Hi. Yesterday, my daughter and I bought a pretty clean 1957 3800 flat bed with inline 6 and manual transmission. I'm new to this truck, but not really new to fiddling with cars, but she is new to both, and I'm looking forward to working with her on getting it all fixed up for her to drive when she truns 16 in a year and a half. It looks like there's lots of good info in this forum, but I have a couple questions to start off with.
1. Is this pickup 6V or 12V? There's no battery in it, and I'm not sure. I want to get it started and see how it runs.
2. I read lots of magazines about car stuff (Hot Rod, Car Craft, CHP, Super Chevy, Corvette Fever -- I also own a 1973 corvette big block, etc.), what are some of people's favorite mags for reading about and working on trucks like this one?
I'm sure I'll have a few more questions as time goes on.
Some of our plans are: custom interior (bucket seats -- good for teen age girls who'll eventually be dating
), independant front suspension with disk brakes, power brakes and power steering, softer rear suspension (maybe with air bags for heavy loads), swap out the tired old 6 banger with a nice V8 and overdrive tranny (would love to do an LS1 if I can afford it), new wood for the flatbed, and other fun custom stuff as we have time and energy.
I look forward to participating in this forum.
John.