Black Rat 55

Thought I'd post some latest pics of my pickup project plus a couple from the completed mock-up. Some of you may recognize it from my build thread on KB. For those who haven't seen it before[S, the cab is made from the doors, rear quarters and door frames from the gutted remains of my first vehicle, a 1955 Chevy pickup. The upper door frames, roof, extended firewall, lower rear bulkhead, floor, box, grille and virtually everything else is of my own creation.[
I'm using a 46 Chev front axle and 8" Ford rearend, homemade bones on front and homemade triangulated 4 link in back, on airbags front and rear. I started on this build in November and I'm getting near the finish line and gettin' real itchy to krooze!! All paint is Rustoleum (Tremclad here in the Great White North) gloss on th frame and semi-gloss on the body with 20% flat added to dull it a bit. Interior is going to be upholstered in a brown to match the milkshake colour on the tin parts.
If you guys want, I could post some earlier build pix so you don't have to go on that other site to see it, heh, heh. Lemme know....

Very nice and an original idea love it when this kind of build comes up wish I had your talent. Also dig some of those other builds that used rear quarter panels from cars for the box.D

Sweet looking truck, the cab really suits that style.

I wouldn't mind seeing a few more pics of that cab work! Very nice work.

I followed this build on another site and it is well worth looking at all the work that went into this build. What's more cool is what this truck started life as..
ZZ Rodder you are one talented guy, I plan on seeing this truck in a magazine at some point!!

I just love the inovation in this build!![cl

Nice !!!

Very Nice work! I like the flow of it! Please post some pics of the build process![cl[dr[cl

Okay, from the beginning.... Don't freak out 55 Chev lovers, the pix at the dragstrip are from 1978, I was young and these trucks were cheap, most of it was scattered to other projects, though I still kept the cab and doors. Hey, who knew the gasser look would come back ?? It was some fun ride, tunnel rammed 327, muncie 4 spd. and 4.88 geared 12 bolt, I was running mid 11's in the quarter. Tore it down to do a blower motor but ran out of bucks. About 1986 I decided to chop and section it, tube frame, Camero front sub, pro street was in then but never got it done (marraige, mortgage, etc.).

Fast forward to Oct 2009, got an inspiration to make something from the carcass and drug it home from the barn at my folks place. It was pretty much just a shell so it had nowhere to go but up !! Out comes the sawzall and chopsaw...

Glad to see you on this board! It is a nice group over here.

That's a brilliant idea! I really dig the speedo with the guages inside, great thinking.....
It's comforting to know we have years of roddable material left, heck-you could probably do something like this all the way up into the late 60's trucks!

Here's some pics of the frame. I prefer the contoured look to the frame rails instead of the typical chop and weld at an angle Z type treatment so the front horns and the rear kickup are cut from 1/8" plate capped with 1/4 x 2" flat bar. These are dovetailed into the 2x6" main rails and 2X3" rear rails. Lotsa sturdy crossmembers and a double K member in the middle, this frame is stiff ! You can jack one corner way up and no twisting. Wheelbase is 120", so I wanted it strong.
Found a nice narrow 8" ford rear in the boneyard, and a buddy gave me a 41 Chev pu axle which I trimmed and finessed to use split bones of my own design. Air bags front and rear, 890 and 560/15 Wide whites and chromies. I later changed to shorter front shocks and lowered the 32 headlites 3", they just looked too high.

I like it alot! nice work on the frame too. Looks more like a factory frame than a hand made unit. Good work! [

Those cellephane tires must have a hard time hookin'!

jfg455 said:

I like it alot! nice work on the frame too. Looks more like a factory frame than a hand made unit. Good work! [

Those cellephane tires must have a hard time hookin'!

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OH, you mean my tire condoms ? Trying to keep all the sparks, grindings and gouges off the whitewalls during the build, they only look new once.

Here's some pics of the start of the cab. I cut off the top halves of the doors and tacked the rear quarters to them, also a portion of the front doorjambs to hold the stock hinges in place. I also made new stepwells and rocker pieces so I had the doors framed on 3 sides, then added lots of bracing and the floor substructure to tie it all togther. Since I'd long ago sectioned the cab, now I had to add that 4" back in as you can see by all the welds on the rear quarters. The doors are real thick so I later sliced them vertically and took some metal out and stitched them back together.[
The cab is now some 16" narrower at the rear 24" narrower at the front. I postioned the rear header in it's new location, about 4" lower and welded it in and made a new panel below it to tie the quarters together.

From the first photos I thought it looked like a simple chop. There is really a lot of complex slicing and dicing going on here. Thanks for the photos.

Great build.

DJ3100 said:

From the first photos I thought it looked like a simple chop. There is really a lot of complex slicing and dicing going on here. Thanks for the photos.

Great build.

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Yep, I definitely got carried away on this one. Here's a few more pix showing the firewall construction. I bent some 3/4 x 3/4" box tube for the outline and welded a strip of 3/4 x 1/8" band to it to make a lip, then welded the firewall on front. Next was the windshield frame and lots of crazy bracing and measuring to get things square and even. After all that looked right, I skinned it with 18ga steel sheet. To keep it looking sorta factory, I carried the body side profile forward into the firewall.

Basically, all you used from the '55 is the door skins and a few bits here and there. Great imagination and execution. How long did it take to build it?

DJ3100 said:

Basically, all you used from the '55 is the door skins and a few bits here and there. Great imagination and execution. How long did it take to build it?

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Thanks ! Actually, I used the whole lower half of the doors so I could retain the stock hinges, started on it Oct '09, hoping to fire it up this weekend.
More pix of the roof construction - started off making the drip rails and door frames, lotsa fun with the shrinker / stretcher trying to make them match. Next, bent some pieces for the front posts then hammered out a curved piece to go over each door followed by small sections to fill the front corners. The rear panel was one of the easy pieces by comparison. To get an idea of the rear window shape, I taped a template on and trimmed it till it looked OK.

Oh man, I like everything about this thing.Great imagination and skills.

sneakysnake said:

Oh man, I like everything about this thing.Great imagination and skills.

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Hey, I like your build too, it's gonna be real kool. My wife says my ideas are the result of all the evil things I ingested before she straightened me out.[ddd

Here's some more pics of the completed roof, for the center piece I used the skin from the 55 hood, just the right curve, or at least it was before I welded it in[S... some heat shrinking to do and more hammering..... Last pic is with the door tops made and in place.
After some thought, I bucked the dash into a bunch of pieces and narrowed it and centered the instrument panel, also narrowed the glove box.[

That is actually what I had pondered doing with my truck! Had it all planned out and then I set my upper door frame on the truck and opted to go with the original roof but heavily worked over.

I must tell you that I love this build and you have inspired me to think bigger on my next build.

Excellent work!![cl

Dude, HOLY S**T!!![[dr

At first, I was gonna say yeah, that gauge behind the speedo trick is cool....Then, I kept reading and looking at more pics.

Five smilies per post is just NOT enough to show you the mad props your inginuity and fab skills deserve. Thank you so much for sharing your progress with us.

I've gotta admit I giggled when I saw the shopping bag in your cab with the "BIG RED TRIANGLE" on it. It's just SO wierd to see Canuck stuff on a primarily US site.

Wish you the best of luck getting it running this Victoria Day Weekend.

Regards,
Shea