1950 3100 Truck Project

[shadams]

Well, long story short I bought a 50 pickup and I am going to tear it down to the bones and start over. I bought it as a "running, driving, vehicle, well except for suspension" and got the "chorizo" as they would say down here in S. Texas. But I am past that now and want to concentrate on the truck and what needs to be done.

Anyway, supposed Camaro clip, 350 with turbo 350 transmission. 10 bolt rear end with who knows what goin on inside. Rust in usual spots but not too bad, easy fix as far as I can tell. Bed wood is toast, new glass with new rubbers, tinted except corner windows, spray painted primer so it looks better which half of it washed off when I power washed it. So here we go....

Here is a shot of my buddy and I putting the hood on after the wrecker dropped it off at the shop where I work. If you look in the background you can see my 49 on the trailer, I was supposed to trade it off for this truck and cash, but I wasnt going to give it up after seeing this one up close, so we made a deal and now I have two of them.......great....the 49 is for sale BTW.




BTW, another sleezeball salesman trick, the hood didnt line up for squat, so he left it unbolted and said it was so you could lift it off to work on it easier. Fits really well when it isnt bolted on...



So from here it goes to the wash bay and all hell breaks loose. I decide it is more work then I was told so I call the wrecker back to go ahead and take it to the house, full teardown needed. Here it is sitting in my garage, with the hood bolted on, so you can now see what I saw after I bolted it all up. Why is it crooked you say? Minor adjustment? I'll get to that in a minute.



So, first things first, I clean out the inside, vacuum all the dust/rust out, and find the back of the cab had previously been undercoated and was falling off. A scraper and a couple hours later and it looks better. Now, before looking at this, keep an open mind. It looks terrible now, but just give me some time, also this is at night with a flood light so it looks worse then it really is...btw, this is a semi before shot, I didnt take any after shots because honestly it doesnt look much different.



Floor board will need some attention....BTW, the doucheI bought it from had glued jute padding over it in the hopes I wouldnt think anything was wrong. I did peel it back and saw this, but whatever. Again, a "during cleanup" shot.



Something else, the kick panels had carboard pieces over the, once removed one side was rust central and the other was bondo-ville. GRRRRR! My fault though for not being more thourough. Cant trust anyone these days....

Dash is pretty dang nice though...steering column and wheel suck though, and nothing worked.



Earlier you may have noticed the gas tank was out. Well it is chuck full of rust. I will be shit canning it and going with a rear fram mounted unit. I hear a nova tank works great.



So I decided it was time to stop jerkin with the inside and get to work on the drive train and chassis. I mentioned it had no suspension, well, really it has no coil springs or shocks in the front. Supposedly the guy had air bags, but I see no evidence of that at all, luckily it looks unmolested so I can go back to regular coil springs.

Anyway, here is an engine shot, and then a front end off shot.





Can anyone ID this clip from this picture? If not, I will have more.

So I have since torn out all the wiring, all the rubber hoses, all the fuel line and trans cooler lines, and got it ready for removal. I will take the engine, trans (which BTW is a turbo 400, not a turbo 350) and rear axle to my shop for inspection/cleaning/rework if needed, etc. I still need to firgure out what to do with the back end suspension, but that will have to wait a bit.

OK, so back to the hood issue. As it turns out, they totally half assed this clip install. It appears to be welded to the frame ok, but look at this...



This notch, or whatever you want to call it, and three bolts on either fender to the cab were all that was holding the front end on the truck. It was literally just resting on these notches. I sharted. On the positive side, a little nudge would have fixed the hood alignment. I dont even know what to do about this. What is the "right" way this is supposed to attach? I am sure I'll figure something out, but any ideas are appreciated.

I have more pics, but its getting late. Any and all feedback is welcome, positive and motivational is prefferred, but hey, this is a forum, right...See you guys later.