Longbike 57 chevy truck build.

[longbike]

Got the right side all welded in place and the front fender mount back in place.

After I lowered the rear cab corner everything fell into place. I know now not to start with the cab corners, need to start from hinge pockets and work from front to rear and do cab corners last.

[longbike]

Here I made up a couple door hinge cage nuts for the upper hinges and just drilled a 1/8th inch hole in body to weld and hold in place, worked out great!

[drivea55]

Great job so far!!!

Keep up the good work!

Brian

[longbike]

This a model A truck that we restored at work, its used for parades.
and the other unit is a track Derrick used for drilling and setting utilities poles in remote areas.

Just something of interest.

[bensimmons_05]

The patch panels look great! im hoping to be at that point in a week or two. Is there any way you can take some close ups of the areas I circled in this pic. It would help me out a bunch. Can't wait to see more.

[Kim57]

Looking good longbike.
Kim

[oldman3]

You are doing some nice repair work, keep posting. Jim

[longbike]

Thanks fellows, I hope Im doing it right!

[Green 1959]

Looks great!!! It would be awesome with four eyes, just tossing that out there..... When are you expecting to have it road worthy? Or are you just playing it by ear?
Also where did you get the corners where the lower fender mounts? I had to make mine.

[longbike]

Hey Green, Thanks! I can see just fine with 2 eyes Ha! Ha!
I hope to have her on the road this year but the pocket book may say other, you know how that goes these parts for these old trucks are not cheap!

I got those corners from http://www.classicparts.com/Patch-Pa...oducts/153/2/0

Just scroll around there and you will find more.

[dicer]

Wow, looking good. And somewhat stock. And nice body work too. Those rear corners as bought are lacking some in that radiused area as far as being the same as whats on the truck aren't they? I have the same type as well.

Oh the engine color is supposed to be grey not blue, the cars engines were blue. And from whats on my original 58 the under hood paint has about 30% gloss, it seems alot of resto's have it too flat.
I commend you for not cutting up the frame and setting it on the ground.

If your going to paint it someother original type color get a new data plate and stamp the new paint code on it.

[longbike]

Thanks dicer, you know I looked and looked for the engine color that year and 50% said grey and the other 50% said blue no one seemed to really know and I have a sales flyer and it shows blue for engine but its a drawling in color.
So I just went with what I liked and that was blue.

On the ground is neat but just not my style personaly!

[Russell Ashley]

Nice work you have going on there. Are you aware that the upper hinge top bolt never had a captive nut there? It certainly won't hurt to have it but I was wondering if you thought it originally had one? Dicer might not like it since it isn't stock, LOL. (Just raggin' you a little , Dicer).

[Green 1959]

Yeah I hear you!!! At least we don't have the 67-72 trucks my dad has one and parts for it are kinda crazy, these are less it just seems that we need more...

[dicer]

Originally Posted by Russell Ashley

Nice work you have going on there. Are you aware that the upper hinge top bolt never had a captive nut there? It certainly won't hurt to have it but I was wondering if you thought it originally had one? Dicer might not like it since it isn't stock, LOL. (Just raggin' you a little , Dicer).

Wow good catch, I missed that one. Yeah its ruined now.


Yeah I guess the engine color is a grey area, I just know the paint never stayed on long enough in the old days to know what color it was.

I have run across some info that pointed out that truck engines were mostly painted grey. The only ones that know for sure would be people that assembled them back then.


http://images.google.com/hosted/life...bm%3Disch0,494

Heres some pics of factory engines, that don't look blue, maybe just bad light.

[longbike]

Ya I know that nut wasnt stock but it will help for assembly and no one will ever see it back there!

dicer,
Those are very cool photos but if you look on the side at other photos you can see blue 6cyl engines. Well they look blue to me so once again who knows? Wish I could talk to someone who built these trucks back in the day if he were still to remember!
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...1cdd7756b52211

[longbike]

Here is a interesting site dicer your 58 235cid engine color is suppost to be blue and my 57 is green wow! now what?

http://www.oldchevytrucks.com/blog/2.../engine-paint/

[dicer]

Thats a 261 thats green. For both 1958 and 1959 the color is gray, it says.
57 Wow, I don't think I ever remember seeing yellow or green??

This is why factory stock is fun, its real difficult to mimick what they did and the colors sheen, etc. Yeah there is lots of room for improvement on these trucks. Too bad some of us didn't work at the Task force engineering center in that day, hmm well maybe best we didn't, as we would all be in our 80's now.

[longbike]

Can you body guys tell me is it ok to apply body filler to a primed surface or is it best to apply to bare metal?

[Green 1959]

I try to keep bondo to bear metal and glazing pudding to any primed surface. And I only use bondo for areas bigger than a golf ball.

[dicer]

I have heard its an okay deal to body filler over epoxy primer, but has to be done in the repaint window of the primer. So that makes it best to just do it over the metal.
Yeah live and learn about those patch panels, I haven't done my corners yet, but I was planning on cutting the patch panel and leave as much as I can on the original cab material. Also that radius at the rear of the cab where the crease in the patch panel doesn't even come close to the original factory crease, I will leave that area and find a spot that matches better. Patch panels aren't perfect but sure better than nothin.

This is my favorite build on this site. I like how your trying to maintain factory stock, and good work.

[longbike]

Thanks guys for your help! And thanks dicer!
I got the other side all welded up and allmost the drivers side floor in. I have to get the photos!

[Kabwe]

Hey Jeff, I appreciate the compliments, but judging by this thread you are doing a fine job and don't need any help from me. Keep up the good work and stay motivated.

[dicer]

I was looking at the pictures at the start of this thread again. When you get ready to do your steering colum, I'd add the nice turn signal switch rather than what was on it.
I guess turn signals were an option then so if you wanted them it was in the form of that add on unit. From the factory option was the die cast slip on that matches the steering column.

[longbike]

bensimmonds,
Sorry I took so long to post these pics but i hope this is good for you!