Thought I would post a simple build log for my wife’s 1951 GMC truck. It isn’t finished and I will be posting as I go.
First a little history and some pictures on the truck. We’ve had a good year in business and I told my wife that I wanted to invest some cash into a classic car for her to “diversify” the portfolio. I have my weekend car and thought it would be cool for her to have something (that I can drive and play with, haha). She bought into the idea!
She said that she always wanted an old pickup. I started shopping around and showing her pictures and she shot down everything I showed her. She said that she didn’t want something shiny and show quality. She wanted to be able to drive it to Target or the Farmers’ Market and if someone dings the door it isn’t a big deal. She preferred something with some patina that showed its years.
It is easy to find old rusty trucks, but the last thing that I wanted was something that was going to break down all of the time. I wanted modern drivetrain and suspension with old farm truck looks. It took me a couple of months before I found “ ‘tina” on ebay. That is what my wife calls her. Short for “Patina”.
Here are a few pictures of her.
At the beginning
On the inside
What’s on the outside
A modern S-10 frame was completely stripped to the rails and an LS engine, OD trannie, modern suspension and appropriate code 504 professional frame kit were installed. Basically a new truck was built and an old body dropped on it. The body is all original steel with no rust through anywhere, only surface rust.
So my wife got her patina look and I got something that I don’t have to work on. At least I thought that was the case.
The one mistake that the builders of the truck made was that they thought that dynamat extreme was an effective heat blocker. Most of us on here know better than that. They layered the floor of the cab with it and put the carpet over it. The modern AC in the truck works well, but can’t overcome the heat from the engine and exhaust on a hot summer day. My wife doesn’t like to sweat, so something had to be done. That meant the carpet had to be torn out. The interior in the truck was brand new when we bought it, but was a leather look vinyl. We decided if we are going to gut the interior, we might as well go all leather. After interviewing a couple of local interior shops I chose a guy named Larry Bell who has done some fantastic show winning street rods as well as some high dollar interiors on custom planes and corporate jets. I am excited about the work that Larry has done so far and is about to do. He had the truck for a couple of days and has aready fabricated some custom seat frames and shaped the foam. Then he gave her back to me to work on the audio install so we can lay down wiring that he can work around for the rest of the interior work.
We tore out the carpet and dynamat. Man, dynamat is a pain to get out. If you ever have to do it, get a respirator and use some xylene. It melts the butyl and glue and you can wipe it out. Still a pain, but you are left with bare metal without having to gouge your metal with a scraper.
Next step was some primer to cover any scratches or bare metal. I needed to do that because I had chosen to put down Lizardskin ceramic paint for heat blocking. While I was at it, I also applied lizardskin’s sound deadener.
After spraying the coatings:
Some dynaliner added:
Took this pic before I realized the zapco stuff was junk:
My take on the two coatings is that the sound deadener is somewhat effective but not nearly as good as a CLD. I wasn’t looking for fantastic performance from it in any case because my intent was to put CLD over top the sound deadener and ceramic sphere coatings. The ceramic coating is extremely effective at keeping heat out of the cab. While I had it all apart I chose to put down Dynaliner to further ensure that the cabin would be as cool as possible. I started with the dynaliner that would go under the seat and Larry will finish the rest of the cab with the interior work. Some pics of the process of putting those coatings on are below. They go on with a spraygun similar to an undercoat gun. Don’t make fun of my rookie masking skills, LOL!
List of equipment:
Clarion remote mount marine HU (HU mounts under seat with controller on a cord, also is controlled via android or iPhone app.
Helix DSP
Mosconi one 130.4 x 2 amps
Morel hybrid Integra 602
Alpine SWR-T12 shallow sub
Clifford Alarm
I had originally scored what I thought was a fantastic deal on a couple of Zapco DC500.1’s and an 1100.1 but they all ended up being defective. So I scored the Mosconi amps which actually will help me to fit everything under the seat and not interfere with the seat frame.
More to come soon over the next couple of weeks.
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Originally Posted by SublimeZ
