1952/3100/uk

[Hatch83]

In this thread you will see a brief break down of a few key stages in the build of my 1952 Chevrolet 3100.

I have always been kind of crazy about classic cars. my first real classic was a beautiful 72' ford capri (Tawny gold, amazing condition) I had her for a couple of years an was bitten by the bug in a big way. I had always had it in my head one day i would like to have a "refurb/project" car. As it was however the capri was in such beautiful original condition, it would have been a bit of a crime to mess around with her. In spring of 2013 i made the hard decision to sell her on (albeit for a lot more than i originally paid which helped soften the blow!)

I absolutely love american muscle cars. One of the things that had always drawn me to the capri is that it was one of the more 'american looking' classics that weren't impossible to find/crazily expensive in this country (UK) I had fallen in love with the 3100's years before and After much umming and ahhhing I finally decided this was the next model i wanted to go for.

In may 2013 after a lot of shopping around i found a great company called farm fresh based in essex in the UK who specialised in importing american classics. Attached are a few pictures of when i first found her.

[Hatch83]

So as you can see she wasn't in the best of conditions, she was a non runner, didn't have the best patina and the body work wasn't incredible.

Looking back with a few years experience and not a small amount of hind sight-i should probably have saved up a little more to find something needing a little less work doing as would have saved a little in the long run, however at that point i was a bit of a novice and i had pretty much decided i wanted to do a nut and bolt restoration anyway and frankly just fell in love the minute i laid eyes on her!

attached are a few pictures of her being delivered

[Hatch83]

Now in my naivety I am slightly embarrassed to admit that after reading all these forums i kind of had fantasies about working on this in my garage in my spare time-learning how to build it as a went along etc etc. Unfortunately with two (very) small children to look after and a new business to run, I quickly found that in this my head was very much in the clouds. The next six months she basically sat in my garage and in that time i managed to read a small fairly uninformative book on rebuilding a truck and removed about 5 body panels. It was quickly evident that carrying on like this i wouldn't have it finished for like 4-5 (hundred) years.

But the real nail in the coffin to the idea of me doing the work was that i even did an small evening course in welding at my local college, which all though fun and informative i realised with out a lot lot more work i was never going to be able to do the work at a standard i wanted (I am a tattooist by trade and in all honesty it has taken me 6 years to get to a standard i am happy with!)

So i kind of went back to the drawing board with how to proceed.

[Hatch83]

Around this time (late 2013) i met a guy called rich who was a mechanic with his own garage that worked around the corner from my studio. He had some space and was interested in doing some work one the chevvy. At the time it was just him on his own so didn't have a lot of time to throw at the project but this worked out well for me as well at it gave me time to save up as we were going along.

So the next six months were set slowly taking the chevvy apart. the pictures attached show some examples of this.

[Hatch83]

The rest of 2014 was a bit of an up and down year in terms of progress. we made some great headway with the front end initially in that i decided to go with a Mustang 2 front clip with ifs/disk breaks/power steering etc. After a lot of shopping around i hear some really good reviews of the heidts mustang 2 so had that imported and installed. I then had what (looking back on) id describe as a bit of a brain malfunction...It had always been my intention to make this a modern running vehicle but look as traditional as possible on the outside. I did however get a little lost with the original idea of making a muscle car in favour of making it modern...I basically over thought it, read a lot of forums about mpg/ performance etc and convinced myself it would be a good idea to put a diesel engine into it. We did plenty of research into possible engines that would work and even found a really nice BMW 3lD engine out of a 5 series which richard started to install.

[Hatch83]

In early 2015 Rich also took on a really talented body work guy who whilst the work was slowly progressing on the front end was able to start doing the body repairs on the can.

Unfortunately as you can see from the attached pictures when we actually got the cab off it was actually in a lot worse condition then initially thought so there was a substantial amount of work to do. all of the rusted sections/corners/arches etc were cut out and re welded back in. I was very excited at this point to see this start to come together like this (though obv still with a bit more work to go on it)

[joedoh]

nice start! good idea to buy what you see when you see it, I havent completely learned that lesson yet and have missed out on some great stuff!

as a bmw fan, I love the diesel. they dont tout the diesel models here in the US because it would hurt sales of the performance models, true story.

[MIKESAD50]

Very nice. Look forward to watching it come together.

[Hatch83]

A couple of progress shot of the interiors progress.

Although the bench seat wasn't in to bad a condition I am about 6 ft tall and i found before sitting in the cab did feel a bit cramped. We had a think about moving the seat back etc, in the end we decided and easier option was to completely redo the cushions themselves-so have lost a few inches going back and a couple going down (this photo is just progress pic of us roughly mocking up the sizes-this also isnt the size we settled on!) Steve also customised the back and base wood so they are on hinges giving us a bit of space for storage in the cab.

Also a picture of the mounted Steering column and custom panel/cover fabricated to go over the transmission

[Hatch83]

Here are a few images of the back end starting to come together. The read diff is now mounted along with the shocks. bed/rear fenders are now properly mounted as well. We had the same issues so many people have in that the shocks are sitting slightly too high for the stock bed set up. Instead of going with the option of boxing them into the bed wood, decided we wanted the wood to be completely undisturbed so we went with the option to raise the wood itself a couple of inches higher.

Fuel tank is also mounted, steve had to move around the fixings and moved the hole (technical term! as we are planning to have the neck coming out the side of the fender) -after making the decision the raise the bed wood as well i think steve is planning on bringing this a tiny bit higher as it is sitting a tiny bit low at the moment!

[Hatch83]

Cab and front fender etc fully mounted-not much more to say about the picture other than how awesome it is to see her starting to take shape!

[ChuckDriver]

Very cool build!

[Advanced Design]

Great project! Going to tag along.

[yoshi]

Some very nice work there. Here's a pic of my setup

[ChuckDriver]

Outstanding metal work!

[Hatch83]

Exciting couple of months of development with the chevvy. She has been pretty much put together as far as she can go before going to paint...here are a few shots of the million and one little bits that have been worked on recently...

[Hatch83]

...And here are a few shots of the exterior! -Was so exciting to see her like this-she has not been this intact in nearly three years! Have said it before but the quality and sheer amount of work done by steve and the guys at old bones has been beyond incredible. every single dent, warp or flaw in the body work has been completely worked out and repaired and as amazing as these pictures look they still dont do justice to the hours and hours of amazing work the guys have put into it!

At this point its all ready to be stripped back down for the body panels to go off to be painted and the finishing touches made to the chasis!

[Hatch83]

A few shots of the chevvy stripped back down to the bare bones. Body panels have gone of to be finished and painted. The chasis has been tidied up, reinforced and finishing touches added, is now ready to go off to be powder coated!

[yoshi]

Coming along nicely, good work

[Donaldo]

Nice truck, fun to see the progress.

[Hatch83]

May16-Dec16.

It has been a long time since i have updated this thread. and with the truck project nearing completion i thought i would try and bring it up to date! -The last post was back in May 16. At that point the body work went off to a body work specialist/painter. Unfortunately we had a bit of an issue with chosen company, and the body work largely lay untouched for the rest of the year. However Steve at old bones pushed on preparing the chassis, mounting the engine, suspension rear diff, new automatic transmission, custom exhaust etc. I have attached some pictures to this post to show some of the work going on at this stage.

[Hatch83]

As mentioned we had a bit of an issue with the company that was supposed to be doing the body work from may 16. Unfortunately after six frustrating months, they had done very little of the work they quoted would take three so we decided to pull the job back from them (If i have learned one thing from this process it is that if you are getting people to do the work for you, do your research and be very careful, it seems there are a lot of cowboys out there)

Thankfully once again we were rescued by the guys at Old bones who around this time had just moved to a new premises and were now offering an in house body work/paint service, with some incredibly talented staff. so they quickly set about catching up on lost time. Attached are some pictures of the finishing to the panels prepping for paint.

[Hatch83]

April-May 17 was incredibly exciting as we started to see the first stages of paint going onto the body work!

[Hatch83]

The last few month (may-sept 17) really have been incredible, the guys at old bones have been throwing a scary amount of hour at the project but as a result we are really starting to see it come together here are some more development shots (up to july august time)

[NorCalGal]

I love when someone see's the build through, gets me moving on mine. You've found a builder with skills. Looking forward to a first drive video!