55 make over

[dsraven]

nice work on the tail light area, do youneed to install side marker lights in your jurisdiction?

[nvrsatisfied]

Originally Posted by dsraven

did you use thin wall tubing for all the structure? is it heavy?
I have thought of using the plastic deck material for the floor but went with a steel bed floor instead. i incorporated a stroage area under the floor since the bed floor is raised to accomodate the frame over the axle.
nice work, keep on plugging away, and of course posting up progress pics

most of the sub frame for the bed is a mixture of 1" x 1"....3/4" x 3/4".... and 1" x 2"...all of that is 1/16" wall.

notches are all from 1/4" plate.

the bridge is 1" round with a 1/8" wall.

all the front end overhaul was done in 3/16" plate (upper lower, bag plates) and 2" x 3" 3/16" wall for the top support.

the four link is just as beefy; 1/4" plate for brackets and 1.5" round tubing for the bars 3/16" thick.

i thought about the composite but we already had this full floor. i'm gonna plain, re-sand and router it if need be for the straps to fit flush. after all that hit it with a color stain, then use a high build with a spar urethane, cut and polish that out.

Originally Posted by dsraven

nice work on the tail light area, do you need to install side marker lights in your jurisdiction?

no i do not. i don't have a ton of knowledge on these trucks like i would a 67-72 but from what i "assume" is since the truck did not have side marker lights in the rear from factory?? then in that case i don't have to have them. i know that by Oklahoma law if the light is present from factory then it must be there.... cause right now i'm in a dispute with my 3rd brake light on my 93' GMC not working but my two tail lights work fine....and i made the comment i'm gonna shave it anyways and the officer "no ya can't"...

[dsraven]

ok, just making sure. mine was made from 2 trucks and the vin tags basically fell off. I had to get an inspector to come to the shop, take my old vin tags and give me a whole new vin that he rivetted onto the cab. the truck will need a complete inspection when done, like an insurance write off would need before getting a registration, and would be subject to the newer rules concerning lights. i will install some of those small round LED buttons on the rear fenders down low. not a big deal if you plan to do it before paint.

[nvrsatisfied]

Originally Posted by dsraven

ok, just making sure. mine was made from 2 trucks and the vin tags basically fell off. I had to get an inspector to come to the shop, take my old vin tags and give me a whole new vin that he rivetted onto the cab. the truck will need a complete inspection when done, like an insurance write off would need before getting a registration, and would be subject to the newer rules concerning lights. i will install some of those small round LED buttons on the rear fenders down low. not a big deal if you plan to do it before paint.

just asking to ask out of curiosity, but from what year do they determine "newer rules concerning lights".... like for example are you gonna need a third brake light if they decide 2020 and up? i might be wrong but at some point in time in years, most trucks have acquired the 3rd brake light and a lot of trucks now don't have a side marker for turn, at least in the rear.

[mobileortho]

Good looking truck!

[6DoF]

that whole bed is sick, well played!

[nvrsatisfied]

Originally Posted by mobileortho

Good looking truck!

Originally Posted by 6DoF

that whole bed is sick, well played!

thanks. it has defiantly been a process of thinking ahead which is hard for me according to my wife..

[slammed57]

great fab work. all lookin REAL good!

[dsraven]

I would assume the lighting requirements would be a provincial or state jurisdictional law. I always like to opt for whatever gets me seen better by other drivers. Then the cool factor after that.

[nvrsatisfied]

Originally Posted by slammed57

great fab work. all lookin REAL good!

thanks. your setup is coming along nicely also

[Kevin_C]

Any updates on this build?

[nvrsatisfied]

welllllllll i guess here are some up dates, long over due. so I'll try and keep in order. and yes we are still chipping away at it but feel like the down hill slide is going.

since we raised the fenders as high as we could, it in returned raised the step. i lengthened the step which means the step bracket needed to be lengthened. once those were done i then added some length to fender(s). when said and done the truck will do a 20" in the front and a 22" in the rear. i'm trying to be able to run a good tire on it since we have such lovely paved roads in oklahoma

[nvrsatisfied]

we got her mocked up and ready to get some sun on it and see how good she'll sit. not looking to bad! overall about 9" of lift, so it should still have decent ground clearance..

[nvrsatisfied]

next she was moved into the booth for the first layer of high build primer....TAMCO HP-5311 DTM is what we like to use. it blocks off easy and is easy to show the low spots. i think with setup we did two stages of primer on everything, using a combination of Big Kid blocks, Linear and basic foam blocks until we get it to hash out as nice and flat as we can.

[nvrsatisfied]

and then it was ready for color. the base color is Tropical Glitz "Abyss Black". this is one of the blackest blacks you can get, no browns or blues are used. Colt went in and applied 3 layers of it to give it a good dark cover. then 7 coats of Tropical Glitz "Lucious Green" was applied to give us the green tint we were looking for. the Green is basically a candy coat. the lesser you apply the more black it'll look in our case, the more you apply the greener the truck looks. i think we nailed the color, you have to see it in person to really see how this thing flops through a variety of greens and black! i wanted to break up the amount of green so i wanted a two tone of gray applied to the back of the cab, we also did the visor and engine bay in the gray (Nissan Precision Gray).

[nvrsatisfied]

what you see here is a clear laid with NO CUT AND POLISH PROCESS YET. i forgot to mention we use TAMCO clear HC-4100 Glamour Clear. overall truck has roughly 4-5 coats of clear. this clear does settle thick which i like cause we can knock it down and still have great coverage and depth.

so then the real fun started. once the clear cures out a little we get into more blocking. the entire truck is gone over in this process...wet block sanded in 600grt, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000. then is trizacted using wet 3000, 5000, 8000. once that process is finished out the tedious t process of polishing comes in. is it over kill, i'm sure it is, but it looks damn good when we're done.

[nvrsatisfied]

next move was into the engine bay. the ol Lt1 was yanked and our freshly overhauled 5.3 was put in. so with the motor in the Holley Terminator X harness was dropped in. the one thing i can't stand is wires, it's just my OCD thing, so wanted to build some basic covers i thought that would be simple and not over cover the motor like a few i see on the market.

[nvrsatisfied]

once those done we shot the gray on them. also to make things pretty we went with the CVF LSXM-WRAPTOR mid dressup kit. its a tight fit for sure with the electric fan so we'll see. also installed a Champion radiator CC5559-LS

[Kevin_C]

You have really turned that truck around. It looked like a nice truck until you dug into it. I'm glad you could turn it around for the customer. Great Job!

Mine goes for wiring next month while my new garage is being built.

[youngrodder]

There are a ton of hours/labor in that paint and body work. It all looks really good.

Marc

[nvrsatisfied]

Originally Posted by youngrodder

There are a ton of hours/labor in that paint and body work. It all looks really good.

Marc

thanks! and man you said it! but its the part we try and strive the most on and we learn something new on each job. a little more time on metal and bodywork goes a long way in the end. on a side note the belair we did bodywork and paint on just before this project, over the last weekend won a best belair award at a local car show in Colorado. he just decided to put it in the local show for fun. so that was cool to hear.

[nvrsatisfied]

Originally Posted by Kevin_C

You have really turned that truck around. It looked like a nice truck until you dug into it. I'm glad you could turn it around for the customer. Great Job!

Mine goes for wiring next month while my new garage is being built.

thanks! and yes originally the truck looked great, but it was the classic ol' make up on the pig. as for your wiring and i'm not knocking whoever is doing your work but when you get it back take a bit of time to look things over. i have overhauled the worse and the best a few times. I've doubled checked and have caught some of mine own mistakes. nothing worse than a pinched wire and then the worse happens. congrats on getting a shop put up, i'm spoiled and my boys are to with mine.

[6DoF]

hot damn!

[nvrsatisfied]

next up is what I've tinkered with the last few days. with the new seats being a little wider than the old ones we loss the console and a quest for cup holders has taken. i'm not sure if i like what i came up with till we get it in paint. basically just a beauty panel i bead rolled the edge to help gimmic the rolled edge of the exsiting lower dash section. then a small welded support to bolt the housing down to. the cup holder comes as a whole unit from https://watsons-streetworks.com/ they have a variety of holders that i'll find handy for other builds down the road i'm sure. this one is spring loaded, press the center and it folds out on its own, easy push back in. I'll be making a cover plate for the front of it.

[nvrsatisfied]

i will admit its not very deep, but a can, bottle water will hold no problems. i'd be a little iffy about a basic 12oz/16oz tumbler, i'll test that during a drive and taking corners. defiantly no Sonic Route 44 for us okies...

the other fix was the section under the glove box. they had a piece welded to the glove box, that matched the lower section. problem was, is when you went to open the glove box, that lower section hit the AC housing, causing it open only about 2"...pointless i thought. the tricky part is that when these glove boxes open they drop so far down. my first attempt was a push button magnet to drop my filler piece. that was scrubbed because the door dropped down to far and hit the magnet. so i filtered through some ideas and came up a bracket that is rounded. that bracket is welded to the bottom of the glove box, it then touches the back of my filler panel pushing it outward. i then have a small tab that attaches to the bottom of the glove box and slightly extends pass my filler piece. once you open the glove the small tab tips the filler plat backwards, the filler plate falls backwards out the way and is caught by the back bracket. when you shut the glove box the back bracket pushes the filler piece back into spot. stupid simple works sometimes. (i can't get the pics to rotate correctly to here, so turn your heads..)