49 GMC Five Window

[e015475]

1949 GMC Build Thread

The Obligatory Background Story

I bought this truck a couple of years ago in Quartzite, Arizona, a wide spot in the road near the Arizona-California border along I10. It’d spent most of its life in Blythe California, a desert town. The cab and the hood were sitting on the ground in a yard. The seller had disassembled the truck and had modified the chassis to accept the front and rear suspension from a C10 when he decided to move and the project stalled.





I had the cab and sheet metal blasted to see what I had to work with.

I knew the heater leaked and took out the floor on the passenger side, but after the cab was blasted there were holes in both the door pillars and one of the cab corners. Despite coming from a very dry place, there was a lot of dust and dirt accumulated in the pockets and it held moisture in and allowed rust.



I painted the sheet metal as quickly as I could with Southern Polyurethane epoxy to keep it from rusting
This truck was a basket case when I bought it and I had this nostalgic idea of a hot rod pickup like I’d seen in high school fifty years ago. I’d learned to drive in an Advanced Design truck too.

The C10 suspension seemed like it was going to be too wide without narrowing the cross member, so I sold all the C10 suspension components. I’ve always been attracted to British cars, and I has just sold my Jaguar XJS with a LS motor for the seed money to start the truck project. I had read of folks using the Jag IFS on old trucks and it had the right width. A local chassis shop, Industrial Chassis, had done Buick with a Jag IRS and IFS and raved about the ride. I knew a little about rebuilding the Jag suspensions and after talking to Steve at Industrial Chassis, I decided to go that way.

I’d transplanted a 5.3 LS motor into my Jag along with a 4L60 and decided I’d do it again for the truck. I was scheming on how to get a manual transmission in the XJS before I sold it, and decided to go with a manual transmission.

I debated whether I wanted a patina truck or a nice paint job, and came down on the side of the fully restored look after looking at the trucks at the Goodguy shows in Scottsdale. I was ok with either, but after going to the Goodguy show in Scottsdale with my wife, she felt strongly that we should go with a restomod with a new paintjob. I wanted to have her on board with the project, so that’s the way we went.

I’ve been driving GM trucks for the last 45 years and frankly I’m tired of pickup truck ride quality. For this project I wanted a very plush ride, something very luxury car like, so I decided to go with airbags. The Jag front suspension was very easy to modify to accept airbags, but the Jag IRS was more of a challenge.

Next - the bodywork