is installed to the truck's original mount plate, using the tiny faceplate mounting screws from the Olds gauge. I also removed the needle stop from the Olds gauge and drilled a tiny hole and super-glued in on the new faceplate. I also determined where zero Hg location was on the gauge and pressed the needle in place. I have yet to paint the needle, but it will be painted.


Here it is, installed in the cluster. It looks 100% factory. I figure that I have about $33 invested in it when you consider the ebay price and the overlay price. I wound up overlaying all of the gauges, so the vacuum gauge overlay price was 1/7th of the total cost of the overlay set ($35). That's a heck of a lot cheaper than some of the $200 gauges I was seeing on ebay.


Next step, tach! Stay tuned for more cheap-ass adventures!

[Alan's Classic]

Very nice work.

[SulphuriousSam]

Wow. I never would have thought of that. Impressive
Posted via Mobile Device

[Captainfab]

Very nice work and excellent write up

Thanks for sharing your research.

[iehotrod]

Super nice job. Now this is creative!! I really enjoy reading post like this. Thank you for sharing your hours of research and work with us. Being resourcefull and creative is a lot more diffulcut than jumping the computer and buy new overpriced pc.

[bubba327]

Very nice! I am always glad to see another truck saved from the grave.
It is amazing how good these trucks look with the old patina showing through!!

It is not always the easiest way to be creative and use recycled and used parts.
It is really a source of pride for me!!!

[chevyrestoguy]

Thanks for the nice comments, guys. So far, this build has been one of the most enjoyable, fun things I have done in a long time. Although I've gone a little overboard on the gauge cluster, the rest of the truck has been a matter of hitting swap meets, wrecking yards, yard sales, and donations of parts from friends. I started this project with that intent. Between myself and my buddies we have tons of extra parts laying around. I've been trading off lots of my extra stuff for the parts I need. I've been very actively selling stuff on Craigslist and ebay, and those profits go to strictly to buying what I need. I'm not raiding the family checkbook at all. Because of that mentality, I have to keep my thinking cap on and my brain spinning. The vacuum gauge mod is one of those things that I've always wanted, but just couldn't bring myself to pay full pop for.

Here's how I envision the final "look" of the truck to be: A nicely patina'd exterior with lots of lettering to resemble an old shop truck. The suspension will be updated with all 73-79 components, and with the exception of the drop spindles and lowered coils, all stock and simple. The engine will be a 350 with a few internal mods, but rock-solid dependable and stock-appearing. The engine compartment will be nicely detailed. The trans will be a 700r4 to help with the fuel mileage. The interior will be a bit nicer, with a clean, fully optioned dash, factory A/C, and 100% sound deadener on the floors and doors. I want it to be quiet inside, dependable under the hood, and nicely "burnished" on the outside. I'm kind of a detail freak, so it'll be spotlessly clean inside and out. Believe it or not, my '55 was supposed to be done this way when I started building it in the '90s, but due to the fact that I kept changing my mind, it went waaay off course and became what it is today. I'm not going to do that again........Doing it this way is a lot more fun!

[flatbed51]

I am so enjoying this build, it is one of the few I have marked on my favorites. The only problem is it has got me wanting a 64-66 truck, like I need another project. I can't seem to get off my rear and work on my 51. Actually I am waiting on my shop to get below 100 degrees ..... Don

[65Pickup]

I knew you'd figure it out, that must have been very rewarding. GREAT DETAIL!!! Look forward to the tach.

[65Pickup]

Your detailed info has me going to attempt a 90 ohm fuel gauge guts, in the stock 30 ohm location. (RCI fuel cell recently installed) I'd love to keep my dash stock in appearance also. Great tech article.

[chevyrestoguy]

^^^Now that's a slick idea! I would put the 30 and 90 ohm guts next to each other and see what the difference is. From an electronics standpoint, an ohm difference could mean just a different resistor. This might be even simpler than it looks.

You might be surprised. GM was so good about utilizing the same basis component and making slight changes to satisfy all the brands that you might be able to just plug and play. If I recall, GM went to the 90 ohm set-ups in the mid-to-later '60s. I'm pretty certain that the Chevelles had them.

I would Google or do a little research and find out when GM changed from 30 to 90. I would start making "recon" trips to the wrecking yards and look for a suitable substitute that has a similar size and the "half-sweep" range like your truck's stock gauge. I would also research and see if a 30 ohm system can be changed to a 90 ohm using common Radio Shack components, like maybe a resistor.

Here's a link that might get you pointed in the right direction:
http://www.novas.net/forums/showthread.php?p=90006

Check this out. It's from a Ford truck forum, but look at Post #3. I think it has the answer you need:
http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/96...ding-unit.html

Google is your friend.........Let us know what you come up with!
Alex