True Blue

I've decided to follow my kids and my baby brothers (...Baby... he's in his mid 40's) lead and enter into the 21st century with a blog page. Back about 10-12 years ago I used to write all of you on a near weekly basis, even though most of you never wrote back. Well, here's the 21st Century version of those letter, enjoy. So for any of you reading out there, this is dedicated to my "family" and is meant for all of my extended family. Those of you related by blood and those of you who are related by fellowship. I don't know why, but sometimes these are closer relationships than some family members. At any rate, here's to all my "Kith and Kin!"

For those of you who know me, you know that my Dad, HallaWeSheMo, in his own words, was a builder of beautiful bodies. To him this meant two things, his kids and his cars. We weren't always sure which took precedence, but we always knew we were in the top two (... not quite true, but sometimes we wondered if we weren't #2). For many, many years I have wanted to take a vehicle and restore it from the ground up, much like Dad did. Some how or other life always got in the way. Well, I'm at the cusp of achieving that goal. A lot of credit goes to the love of my life for allowing me to redirect household dollars that I'm sure she would have rather seen go elsewhere; and a fair amount of credit goes to my #3 son, Hy, who found the vehicle that became the start of this project. This has been just about two years in the making and now looks like it will make its debut in the next week to 10 days.

The first year was mainly spent in dreaming about it. Hy found my 59 Chevy Apache pickup, I bought it, and it sat for a year or more. I finally drove to Kansas and brought it back here to Arizona this time last year. My plan was to get it drivable and then slowly fix this, then that, and spread the expense across several years. My original plan was first the drive train, then the brakes, then the interior, then maybe some suspension work, and finally the body.

So much for the plans of "mice and men." First the I discovered that the clutch was worn out and needed replacing. I really wanted an auto transmission any way, so I decided to convert to the automatic transmission that had originally came with the 1967 327 cubic inch high performance Corvette engine that was in the truck when I bought it. Then I discovered that the Chevy 350 automatic transmission had rusted over the years and needed a complete rebuild.

Next, the carburetor died, and while repairing the carburetor I discovered the manifold had a crack and needed replacing.

The brakes were plenty soft so decided to have them adjusted. Then right after I had the old shoe style brakes adjusted I discovered that the brake cylinder need replacing when the brakes failed while going around a curve in traffic. So I decided that while I was working on the brakes to give them an upgrade to disc-power brakes. While doing this I discovered that the passenger side front end hub's inner race was shot, naturally we couldn't find a replacement, and that the new power brake module interfered with the front end steering. That lead to completely replacing the front end with a new rack and pinion power steering.

This lead to removal of the transmission and engine again. In the process the old exhaust manifold suffered some damage leading to replacement of the exhaust system (exhaust manifold, pipes, muffler, and tail pipe extensions).

As it moved along I discovered that I now had to buy 5 hole rims for the front end to accommodate the new front ends axle, while retaining the older 6 hole rims in use on the rear end,

I had already ordered an antique car air conditioner conversion when I bought the truck. So while it was all torn up I had them install the air. In the process we learned that entire water pump assembly and fan set up had to be replaced to accommodate the air conditioner conversion.

When I bought the truck about 1/2 of the wind shield wiper assembly was missing. Matching parts became a real pain, so I replaced the whole system to get to a standardized repairable wind shield wiper assembly.

Next it was time to get the truck painted. I contracted for a "off-frame" painting. Basically they take the body parts apart, restore any small ding/dent, paint it and then the truck is reassembled. One step in this process is removable of the wooden pickup bed. My highly skilled staff of mechanics decided to use a torch to cut off the rusted bolt & nuts that assembled the bed. Their intent was to simply replace the rusted bolts and nuts with new material upon reassembly. The only problem being that the process burned holes in the wooden slats of the bed. The only available solutions to replace the old wooden bed with a new one.

I also had a problem with the bench seat in the cab. The one that came with the truck was not stock, and it didn't fit. After searching for 15 months I finally had to buy a 58 Chevy Apache just to get the Bench Seat. That cost me $700, but I was able to sale what was left for $400. But of course the seat out of the 58 was worn out and need to be restored/reupholstered.

When my mechanics got the truck back from the painter and went to reassemble the dash board we discovered that instrument panel/gauges were inoperable, and that the wiring harness was old and brittle. So much so that it was unusable. In lieu of replacing the old gauges I chose to upgrade to a new digital instrument panel. It was only $50 more than replacing the original with an after market instrument panel. And of course I had to buy an entire wiring harness to replace the old brittle one.

Well, we're getting close. I expect to get the truck back from the mechanics this week. The only thing left is to replace all of the glass and the weather stripping in the driver and passenger doors. Hopefully sometime this month. Wish me luck, here's some pictures I took along the way. Enjoy, I know I will.

XOXOXO,

HallaKeySheMo