ATTACHING THE BODY TO THE NEWER CHASSIS

Okay, so this is where the FUN starts.

Big airplane hangar to play in.

Big forklifts to drop the body parts on the chassis (Is this a Stephen King novel? lol).

Big-time sweating and swearing till we got ‘er done.

It all started here . . . 1950 Chevy 3100 Vintage Truck Restore/Rebuild_1: Committing to the Project. By now, we’ve advanced considerably in the project.

This is the third update on the progress of our 1950 Chevy 3100 restoration and rebuild, reflecting one of our more active days, just before summer got cranking in Arizona. So much has happened in the last several months, enough that writing about it has become a luxury. But I’m here to make amends and keep on keeping on.

We’ve been so lucky to have an aircraft junkyard at our disposal–a large work space where we could tackle the tougher elements of our build, however long it took, and where we could have access to industrial-grade lift equipment to make our lives easier.

On this part of the build, we’re pulling the cab and truck bed from the old, original 1950 Chevy 3100 chassis and attaching them to the 1989 Chevy S10 chassis that’s been reworked and prepped for this build.

BUT FIRST . . . ONE LAST DRIVE IN THE OLD TRUCK BEFORE SHE GETS A MAKEOVER:

AND NOW TO STRIP HER OF ANY UNNECESSARY BODY PARTS BEFORE HEADING TO THE AIRCRAFT JUNKYARD:

ONE LAST TIME LISTENING TO HER OLD ENGINE RUN; NOT BAD FOR A 66-YEAR-OLD ENGINE! . . .

TIME TO REMOVE THE CAB AND BED FROM THE ORIGINAL CHASSIS, WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM TEREX :

Chevy 3100 pick-up truck, restoration, rebuild, restore, built from scratch, body, old chassis, new chassis, Teardrop Adventures, teardrop trailers

We lifted this off ourselves.

TEREX does the trick in getting the cab removed!

Cab removed. That old 1950 chassis served her owners well.

Somebody came by that very morning, bought the old chassis from us, and carted it away. Bye bye, now!

A LOT OF MEASURING, A TON OF FINESSING, AND AMPLE PREP-WORK TO CREATE SUPPORTS NECESSARY AND GET ‘EM WELDED IN THE RIGHT PLACES:

IRONMAN RETURNS:

THE MOMENT WE HAD BEEN WAITING FOR, LOWERING THE CAB AND BED ONTO THE NEWER CHASSIS:

The newer chassis, ready to go.

We easily lifted the bed by ourselves onto the chassis.

Placement of the cab, however, required TEREX again.

Mark at the controls of TEREX. Men and their toys. 😉

Pays to have the right machinery. 🙂

Right tool for the right job.

SUCCESS! SHE’S BACK TOGETHER AGAIN . . .

But on a chassis that will be able to handle the spacing and structure necessary for our upgraded brakes, suspension, engine, safety, and convenience requirements:

This part of the project–transporting the truck to the junkyard, stripping her body from the previous chassis, prepping the newer chassis, and dropping the body onto the new chassis–took an entire day, start to finish.

Our truck is looking great (check out the optical illusion of her bed already filled up with rakes and shovels . . .

but she’ll have to stay another day at the junkyard, so Mark can tackle attaching the engine and transmission. This part of the project I won’t be much help with. But as always, I have every confidence he will get the job done, and he’ll do it well. It’s what he does.

Once the engine and transmission are in, we can have our truck transported back to our home, where we can tackle the rest of the project in the comfort of our own garage. With the hot summer weather in Arizona, a garage fashioned with a swamp cooler will be a welcome treat.

Stay tuned for updates!

Happy Restoring, Re-using, and Re-purposing to all you builders and restorers out there!

Related Articles in this 1950 Chevy Restore/Rebuild series:

1950 Chevy 3100 Vintage Truck Restore/Rebuild_1: Committing to the Project

1950 Chevy 3100 Vintage Truck Restore / Rebuild_2: Prepping Chassis and Engine

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