First Project. 1956 GMC Pickup

Great job,can't wait to see it finished.

He's really getting into his work.

The good: Today was Earls first day of learning how to put inner and outer bearings in new rotors along with new calipers and pads. The bad: it won't be the last time. lol .. He also tossed on some new shocks and sway bar links.

Now the fun stuff starts. Tons of metal shaping and welding. We pulled the gasser out of the garage and shove the truck in due to what the weather man says will be a rain filled next few days.

You are a good man, Mr. Stewart.

Wish someone would have had a video just now. Was cutting out the screwed up cuts someone made in the dash with the cut off wheel. Caught the disk and broke it sending it back into my neck just below my face shield. Scared the crap out of me. You would have thought I was bleeding to death the way I came out of the cab. I thought for sure I had a chest full of blood. It was just a very small scratch. lol. With everything I do that is dangerous I think I'm more scared of those cut off disk than anything.

Earl got his first look on taking out dents with a hammer and dolly. He just watched today. Next one is on him.

Those cut off wheels can be dangerous, they scare the crap out of me when they let go like that. Glad it was just a scratch.
Glad Earl's got a good teacher. I never was much good at body work. I really should take a class or something.
Great progress, that truck will be on the road before you know it.

Stopped in at Levine's today and grabbed a 4x8 sheet of 16 gauge for Earls truck. They called it 4x8 but as you can see it's 4 foot 2 inches wide. That should be plenty to get the metal work done.

111 days till the rod run

He has set a goal folks.

Better get to it Earl, if ya let that sheet metal sit to long Uncle Steve will build another T Bucket.

keep your head up earl, you can do it man.  

We yanked the bed back off so we could work on the frame. We flipped the rearend to make it lower and the frame was resting on the axle tubes.


Mike over at Cornfield Customs cut the metal for the notches. Thanks again Mike!


Started doing the finish work. You can see the side closest to you is being smoothed out.


Still need a little finish work but you get the idea.

John Howard helped out with the build by giving Earl a set of lower leaf spring plates. He had too small of ones on the truck so that helped out a ton. Thanks John!

Earl also hung the drivers door that Amy and I went down in Kentucky and brought back up. He has some of the guts and door handles switch around but is having trouble with a few bolts on the old rusty door. He will get it all together though.

More fun stuff. Driver side cab corner. Hard to see the dent but besides all the rust it was smacked good in the body line.

Now comes the hard part. Earl wants to keep the flaking paint, rust and age the body is showing. Later after he drives it some he will do some paint work but for now he wants that age to show. I'm not anywhere near finished but you get the idea.

With all the talk about fake patina I thought some would get a kick out of this. Some of the paint I'm using is textures paint. When you run your hand across it, it feel rough like rust When I get it all done I'll post more pics of the fake crap.

Swelled hand with that little sissy cut?


While using the shears on a piece of 16 gauge metal My hand slipped off and the curly pigs tail coming off the shear got me.


It was strange when I looked down you could see the thin metal strip entering at the knuckle and it went in about 2" wrapping around between my knuckles. You could see it under my skin pushing it up. I slowly rolled it back out. It must have chunked some stuff up inside there. It's been hurting to 3 days now.
What a Sissy La La..

Snatched up the engine, engine stand and all and drug it around from the pole building to the garage.


Aryan and I tossed in the front and back trans seals and mated the engine and trans.
Shop dogs making sure Aryan is doing it right.

Right cab corner went on along with the bed, again!

Time to see where everything will go and what will fit and what will not.


All this is just mock up. Have to see how everything mounts since the frame is not stock anymore.

It was hot today but we had the hillbilly AC going strong!

Some days everything that can fight you will. Someone broke the bolt off. No biggie!


Drilled the hole and tried and easy out and ended up busting the easy out in it. Had enough so I use a clip.

Found this in the bottom of the cowl of the truck. Looks like she's been there a while.

Better look at the notches, Mike at Cornfield Customs whipped up for us. Plenty of travel and if he bags it later it should lay frame.

More mock up. I had to cut the front support in two and weld brackets on the frame to hold it. It worked out well. I still have to make the mounts for the lower front and back of the fenders.