'64 rustbucket longbed former farm truck

[Improbcat]

After the frustration with the little panel on the driver's fender, I decided to skip over to the massive frustration of fixing the passenger fender. I'm using the rust-free but badly mashed fender I picked up at the flea market, cutting out the damage and replacing it with a piece from my original passenger fender.




First I cut back all the mashed metal, then came the tedious process of fitting, trimming, fitting, trimming.








I finally got to the point where the upper portion was as close as I could get it, and I couldn't fit any further because the whole thing kept shifting. By this point I'd mis-cut part of the lower section because the whole thing would shift while I was trying to eyeball cuts. So I got the top lined up and tacked it into place. This way it is stable to trim the bottom part. I'm planning to bolt it to the grille support panel upside down on the bench so everything is held in place for me to do the final fitting & welding of the lower half.

[Improbcat]

Bolted the passenger fender & the grille support together to avoid warping the fender with my welding. Got it tacked together, but the whole bottom part is going to be ugly. Hopefully once it is together a combination of hammer work & filler can hide the worst of it. It'll still look better than the original fender no matter what I do.




Also been using filler to smooth the dings on the grille panel & grille. These pics are round 3 of filler. I'd forgotten how much I hate doing this stuff.



Sunday I decided I wanted to do something that would make the truck look better, and not just make the parts in the garage look better. So I broke out the D/A and angle grinder and stripped the passenger bedside. The truck has been repainted once, and the top coat of fawn came off with no effort, the newer primer and original paint/primer put up more of a fight though. I did manage to get it all stripped in one day.
I did find filler behind the wheel and one spot higher up in front of the wheel, but the filler was in good shape and looking at the backs of the panel it appears to be smoothing small imperfections and not massive dents, so I left it in place rather than grinding it out only to have to re-do it.



The paint did not want to come off the bedside cap for anything so I left it for now. I'll have to re-grind this whole area when I install the '50 Pontiac lights, so I'll worry about it then.




there was two spots of rot in the wheelwell, which I knew about, also found some pinhole rust in the bottom of the bedside cap. Nothing dire though.





Once it was stripped, I coated it in Masterseries anti-rust paint as we have thunderstorms predicted for this week. I'll just grind back the Masterseries when I get to he rust repair & bodywork.

[Improbcat]

Painted the grill in Ford Wimbleton White and bolted up the front end parts so I could see how they'd look. I'm happy with the look and already have some ideas for a custom grille.

[1963c-10]

Nice progress....come along good.

[Improbcat]

Haven't been working on the truck for a while due to other stuff taking up all my time & energy.
Did make a couple recent craigslist scores though. Bought 4 of the later 6-lug wheels that fit over disc brakes for $40 and found 2 3-speed overdrive transmissions for $125. The overdrives are the long-tailshaft type and were supposedly from '55-'57 sedans, but for the price I can't complain.

[Improbcat]

And this is why I got nothing done on the truck for a couple months:


However I have managed to snag a few new pieces. Hopefully I'll actually have time to install them this year...

New grille center trim. I have no idea what this came off of, but it looks perfect here(Ignore the temporary zip ties until I can take the grille off and drill mounting holes).


Rust-free tailgate & bed parts, cut from a bashed-up early bed that had been turned into a trailer. It came from Cali 16 years ago, then sat in storage filled with junk since then. Sadly as a bed it was destroyed enough to be worthless, but as a source of patch panels it was amazing.

[jmabx]

That grille center matches the lines of the GMC grille perfectly. Looks good. And nice score on the trailer. Hard to find good used parts in this area.

[Improbcat]

After a lot of interruptions including a motorcycle accident that left with a broken collar bone, I am back to working on the truck some.

I picked up a '250 that was rebuild 18K miles ago, in 1998(truck was parked due to frame rot). I'd bought it just before the crash, but only just got clearance from my doctor to do heavy lifting and was able to get it home.

I knew it needed a water pump, but I will also being putting a new clutch kit & flywheel on it. and regasketing everything.

It'll be going in along with the 3-speed overdrive, a front suspension rebuild, and 6-lug disc brakes on drop spindles. `

Right now I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row so the front end is blown apart for as little time as possible.

[jmabx]

What year truck did the engine come out of? Curious because of the 3 groove pulleys and the funny looking distributor.

Glad to hear your injuries from the accident weren't more serious and you're healing up. Not that a broken collar bone isn't bad enough. My uncle was seriously injured in an accident and a coworker died in one. Motorcycle accidents can be frightening.

[Improbcat]

Originally Posted by jmabx

What year truck did the engine come out of? Curious because of the 3 groove pulleys and the funny looking distributor.

The engine came out of a '66 but the distributor isn't original, and the truck had been upgraded with power steering(seller kept that setup). The carb/air cleaner setup also isn't original and was put on to clear the power brake booster.

Thanks for the good thoughts on the crash.

[TwoFiftyShifter]

Dang I didn't know anyone else besides me who wrenched on old trucks and played videogames AND was good at wrecking motorcycles!

Nice metal work.

[Improbcat]

Originally Posted by TwoFiftyShifter

Dang I didn't know anyone else besides me who wrenched on old trucks and played videogames AND was good at wrecking motorcycles!

Nice metal work.

Thanks! Yeah, my interests are all over the map.

[Improbcat]

I bought something dumb this week. It is a utility trailer made from the back half of a 1950s Bell Systems utility truck. Based on the one hubcap it might have been an International chassis.



I paid all of $150 for it, and the guy is delivering it to my house. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, but if nothing else it’ll be good for annoying my neighbors.



It needs new tires, to be rewired, a lot of cleaning, not a small amount of rust repair, and a coat of paint. It might end up painted like a Vault-Tec vehicle, or restored to the original color. This is what they once looked like.