'57 with a story

[magicoolbus]

I'm a noob to the board and I thought I would relate an interesting tale of a truck. I am in my mid forties and back when I was about 5 years old, I came to Arizona with my family to visit my uncle Jimmy. He had just aquired a 1957 Chevy 3200. It had beed well used and had just gotten a well deserved new paint job (a roller and several gallons of latex, my uncle bought it that way.) My uncle owned a garage and tow business in Mesa, AZ, called Southwest Auto and Towing, some of you old timers in AZ might remember it. This truck was destined to be a shop/parts truck.

The truck was used just like it was for many years and served the business well. When my cousin was turning 16, my uncle decided to restore the truck and bring it back to a previous glory that I really doubt it really ever had. This was in 1980.

I often visited AZ with my family and got to ride in the truck many times before and after resto. I was lucky and got to come to ASU for college in the early 80's and wanted to buy that truck so bad from my uncle, but couldn't swing the deal as you can imagine as a starving college student. In the Mid 80's my uncle sold the truck to help finance a new automotive machine shop he was buying.

Fast forward seven years to 1992. My older brother was coming home from Gulf 1 and wanted to buy an old vehicle. Everyone knows, that if you want a rust free truck, you get it from AZ. He spent many hours calling and driving around town to find just the right vehicle. His search culminated on, you guessed it, a 1957 chevy 3200. It was the exact truck that my Uncle had had for all those years. Oh, how I was jealous and wanted that truck!

My brother took 'my' truck to Texas to live for nearly 18 years. In those years, he did nothing to the truck but drive it and enjoy the heck out of it. I had told him, and kept reminding him, that if he ever wanted to sell it, I get first dibs. Well, that opportunity came up in Oct of 2008, for the family discounted sum of $xxxx.xx, I was the new owner of 'my' truck.

I have redone all the chrome, new paint, and rebuilt the engine. Lots of small spit and polish stuff left to do. But it's all mine. Here's to a truck that's been in the 'family' for oh so many years!

[bobinbc]

Great story and nice looking truck! Looks like you'll be having fun with it soon.

[entourageguy]

Welcome to the site. That's a great story. Nice to see it ended up in the family.

[ambryatim]

That is AWESOME!!! What are you plans?? Engine swap, suspension upgrade??? Or just drive as is??

I really need to find a 57 grille and front bumper for my build.....spit and polish go a long way. Keep up the good work and enjoy the heck outta your new baby.

[Kim57]

Great story and good looking truck. We need more pics though.
Kim

[magicoolbus]

My plans for this family jewel are to keep it as stock as absolutely possible! I pulled the 235 and had it bored .60 over, new cam, crank was still stock and cleaned up at 10/10. The head, beleive it or not had no cracks, and I had them put in hardened exhaust seats, new guides and valves. The head was also surfaced, it wasn't even .004 thousands out! When putting it back together, I replaced the rocker shafts, but the rockers spec'd ok! Radiator was modified from old core to a moderen 3 row.
While engine was out, I rebuilt the steering gear, bushings, bearings and seals. Cleaned up the engine compartment.
Also began gutting the interior, somewhere on the way, a 6way adjustable seat out of a mid 80's chrysler was installed. I got ahold of two stock seats and made one very nice one, original springs and all!
I have been scrounging as many of the dealer options as I can find to add on, I have got a NIB windshield washer system from the foot plunger, to the glass container for the firewall, I added a right mirror and a right visor. I was even able to find a 'parking brake warning light'.
The only departure that I am taking from stock is a custom autosound stereo and Air Conditioning.


Here's a before pic of the engine. Very tired, but still ran like a singer sewing machine. Incidently, the machine work that I had done on it was completed at S n S Machine in Mesa, AZ, the same place that did it in 25 years ago. To bad they didn'e warantee their work


Ready for the hoist to put back in. Oh, I also had the 4 speed trans sent out for freshening up too.


This is my instrument cluster after redoing the entire thing. New Bezel, speedo head, and freshened up fuel, oil temp, pressure etc.


Here's a shot of truck in the driveway. The interior still needs to be finished, the only thing that's holding me up. Will have pics soon.

[Kim57]

Very nice looking.
Kim

[Russell Ashley]

Great looking truck and good story. That instrument cluster is beautiful, can't wait to get mine looking like that.