The Truck That Didn't Want To Be

[Hogshooter]

Long time lurker, and have posted a few mainly in the paint and body side. Finally decided to add a build thread for this truck and find out I just have a few pics from the early stages of my ownership.

All these rides have a story and this one well its no different, just complicated. It all started with my buddy and his dad purchasing the truck at the Chickasha swap meet in about 1989, not running and very rough she had had a 4bt put in with lots of torching to the cab. Born a Cheyenne Super it was sad to see the level of neglect, almost like it should be parted out, price was cheap and they had an empty trailer so project rescue the 72 started, and the next part of this trucks journey is launched in Belton MO.

My Buddy and his dad were going to build a low, smoothed street truck on a budget, since my friend was 17 at the time he had lots of energy and not a lot of cash so as with many of these rides all the trim holes were welded along with marker lights, and a roll pan on the bed. The cab required major surgery to fit a patch from another truck into the gaping hole left by what appeared to be a oil field diesel conversion, early 4bt swapped C10, who would have thought it was a thing. As many truck builds go parts were purchased, hard labor was put in, but the finish line it was too far and the truck sat idle, far too long. Every time I would go and visit I would see her in the corner, bed on a boat trailer turned bed dolly, cab and doors stuck in the bed for tightest packaging frame painted and set out back in the weather. I always asked if they were going to finish and his dad always offered to sell me all his Chevy "junk cheap". finally in 2007 I bought the truck and 3 trucks worth of parts. I will work on more pics and catch this dude up to date, I have been putting videos on youtube at hogshooter hotrods. The truck drove a few weeks ago, but I need to tell the story and we still have a ways to go before we get to that first drive!

[Hogshooter]

So with a truck that had led such a life of hackery and been cut up, I decided to continue the trend and make the truck a short bed. Pictures are it being cut and sectioned together on a frame machine, it is held with a Chief Fast anchoring system designed for collision repair. I am lucky to have access to this type of equipment, I did an angle cut checked for height and square then welded it up, with plating on the inside to make sure it would be good for its life. I did not do a good job of taking pictures through this stage, at all.

[Low Elco]

Always enjoy a resurrection!

[Hogshooter]

So, with the frame shortened we had to shorten the bed, I had not done this before and used the "cut it in the middle" approach. I would not use this approach again as it was far too much welding through the middle of the panels, not saying you can't achieve good results, just I can do the cuts at the ends an avoid a bunch of work. At any rate this is what we did to get a short bed, I also undid the "shaving of the marker lights and cut off the roll pan. I also used the bent and rusty tail gate plus the cut off bedsides to make a cool park bench for a charity auction.

[Hogshooter]

So we got the bed primed and ready for the transformation, I put a 350/700R4 in the engine bay bought a bunch of parts and painted more parts, then we stalled out on the truck. I have several folks who wanted me to build other cars for them and the 72 just sat for like 5 yrs, one day I was looking at it and noticed the primer on the bed had cracked so that sure did not help the motivation. But from the cab forward it looked pretty good, I knew there is always hope to get one back on the road just had to make funds to send some kids to college first!

[Trucknut57]

Guess you could always finish the truck, sell it and put the money away for the college fund

[1971Stepside]

Keep at it. You have the tools, knowledge, and experience obviously. I didn't have too much of any of that when I took mine apart in 1992. It will finally be "finished" next month. I have two in college right now, so I feel ya

[Hogshooter]

Thanks for the replies, I was going to put some scanned pictures of the truck as it sat in my buddies dads shop when they were working on it in the 90's but the pdf scan is to large.

This last week was a huge development in the progress as I reworked all of the body filler on the bed and went through the primer and blocking, man was I sore after that marathon! I finished it and got the truck bed sprayed though and she is looking sharp!

I will continue to post in this thread as I have been refining some of my early work on the adjustment of panels and wiring, oh the wiring, I will not use a hacked factory harness again!