[Graham57a]

I don't think I ever documented my game plan for this truck, so here it goes:

Most of the sheet metal on this truck has either a dent or minor rust. My plan is to pull the truck in the garage at the end of summer and pull the bed and the front wrap off. I am going to go through each panel with a fine toothed comb and tap out all of the dents that I can, fix all of the rust that I can, and neutralize what I can't. I have a pretty good paint match that I am going to use to blend all of the new sheet metal. So far I know I am going to have to replace inner and outer rockers, possibly the drivers cab corner, kick panel on the drivers side (pass is solid), small spot on the drivers side firewall, rf fender cup and behind the wheel well, front hood edge under the trim, and a handful of spots in the bed.

While I have the sheet metal off I am going to swap out the original 3 speed trans with a factory 3 speed electric overdrive trans that I kept from an old 68 I had. I am going to go through the motor top to bottom and replace what needs to be replaced and freshen it up to the point of drivability. I am going to repaint the engine, probably powdercoat the core support, I have factory inner fenders that are perfect that are already powdercoated, hopefully leave the firewall original paint, and leave the insides of the fenders original paint.

I am going to leave the interior pretty stock, it has all of the original pieces and it really hasn't been touched. Radio delete, correct glovebox door and instrument cluster paint matched, cigarette lighter delete, black heater control, pretty standard. I will obviously put a carpet kit in, new dash pad, clean everything up and make sure all the gauges work. I have a set of buddy bucket seats that I am contemplating throwing in it, my only reservation is the cost of having them reupholstered.

So in summary, from the outside it will look like a very factory hopefully survivor truck with OG paint, zero rust, factory steel wheels with gmc caps, and a touch of patina. Under the hood it will look new but factory, and the interior will look new but factory.

The only piece I am undecided about is the bed.. I have a fair amount of rot on the inside edges of the bed floor, I was thinking about getting a new bed floor and just cutting out the bad metal and breaking a new 90 degree flange on the inner bedsides essentially doing a bed floor raise until I got clean metal. But then once I do that I would have to put spacers between the crossmembers and the frame rails to bring everything up to the correct height. Has anyone dealt with this before? Just curious what other ideas you guys have.