progress on my 36 Chevy Truck

this is what I had to work with. pile of truck parts and a cab. 1937 cab, 35 running boards and a 36 grill shell. The doors and bed are off another truck but I don't know what year they are. because of the grill shell I'm going to title it as a 36.
I dropped my 454 in the frame and should have the mounts welded up and the tranny mount figured out today.too much engine for the truck but it should be fun. fresh 30 over 454 ,540 lift cam ,aluminum intake and a Holley will rest at the top. 350 long tail trans with a shift kit and a 3500 rpm stall. the S10 frame I used was a 4 banger so it may have a 410 rear end in it. if not I have a 410 posi out of another one i can use. after that, its time for the rest of the steering. I thought the frame would have made for an easy swap but I was wrong. the front fender hit the steering box. no way around it unless I raise the truck up 3" more or rip it all out and put in a rack & pinion. rack & pinion brackets were made and then everything was ripped apart to rattle can the frame black. don't think it will be running by turkey day. did find a guy in Ky that will cut all the glass for $250.00 may take him up on it. all the fender and rad/ mounts have already been welded in so it won't take much to get the front end looking like a truck again.

last night I took the big block & trans back out. all the mounts for the engine and front body parts are fully welded ,the notch for the steering, thru the frame are all welded up. only the best paint money can buy went on the frame.SPRAY CANS :lol: . put the engine and trans back in. adjusted my valves and put my headers on. today I should have the front sheet metal on so if everything goes right by tonight I should have a truck sitting in the garage, minus the bed.still have the floors, bed and a few other things to worry about but it's coming together.I may need some help with the steering if anyone has done it before. I used a mustang rack and I'm using a s10 column. I'm going to need some joints to get around the header.most of the time I just buy what i think will work and what doesn't I put in stock for the next time. but with the prices of these joints $$ a little help from someone thats done it would be nice. last ,I got to brag on the ol lady. Amy bought me an early Xmas gift. my windshield. a place in Hazzard Ky is cutting it for her. I was teasing her about her factory green glass in her 61. I told her I was figuring out if the side glass would fit in my truck. when the glass was ordered they were told that we wanted the solex green like her 61 chevy has in it. it will be shipped out as soon as it's done.

sanded the firewall down welded up all the holes that wasn't needed and shot some rust converter. prime and shoot it again with some gloss white

it was such a nice day out today that after eating too much turkey I thought I'd grind my whitewalls for the 36.I'm going to mini tub the rear to get the bed sides on right.rearend is too narrow.so why not put some meat on it.I got a set of 295/50R 15". they are 10" wide.

started out with a cut off disk on a grinder to take the large amount of white in the letters.then Jonathan, another member of teh Scroungers stopped over and brought me his grinder with a sandpaper disk for removing rust and paint.thanks Jonathan.

next I took a die grinder with a worn out gasket remover pad and finished up the black that was left over on the whitewall and last I took a jitter bug sander to smooth it all out.If some of my friend would see me cutting on those white letters they would have flipped lol.It got dark on me but you can see a little bit of how they turned out.with them on the truck from the side they should look like regular whitewalls but from the back you will be able to tell it has some meat on it.

the barn where the 36 was at is so big there is no way to heat it. so with the cold weather and me swamped these last few months I haven't had a chance to do much. today I had the guy that works for me stop out and we got it up on the tow dolly. I brought it to the garage behind my house and stuffed it in there. Jonathan showed up just at the right time to help push it in. she was being a pain. I have no front suspension on her so the wheels go whichever way they want to. took my son Corey, Amy, Kenny, Jonathan and me to get her in the garage. After dinner I walked outside to get a look at the 36 in it's new home. before the door shut behind me I had a hammer in my hand and was going at it. there was a dent on the top corner of the cab that has been driving me crazy. about a 10" round caved in spot right in the worse spot. little dolly work and even a big rubber mallet and it was out

while it was at the barn I did get to do some work on the bed side. I cut almost a foot off 'em. drill out the spot weld. took off the braces and rewelded them 14" futher down the bedside. the truck will have 10" wide tires on the back with stock fender in the rear so the bedside was also cut out around the wheel so the tire can sit back in the bed.(mini tub) still have to cut about 6" off the back of the frame so it's not sticking out

My early X mas gift, the windshield for my 36 took some time to have it cut and shipped. DHL ended up breaking it so I talked to the glass company on the phone they said no problem. we can cut you one and ship it out. tick tock tick tock . Today DHL comes up with the new one. the wife come out on the porch the smart punk says let me guess, he broke it. wife says NO you broke it while shipping. he looked at her funny and then shook the glass like he was going to drop it. he's lucky I wasn't out there. hard to drive with a boot up your butt! anyway I figured it was broke too. I open the box and what did I see? a very nice solex green winshield for my truck. I was like a kid in a candy store. I grabbed it out of the box rushed out in the garage and guess what.. it's cut wrong. to short and the rounded corners on the bottom are no where close. I called them and they are going to see what the deal is with their pattern.

ok. should I bang my head into the wall yet? I'm on the 3rd windshield. they cut another windshield for my truck. it showed up on the porch with not even so much as a door bell ring or a honk of the horn. remember I live in the slum part of town? ol' lady seen it before the riff raff snatched it. I open it, it's not broke, ran out to the garage put it up to the frame it's worse than the other one. now I'm ticked I go into paypal to get my money back. it says it's been to long. I have been messing with this crap since Nov/ 2006 I CAN"T GET A PAY PAL REFUND. Does anyone have a glass man that will cut the glass for this pig before I take a axe to it.
there's a ****ey's glass here local I may grab up everything I have and take it to them and see if they can do it. someone told they wouldn't mess with safety glass with the plastic in it so i never messed with em.I'll give them a try. the glass is the last thing I need. I have everything else to put it together

been out in the garage last few days cutting up some old signs for my trusty rusty. today I got the last one screwed down. some don't look that old but I put them in spots that will be covered by the tool box and the gas tank. the rusty tool box will be a battery box. I have sanded it down and tossed table salt on it for months so it would rust to the color of the body of the truck. it's getting close. tonight I should start on the framework for the floors, inside the cab.

my 454 had new chrome valve covers on it. while at the Edgewater swap meet I came across these old finned BBC valve covers. they had a $50.00 price tag on them which is cheap for these. bad thing is I didn't have much cash on me..I asked the guy if they had any cracks in them that he knew of. he looked them over with me and I was telling him I had a new set of chrome valve covers on the 36 and with the rat rod thing going on with the truck that they didn't match. he looked at me funny and said it's a rat ? yes.. so he said well these is what you have to have! make me an offer. I asked two more times trying to get him to give me a price and he kept saying you name a price. I ended up telling him 35 and he says they are yours. after a little talking I find out he has a modal A rat he working on. so I guess he understood why I wanted them. next comes the intake which is going to cost me. I want an old tunnel ram like a ridge runner or a cross ram. now you may say well I see them from time to time but when was the last time you saw one for a big block chev?
first pic is the chrome and the 2nd is the old finned valve covers. I know some of you won't get the point of taking chrome off and sticking these on. the finned covers will get glass beaded and the paint stripped off before I bolt them on

yeah I know the master looks funny too but it will be covered by a piece of aluminum or set down in the frame where you can't see it. just haven't made up my mind yet

tonight I messed with the truck for a bit. the floor of the bed had to come back out to do some work on the frame and some other stuff. I did the last of the welding for the bed, break lines in the back are done and I shot the welds I did tonight with a little paint. I also managed to figure out what size bolts and nuts I needed for the shocks. tomorrow I will stop up at sears and grab some grade 8 bolts for them and get the shocks on the rear. I will then be able to sit the floor of the bed back in for the final time. I know the truck is rusty but I shot the frame in hi gloss black. I couldn't believe how dirty it was since I shot it. Corey helped me out on that and cleaned the frame all up while the floor was out. yeah, I know you can't see it but I knew it was dirty lol. while he was cleaning on the frame I was taking some of the paint off the fin part of my new valve covers. still a long way to go but I'm going to hit it hard after Cinematics.

got the shocks on and did some more trimming on the floor of the bed(just in case a wide set of pie cut slicks find their way on it) got the bed floor back in and started on my tail lights

so what do ya do with a few extra baby Hemi pistons and rods?

not a good pic but you get the idea. still have to wire them up but that will come later.

I figured I'd give myself a break on the 34 Dodge and do a few things to the old 36. I spent two day fabbing up a trans support. looks like it would have been easy but with the headers and the tight spots it will take another day to get it the way I want it, it's looking pretty good though. also I was tired of seeing all the trailer queens with the little note on the running board "please don't stand" whats a running board for if you can't stand on it. I made some mounts and welded 2x2 off the frame and some angle iron down the length of it. I was jumping up and down on it and it didn't budge. here's Aryan standing on it. he helped out in the garage all day today. he's claimed the truck for himself.

I also brought the pipe bender from the other garage. I can bend the tubing around the rounded cab corner on the inside. after I get it figured out I can weld in the floors.

some of the guys from the club stopped over to help me get the truck turned around in the garage . without a frontend the tires go where they want to. with the truck turned around I can do the work driver side and the front end. thanks guys for your help.

I only had about an hour to work on the truck tonight. I tried to do something that would be usefull for an hours work. I ended up putting the latches on the doors that I bought off ebay. some of you know but for the ones that don't this thing didn't have anything bolted together. anything that could be unbolted, was. a lot of small things were missing. I have been collecting small parts for a year trying to find everything. I won the bid on the hinges and when they came they were already sand blasted and ready to paint. I toss on some red spray can primer before I bolted them on. they look rough in the pic but they are very nice, work great and now the doors doesn't fly open every time someone bumps the truck. the doors are as tight as a new Cadi too.

again I only had about an hour to work on the truck so I went to Sears and bought some fine thread bolts for the headlight bars. this truck is made up of 35, 36 and 37 body parts. I'm starting to see some small differences in things like having to drill new hole in the grille shell for the headlight bars. no biggie but it's funny how one year can make things different. it's starting to look more like a truck though. I didn't want to open the garage door so these will have to do for now.