65 Stepside Frame off Restoration
 

I will try to make a long story short and then get to the pictures (what we all love:metal:)

I retired last April and decided during the summer that I wanted to restore a classic. I have a 1957 Chevy Postless 4 door Belaire with a continental kit factory installed. Bought in high school and have stored it at my parents for the last 30 years. Decided I wanted to restore a truck to start learning and do a few restos before I work on my 57. It has been 20+ years since I have turned a wrench and had never welded or done sheet metal before.

I did a dumbx@x thing and bought a truck off of eBay without seeing it last fall. Was described as a project underway but not complete. What I got was a truck with zip ties holding lots of things in place including the electric fuel pump. The floorboard was suppose to have new metal in it. What they used was air duct metal and roofing paper and even shingles to patch it up.

So, I am getting to learn all kinds of new things. Have been working on it for 3-4 months and just joined this forum a couple of weeks ago. Been looking at the build threads and decided I should contribute as well.

Here is the truck when I first got it.

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First thing we did was rip the old bed out. It had the original wood in it so there was a lot of bolt cutting to get the boards out.

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Next up was to get the front fenders off and then lift off the cab.

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Cab off:

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Then pulled the motor, rear end and degreased the frame. As you can see the rear end needed to be rebuilt and the trans (turbo 400) had water in it so we sent them to our local trans guy.

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Got the frame back from a local sandblaster and it was a pretty poor job (last time I used that guy:() We then decided to move the project into my garage to do the rest.......long story on why but not worth telling.

Spent a lot of time cleaning the frame. Once we had it nice and clean we put on Eastwood's epoxy undercoating then painted it.

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Next up was to rebuild the upper and lower control arms and put on the new 2 1/2 inch drop front disc brakes.

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We then put the rear end back in (of course cleaning and coating) and then went to work on the motor. Here it is back on its wheels and with the motor semi-rebuilt (did not redo the bottom) Put in a new cam, roller rockers, lifters, rods. When I got the truck, the 350 motor had an old 283/327 intake on it that had big washers holding it down where the middle intake bolts did not align with the heads. So new intake manifold. We also had to get a new harmonic balancer (took 3 tries to finally get the right one.....learned my 350 is out of 1988 Camaro IROC). As you will see, I also got some old school aluminum valve covers and air filter. We also decided to put on power steering and have on order but not here yet a chrome alternator. Enough rambling, here are the pics:

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Next came the gas tank. My preference was to get the tank out of the cab and after looking at a number of options, just went with the rear mounted version from Classic Parts. Did have to notch the frame to avoid any clearance issues but it seemed to have turned out well.

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So now it was time to move the frame and engine to the other side of the garage and start on the cab. As you will see, there is not much good metal on the forward floorboards. The firewall needed a couple of patches and both rockers were bad. One the PO had put on a new one and used bondo to attach to the pillars:lol:.

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So the last week has been cutting out the passenger side and putting in patches and new floor board panels. As I said in my first post, I had never welded or bent metal (intentionally) before. I have bought a Lincoln 180C welder and have learned. I am getting better so give me a couple of days before I post my work. Still have more welding and grinding to do.

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Welcome to the group fellow stepside owner.

It looks like you got alot of work already behind you.

The rust repair can be a tedious job. Just take your time.

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Welcome to the forum

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Looks like your doing an awesome job! Like the clear distributor cap! Maybe when you finish this project, I could get you to help me with my project. Since you want to get into some resto jobs.
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Re: [B]65 Stepside Frame off Resto[/B]
 

Welcome aboard!
It looks like at least YOU will do this restore right!
Keep up the good work!

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We are working on replacing the floor boards on both sides. We have the passenger side done but found that the outer rocker panel seemed about 1/4 short so we held off putting it in and took apart the drivers side.

What we discovered was how much the PO cut off of the cab on the passenger side when he put on an outer rocker (very poor job). We knew he cut some of the cab but did not realize how much. So we decided to try to put some of it back in. As you can see below, its not exact but did give us a lot more strength on the cab itself and we are now able to adjust the lower cab on the passenger side to make the rocker fit much better.

I also included a picture of my pneumatic air saw. Wanted to buy a plasma cutter but after dropping $800 on my welder just could not spend $600-$800 for a plasma cutter. Picked up the air saw and it does a very nice job of cutting 16 gauge metal. Goes through blades pretty quickly but does a nice job. We did get our use out of that blade!

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Good work da bears. Looks like a good plan. Hope to see your truck at a local car show when we get our trucks done.

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Sounds great. Hoping to get mine done this summer but my daughter is getting married so not sure how much time I will have in May and June. How about you?
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We have been making progress. We had some major floor repairs to do. As you will see in the pictures, my 65 has solid floors for the first time in 10-20 years. Lots of cutting, adjusting, welding, grinding and then welding again. None of the aftermarket panels were right so we had to do the best we could. Pretty happy with how it turned out. We now have the cab on its back so we can clean up the bottom, do some welding and filling and then get it primed. Happy to be onto the next phase.

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Thanks a lot!! I am hoping that it all turns out right. More than willing to spend a few extra hours on something to see it look good.

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I repainted my cab interior and I am just about to attempt repairing the bottom of the doors. I needed patch panels for them so I bought a hobart 140 and I am getting ready for my first weld, I parked my truck in the garage 20 years ago an an just getting around to it now. I wish I remembered how much fun I had doing this before, I would of started a long time ago. It won't be done this summer but it will be on the road! Keep up the good work

dabears!

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Welcome aboard!! Very nice work and progress.

One question did you fit both doors to the rockers? If not you might want to before paint. ;) Trying to prevent some heartache.

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Its amazing how much fun it is to be in the garage/shop working on our trucks. Good luck with the patch panels. Hope the new welder works out for you. In just one month my welding has improved, went from not knowing to weld. Would recommend some practice on scrap before hitting the panel. I look at my practice pieces now and just smile at all of the holes I burned.

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Thanks. Yes, we did mount the doors and front fenders to fit the rockers while holding the outer floors in place before welding and after. I am hoping to buy some better doors from a guy in Kansas (mine are pretty bad once I got them back from the sand blaster). Will weld the rockers after I get the better doors and check them for fit.

By the way, love your build thread. One of the best I have seen.

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Yes, welcome to our world here on the forum. Keep up the good work. :metal: