Canadian Rustbucket 66

[rustbucket66]

My first posting on this site. Very cool and interesting site, I have looked at it a lot over the past year. I have my chassis finished, and the wheels on. The cab I have been welding, cutting and grinding all last winter, and have at the bodyshop right now. Replaced all 4 cab mounts, rockers innner and outer, cab corners, a bunch of the floor and firewall, and more. Didn't really think it would be that interesting to post all the rotten parts of the cab. I will post more pictures soon.

[lolife99]

Welcome.
We're going to need some more pics! Ha.

[rustbucket66]

Ok, here goes. I finally picked up my cab. That's my body man (poor soul) taking masking tape off after painting under cab. Set the cab on the chassis and new mounts. Starts getting exciting now. All kinds of things to do. I restored this truck previous in the early 80's. Long story short, won a first in World of Wheels in 83, drove it until 88, then sold it for other project. Met the fella 13 years later, and after some hagling, bought it back. Completely worn out, over 100,000 miles, and totally rusted bottom of cab. Been fixing a long time, and seeing the cab with paint on it is a big deal. At least around here.

[McMurphy]

Hello and welcome!

Are you going with white and silver for colors?

[chevyrestoguy]

Very nice! I dig the wheels! Real-deal wires from back in the day.

[rustbucket66]

Thanks. Appliance truspoke fine wires. Appliance hasn't been in business for 20 some years. I had these wheels, but were rusty. I sent them to this place in California to get new spokes and replaced aportion of the wheels on each edge. Cost me a bunch, but you can't buy a wheel like this. I know the offset is right, as they were on the truck the last time I restored it. As for the paint, it will be white with sliver in the insert, I have more pics coming.

[Slammed66]

Hey buddy!

I talked to you a few weeks ago at Scotts super trucks.

From what I see here youve got a damn nice truck coming together!!1 cant wait to see more!

[rustbucket66]

Here are the doors, have taped the old moldings on to what what it will look like. I installed a one piece glass kit and electric windows previous to taking them for paint. I think it looks much cleaner without the vent window.

[rustbucket66]

Insides of doors, installed dynamat and wont put the glass in until the doors are on. Too heavy to lift. Spent at least 25 hours on each door installing the one piece glass/ elec windows. A whole lot of grief and a ton of adjustments. Note the missing metal needed to install. Also the flat bar bracing around the hole, and rod welded inside the door across the top. There is a 3/8 rod under the outer door skin about 2 inches down and runs most the length of the door. The door loses some rigidity when you take the vent window out. I have jotted down about 20 points that the instructions don't tell you about, if anybody wants to do this, it will be helpful.

[rustbucket66]

Here are my dash pieces, the glove box door, heater control piece, and ash tray were all chrome, then I had the inserts of them painted brown to match the interior. I have an air brush artist friend and I want to have him paint the Chevy trucks ad in the next picture onto the glove box door. The ad came from a 1965 Life magazine, not sure what month. The paper was pretty rotten, so I had it laminated to save what was left. Note the red seat cover in the white truck, a fairly rare option. It reminds me of growing up on the farm, and the harvest each year. We couldn't afford 2 new trucks like the guys in the picture, but it brings back a lot of memories as a kid. I think it will make a cool glove box.

[clemdaddy]

it's great that you get another chance to bring the truck around, even better this time. dig the metallic interior color with the chrome.
keep it going... and keep the pics coming.

[jimmydean]

Wow, I love the wheels! I got some off Craigs List a month back, but they didn't fit over my disc brakes.

Welcome and great looking ride.

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by rustbucket66

Insides of doors, installed dynamat and wont put the glass in until the doors are on. Too heavy to lift. Spent at least 25 hours on each door installing the one piece glass/ elec windows. A whole lot of grief and a ton of adjustments. Note the missing metal needed to install. Also the flat bar bracing around the hole, and rod welded inside the door across the top. There is a 3/8 rod under the outer door skin about 2 inches down and runs most the length of the door. The door loses some rigidity when you take the vent window out. I have jotted down about 20 points that the instructions don't tell you about, if anybody wants to do this, it will be helpful.

Any chance you did a step by step photo log of your door glass conversion?
I ask because there is a Tips and Tricks/How To section on this site and that would be an excellent resource IMO.

I want to do this conversion, but I dont want power windows....

[rustbucket66]

I think I should take some pics of the inside of the door before I put it back together. It was a frustrating and time consuming job, and I'm sure any help I could give someone about to do it, would be appreciated. As far as doing it and having the manual crank, that would be hard. As you can probably see, the area where the window crank mounts on the door has been cut out to install the one piece glass and tracks. I think it would be harder than putting the electric units in. The piece would have to be welded back in, and attached to the new glass track somehow. The hole in my door is going to be covered with a piece of flat aluminum. I'm installing elec window switches that have the shaft for your stock window crank, and look original when you put the cover panel on. Just move the handle up or down a little bit to raise or lower the window. Very cool, I think. That way you aren't mounting some square switch somewhere that doesn't look like it belongs. Or having to fill the round hole the original shaft came out of.

[rustbucket66]

Mounted the A/C condensor, borrowed the idea from Project Vitamin C, hope he doesn't mind. His build is awesome, the guy has a lot of talent, and I like a lot of his ideas. Will be mounting an electric fan in the future, to come on when the A/C cycles. Using the cross brace across the rad support for mounting just made perfect sense, it tucks it in for good clearance in a space that is unused anyway.

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by rustbucket66

I'm installing elec window switches that have the shaft for your stock window crank, and look original when you put the cover panel on. Just move the handle up or down a little bit to raise or lower the window. Very cool, I think. That way you aren't mounting some square switch somewhere that doesn't look like it belongs. Or having to fill the round hole the original shaft came out of.

Wow yeah, that is a hella cool idea! I like that a lot.

[rustbucket66]

Put the dash, heater/ A/c contol, and ash tray in to see what I will be staring at some day. Put the 2 speed automatic column together next, and install.

[McMurphy]

Man your dash looks good!

[C@rnut001]

Your truck is looking really good. It is great to see it coming back to life from a rust bucket... Thanks for sharing your build and pictures with us.

[northern 85]

Very nice! I have been looking for a chrome dash bezel for four years now,looks great!

[rustbucket66]

Just take your existing dash trim to a plating shop, I don't think you can buy them in chrome.

[northern 85]

We did they destroyed 3 of them! Can you post a pic of your glovebox now that its back together? What color brown is that? Nice nice job!

[rustbucket66]

I didn't know they were hard to chrome plate. Hmmm. Here are some pics of the seats I got from a wrecker. Came out of a 2002 extended cab 1500 2wd. They will be reupholstered to the right color, but they had a few features I like. The seatbelts are built right into the seat itself, no holes in the cab for the upper mount. Nothing electric at all, don't see the point, once it is in the right position, it doesn't move. Has a flip up centre, so it can be a bench seat for more than 2 passengers. The console has some storage inside it also. Next, it came from a 2 wheel drive, so no big hump in the middle, and it fits the floor of my cab pretty good. The other feature I needed is that the seat flips forward to get access behind the seat. The four door trucks and suburbans don't do that, only the extended cabs, and the straight cabs. Put some dynamat also, man is that stuff expensive. Just ridiculous. Chip Foose recommends it, I love Chip, but the stuff is way over priced. I couldn't find an alternative, so I just bit the bullet.

[McMurphy]

I hear you on that Dynamat... in my case that is an expensive Want as opposed to a Need.

Your seats look great!
I had to have a bench seat in mine, it is going to be a highway hauler, and the wife likes to lie down on long road trips.
I had criteria as well, had to be a folding back for access behind the seat, and had to have head rests.

I like that almost metallic cinnamon brown you have in your cab, very nice contrast to the pure white of the exterior!

[rustbucket66]

Hung the doors yesterday, kind of exciting for me. Now I can put the glass in, and the latches and weatherstrip. Gives me a better idea of what it will look like. Still messing with the aftermarket fenders, but now I have a reference point for trying to make it fit. Looks quite different sitting inside with the vent windows gone.