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So.
Posted an ad in CL in December looking for an old truck that someone wanted gone, got a call from a guy down the road asking if I was interested in this ole feller. Body is super rough, bed and fuel tank were missing, but the engine was "supposedly" internally sound, and the guy selling it seemed pretty trustworthy with little or nothing to gain by conning me... Picked it up, non-running, for $600 Got it back home and started seeing what I had. After some investigating, found that the graphite distributor "button" was pretty bad, replaced the distributor cap, adjusted the valves and hooked up a battery and, as of 2/24, the ole Tornado 230 will crank up! Quite a wonderful moment as I've never brought an old engine back to life...
His name is Walter. He shall be magnificent. He will most certainly confound me at times. I already love this dang truck.
It's gonna be a slow, VERY SLOW, resto-mod build. Going to try to do as much of the work as I can myself, and I'm also back in school full time at LSU for mechanical engineering (practical application of thermodynamics, whaaaaaaaaaat?!). I know a lot of guys on here are all about original specs, but I figure this truck's purpose at this point is to simply be enjoyed. So here's what I have planned:
Body work: the truck may end up being a rolling bondo container, but I want to do the patches on the body with fiberglass and bondo. I know many of you will take issue with this, and you can throw things at me through the internet. I like the idea of welding patch panels in, but I don't have a welder, don't know how to weld (although I suspect this will change the longer I own the truck) and I'm convinced I can be patient enough to do a good job with bondo-glass patches.
The floor pans are nasty. The passenger side floor pan is actually made from a "repurposed" road sign, which in all truthfulness is probably a pretty sturdy material for a floor pan. Gonna have to cut them out though, and fabricate my own and either weld (there's that w-word again) or rivet them to the existing good metal, then seal the seams and paint em up.
As of now, I'm planning on doing a metallic forest green on the outside, painting the interior metal the same color and redoing the dash some form of tan and redoing/reupholstering the interior in tan with tan custom carpets too. Did I mention there's going to be some trial and error in this?
The most glaring deficiency of this truck is its obvious lack of a bed. My girlfriend laughs at me because I told her I wanted a pickup truck. She says that I bought a truck that is incapable of doing literally the only thing that is exclusive to pickups. She may be on to something. The plan, as of now, is to pick up a fleetside bed in decent shape and cut the sides off, keeping the front and floor of it, then using wood for the sides and using Jeep fenders. The guy I bought it from had built a similar bed for a 1950 Willys pickup and I loved it. Here are some pictures. I'll try and keep this pretty updated, both for the sake of posting something I consider interesting and also so I'll document the whole process. Feel free to let me know how you feel about it. Any and all suggestions may or may not be ignored.
First got it home:
Walter (the truck) and Tuck (the old pup)
This would be the experiment in sanding/priming/chrome painting... Came out better than expected!
Posted an ad in CL in December looking for an old truck that someone wanted gone, got a call from a guy down the road asking if I was interested in this ole feller. Body is super rough, bed and fuel tank were missing, but the engine was "supposedly" internally sound, and the guy selling it seemed pretty trustworthy with little or nothing to gain by conning me... Picked it up, non-running, for $600 Got it back home and started seeing what I had. After some investigating, found that the graphite distributor "button" was pretty bad, replaced the distributor cap, adjusted the valves and hooked up a battery and, as of 2/24, the ole Tornado 230 will crank up! Quite a wonderful moment as I've never brought an old engine back to life...
His name is Walter. He shall be magnificent. He will most certainly confound me at times. I already love this dang truck.
It's gonna be a slow, VERY SLOW, resto-mod build. Going to try to do as much of the work as I can myself, and I'm also back in school full time at LSU for mechanical engineering (practical application of thermodynamics, whaaaaaaaaaat?!). I know a lot of guys on here are all about original specs, but I figure this truck's purpose at this point is to simply be enjoyed. So here's what I have planned:
Body work: the truck may end up being a rolling bondo container, but I want to do the patches on the body with fiberglass and bondo. I know many of you will take issue with this, and you can throw things at me through the internet. I like the idea of welding patch panels in, but I don't have a welder, don't know how to weld (although I suspect this will change the longer I own the truck) and I'm convinced I can be patient enough to do a good job with bondo-glass patches.
The floor pans are nasty. The passenger side floor pan is actually made from a "repurposed" road sign, which in all truthfulness is probably a pretty sturdy material for a floor pan. Gonna have to cut them out though, and fabricate my own and either weld (there's that w-word again) or rivet them to the existing good metal, then seal the seams and paint em up.
As of now, I'm planning on doing a metallic forest green on the outside, painting the interior metal the same color and redoing the dash some form of tan and redoing/reupholstering the interior in tan with tan custom carpets too. Did I mention there's going to be some trial and error in this?
The most glaring deficiency of this truck is its obvious lack of a bed. My girlfriend laughs at me because I told her I wanted a pickup truck. She says that I bought a truck that is incapable of doing literally the only thing that is exclusive to pickups. She may be on to something. The plan, as of now, is to pick up a fleetside bed in decent shape and cut the sides off, keeping the front and floor of it, then using wood for the sides and using Jeep fenders. The guy I bought it from had built a similar bed for a 1950 Willys pickup and I loved it. Here are some pictures. I'll try and keep this pretty updated, both for the sake of posting something I consider interesting and also so I'll document the whole process. Feel free to let me know how you feel about it. Any and all suggestions may or may not be ignored.
First got it home:
Walter (the truck) and Tuck (the old pup)
This would be the experiment in sanding/priming/chrome painting... Came out better than expected!
I think what I'm finding is that I'd be almost as happy being a mechanic as I would a mechanical engineer... But not quite. And the pay's a little different...
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