New Project: 1974 2WD Shortbed

[Shady Chevy]

Thanks, I can't wait to post some more pics.

[flashed]

We cant wait to see them either ,as said above ,great job .

[wideopen1967]

Just a suggestion. If you put a fuel cell under that bed cover make sure you ventilate it some kit of way. Or you will be Da Bomb........

[Shady Chevy]

Most of the bed floor has been cut out, so there will be lots of ventilation for the fuel cell.

I mounted the door panel on today. I am using (4) 10-32 socket cap head screws to hold it in place. I welded nuts to the door, to thread into. Then countersunk the heads and put washers in there for support. The MDF will be fiberglassed over soon. I am going to make the armrest next. I am going to copy the armrests on my '08 Expedition. The wood will match whatever I pick for the console.

[ivorton74]

Its crazy how this truck is transforming...I cant wait to see it don't. I also like your sketch...I do my own sketches too of my 74...I did one a few days ago of what I want my 5.3 turbo set up to look like.

[Shady Chevy]

Some update pics of the door panel work. Here I have a piece of tiger wood that I am cutting out to use on the top side of the arm rest.


And I started to put the fiberglass over the MDF form. I used the mill to remove the excess material on the back side of the panel. This will get a layer of fiberglass also. I never tried doing this before so we will see how it goes.

[Shady Chevy]

Here is the armrest I am working on....


And here is a pic of my '08 Expedition that I am loosely copying the armrest from...

[Shady Chevy]

Ok, here is the armrest mocked up on the door panel for the first time. Speaker pod is off for this pic. Need to lay up more fiberglass.....


Now I am going to start to put the body filler on all my welds on the top of the bed cover. This is all welded, ground and sprayed in Eastwood self etching primer (black). Let the body filler begin. We will see how straight I can get this???

[95gmc]

Those door panels are nice! That was a great idea

[Shady Chevy]

Thanks. I never made a pair of door panels before, so I am learning as I go. I have to decide on a few things yet.
1) which parts will I put the black vinyl material that matches the black part of the seats.
2) Color to paint speaker pods? Right now, I am thinking wild strawberry that matches one of the two colors on the outside of the truck.
3) what to do with the arm rest part. Right now I am thinking a silver interior paint from Eastwood
4) do I stay with the wood I have right now, or pick something different. I am going to put a high gloss finish on this piece and see how it looks.
5) I have to do something with where the door latch is. I haven't put any thought into that yet.
6) And I haven't finished the speaker grill covers yet. They will be 1/4 diameter stainless vertical tubes. I want to do something that has a matching effect on the center console to tie things together.

[Shady Chevy]

And I started the body filler on the top of the bed. I only have an hour before work each day, so things are going slow. But I want to see how it turns out.

[LSX408]

Nice work!

[Shady Chevy]

Thanks. Updates. Progress is slow, but moving in the right direction. Here is the driver side arm rest and in the background I started cutting out pieces of MDF for the Pass side arm rest. I am brushing resin directly on the wood to see if I can build up a nice smooth surface, without using any glass mat for the arm rest part. I don't want the top edge to really build up much thicker that it is using the 1/4 inch plywood. We will see what happens with several coats of resin.




More mat on the driver side door panel. I cut out the MDF for the pass side door panel this weekend.



And more filler on the top of the bed. There will be several more coats before I am even close on the bed top.

[flashed]

Looking good and you can keep all that white stuff ,dont like it ,we cant deal with it and we damn sure cant drive in it .

[Shady Chevy]

LOL. We are getting more....

[Shady Chevy]

Thought I would try the Bondo Gold. Never tried it before and wanted to see if I could notice any difference. Have never tried other other fillers before. Does anyone have one that they feel is "better" than my standard bondo???


It took the whole quart to put one coat on the top of the bed. I didn't notice much difference. I don't see any reason to use that again.



Then sanded down with my homemade sanding board.


..and i just ordered some curly bubinga and purple heart wood to possibly make the trim piece for the arm rests from. I won't know what I want to do until I play with it. We will see what it looks like.

[Shady Chevy]

my next project, is to fix the lid I made for the fuel cell access. It has a fairly big dip.



So we are going to try to fix this.



...more work on the top of the bed.

[Shady Chevy]

So, given where I am at with my fuel cell lid. I could start over or try to fix what I have. (It warped bad when I welded it up) So I thought I would see what I can do with this. I cut out another piece of metal, about 16 gauge, and tack welded it in my low spot. Then I am going to fiberglass over to build up a little more before I use any filler.




...some fiberglass.


Then on to the fun stuff. My curly bubinga wood came in. This is for the armrests. So I glued up some maple/purple heart/ maple/curly bubinga. I can't wait to get some clear on this to see what it is going to look like. The clear makes the gain in the wood pop out.

[flashed]

Its looking good ,you have come a long way with it ,congrats .

[Shady Chevy]

Thanks. I was looking back, at the start of the project, and I have been learning a lot as I go along. I can't wait for my next project. LOL.

Dave

[Shady Chevy]

Pics of the drivers side arm rest.......I am going to spray flat black down inside the part where you pull the door shut...for lack of words.

[flashed]

That looks great ,very impressed .

[Shady Chevy]

Thanks. I like how it turned out. Now I have to make the console match....I am not going to work on that.

[maxxxy]

That armrest came out really nice!

[y5mgisi]

DAng dude! To be honest, there is ever so much about this truck that is not my style. But still, You are going really great work! Very inspiring! Looking very much forward to you finishing this build and hopefully you starting another one! I cant believe anyone would start with the truck you did. And as elbow deep as you have been for a while now, most would have gotten discouraged and given up long ago. The biggest of props to you.

One question that maybe i missed, what are you going to do for window cranks? i noticed the new door panels will cover them up.