F1 Project

[FormTA]

Unfortunately I plan to paint it and then stuck that tar ish aluminum backed sound deadening mats and then make a custom carpet for it. I'd like to leave it but I plan to drive this quiet a bit so I want it to be comfortable.

[FormTA]

Still banging away on this project. Been busy all winter with snowmobiling. We finally got a snowy winter in Michigan (I trailer from Ohio to Northern lower Michigan, around the Gaylord area) I put almost 1400 miles on my sled this year.

Anyway.  I have been working on patching the fenders and other front end panels just enough to bolt them together so I can locate the cab in the right spot to make body mounts.

In doing this I'm finding that, yes I can fix them but they will take many, many hours of work to be paint ready. If I was leaving it as is with the petina, they would be fine. My wife hates petina vehicles and insists it gets paint. I finally decided that my time is more valuable and broke down and order AMD fenders and lower panels. At a cost of almost 2k for the few pieces it was a tough decision.

What did it for me was when working on them and seeing all the rust on the inside of the panels and all the dents that needed fixed. Even if I did get them straight enough, there is just so much surface rust that I know would eventually come back and ruin a paint job.

Plus judging by how much time I have into just making them mountable I would have months of time ahead of me just in 2 fenders.

The good news is I have really learned a lot and gained so much metal working techniques doing what I've done so far. I still have two horrible doors to fix and a beat up hood to tackle. Also the new fenders will compliment the new bed and rear fenders.

Here is how it sits today. Still on the junk test frame. I cleaned out all the pictures from my phone because I ran out of storage so this is all I have. I did have some pretty intricate panels that I made using the English wheel, bead roller, brake and other hand tools. But unfortunately those got move to a thumb drive somewhere.

[ryeguy2006a]

Glad to see you plugging away. This is a cool project.

[roadking77]

Paying that kind of money is a hard hit, but you will most likely be the better for it in the long run. Although you are not paying yourself to do the job, your time is very valuable.

[5th T/A]

I got to give you credit Luke; you are a very ambitious person. Especially since you got multiple projects going on at the same time. I am always envious of people who have metal and body working skills. I know the patina look is popular right now, I agree with your wife on having a nice paint job.

[roadking77]

A lot of the guys in the AACA are starting to go with the leave it original finish. Mainly because the cost of a paint job has gotten out of hand. I dont mind that look for a lot of cars. Even your truck would look fine. I think there are some cars like a grand ole Packard that needs to have a nice shiny paint job. Either way your truck will stand out when its finished.

[N PRGRES]

MY TA will shine but she has alot of paint chips and such.  I would love to repaint it, however as mentioned, the cost is insane now, well beyond my budget, especially for a good paint joob.  So she will have the survivor look probably for quite sometime if not forever.

[FormTA]

I've been working on yhe doors for those truck and been trying to decide what to do with the door latches. These old 40s and 50s cars use latches like you house door. If the jam gets out of whack at all be it a harsh bump or an accident, thw doors pop open. It's also very tough to close them and the latches don't catch very well as they wear quite quickly.

The idea of figuring out how to use the latches from the 2002 S10 doors has been rolling around in my head for a year or so. I finally went out and got one of the doors from the donor truck and cut the latche from it and pulled all of the parts out of the door.

The latch is a really nice compact unit but still quickly became obvious that it wouldn't fit, or at least it couldn't make the turn around the window track to get in place. So I went back to trying to clean up the old 1949 latches.... After a while of working on them, I just couldn't do it, they are so rustic and just plain crude. No matter how much improvement I make to them, they are still horrible.

So I went back to the S10 latches.... I found that there is enough room (barly though) but they would have to be mounted from the outside. Basically cut a hole, put them in and then bolt a plate over them. I thought that was crude so I went online to see I'd someone made an upgraded latch. I found one company that does and they do it exactly as I described above.... and cost 500-600 dollars.

So for the past few weeks I have been working on building a bolt in plate and brackets, springs, rods and thing to make the original door levers operate the new s10 latches. I also created parts to make the locks function.  This truck didn't have locks except on the driver/curb side. The lock also only functioned from outside. I am creating a lock handle and going to CNC them from aluminum at work too.

I have a junk door that I cut holes in it so I could measure for rods and brackets. I have the latch and locks functioning on this test door and I'm working on a mirror image of parts for the other side right now. This should be a great operating door when finally on the truck.

The red plate is what I made to bolt to the door. I did save the hardened backing plate from the s10 behind it. May not be as strong as it was in the s10 door but stronger than the latch and plates that were originally in the 49 door.


I cut the hole below the outside lever too big to install the lock. But I test fit it and it functions.

[roadking77]

Nice fabrication work. I like that you have to think outside of the box. This is a good example of how guys get so deep into a project financially. Imagine if you were paying a shop to figure all of that out
Heres a pic of my grandfather beside his new truck!
2021-01-15_10-04-44 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr

[FormTA]

That's a cool picture!

[ryeguy2006a]

Agreed, nice fabrication work!

[N PRGRES]

The phone number on the door is pretty wild.