All the while during this process, we were getting excited so we started planning and pulling out all the parts we had for the truck. Our first idea was to make it a budget truck and just get it running as quickly as possible. Since this would be my truck, my dad gave agreed to let me use anything we had laying around for the truck. Since then, I've decided I want it to be a little nicer (basically add a new set of wheels instead of ones from the attic and an air suspension). I still want a simple driver though... So here is what we started pulling out.
Pulled out the original gauge cluster we have. It looked great and I fell in love with the superman shape. Since we built our woodie and I realized how much better original gauges look than street rod gauges like VDO makes look, I decided you can't beat the original look of cars from the 40's, 50's and 60's.
This was when I decided I wanted the original look of the truck to be kept (minus the stance and sound aka the most important things!).
The wheels I pulled down from the attic. We had a full set of them and they just needed to be shined. At the time I loved the look of Radirs and wide whites so I thought this would be a killer look. It still might be, but I won't be using them anymore. The one on the left was after we shined them up. They would have looked really nice!
them with a wide white we had just taken off our other car
The cans on the hood of the last picture are the paint we got for the engine and frame. The engine we had for this truck was a spare one we had in the shop. It's a 350 that came out of my grandpas 72 a long long time ago that my dad was smart enough to latch onto. Four bolt main and being as popular as 350's are, I don't think we could have had a better motor.
When I started to think about the truck and what I wanted the motor to look like, it had to be nostalgic. At the time I was thinking of an old hot rod shop truck and what might have been in a 55 hot rod shop truck? The first overhead valve and hot rod motor - the oldsmobile rocket. Long story short, I bought the oldsmobile valve covers for the 350 and a friend of our had an actual olds/caddy breather (not a new one) that he donated to our build. That's why I brought up the paint in the last picture. It's going to be oldsmobile green along with the frame, so that kind of dictated what color the truck will be. I'm thinking a light green right now to compliment the dark green under the hood.