dads 59

[jared nelson]

All said and done I only have about 12 hrs into it and a good 4 hrs of that was spent on Gutting and cleaning the interior, ran out of o2 and gas for the torch and had to make a run to town (2 hr round trip) for new diamond grinder discs that was well worth the trip lol!

 

[jared nelson]

The for-mentioned pic I love of the '59 and the '86 donor truck.
step 3- slice and dice the donor!....not sure when I'll get to step 3, however you all keep posting your projects and keep me motivated!

 

[gene49]

You're doing great, having the sheet metal off of the 59 frame in 12 hours is pretty fast.

Preparing to clean off the donor frame may take a bit longer, probably more stuff you may want to reuse.

Keeping track of the hours might not be a great idea though... It could be depressing! Those hours add up a lot faster then it looks like they should have. I might suggest that you split the project into several work areas, including areas that can be done without spending much money, and areas that will be costly. Buy the parts you need for the next costly part of the project you need to do, and when the money is short, work on the things that suck up more time. When ever a part of the project id finished, forget about how long it took to get it done, move on to the next area.

Its kind of like keeping track of how much money you are spending. Do it one step at a time, and then forget how much the finished part cost you.

 

[jared nelson]

Great minds lol! I like keeping track of of my time spent because it's like keeping track of how much $$ I'm saving doing it myself also helps set a benchmark for future projects.
and yup I'm focusing on the "free" aspects of the build atm, justifying spending on my rat in winter would make my dog happy as our sleeping arrangement would be switched lol!
The donor will most definitely be more time consuming and meticulous.
However I'm having a blast so far and that's all that matters at the end of the day!

 

[gene49]

If your considering your time on the project as money saved, your going to save a fortune!

When I built my 49, I had just retired and closed my fully equipped welding shop, and I had just sold the last truck I'd built. I had time, equipment, space, money, lots of personal hands on experience, and a pair of helping hands when ever I needed it, all available uninterrupted! I could have saved some time if I would have bought some of the things I took the time to design and engineer myself, but who would want to do that if I didn't have to? Had it been a paying customer's truck, many of those things would have been purchased, but for myself, no way.

I sort of tracked the hours I had in the truck (it was the business guy inside of me's fault), before body and paint work, but I'm going to keep that to myself unless you really want to know. You may become discouraged if you have an idea how of much time it really takes to build this stuff.