What's new at Hilltop Hot Rods.

Been working on a few rides here and there. This square body came in with what was suppose to be a rust hole the size of a half dollar in the rocker. Easy fix huh.

Ended up having been filled with foam and the front rocker was full of rust.


No patching on the front. It needed a new rocker.


Inner rockers had some rust holes that had to be fixed.


Inner was patched and painted.

The customer was just wanting it patched up with some mud. He had no idea it was this bad. The rear rocker had been capped and welded on wrong. It was rubbing the door. I sliced it and got it away from the door but after looking at it and thinking about it the customer is not always right. I can't let stuff go out of the shop cobbled up or patched up. It's just not what I do.

I cut the back one off without asking. What else but a bondo'ed hole where the B pillar was rotted away at the bottom. It was cleaned up and a patch welded in.


There were some holes from trim welded up and some minor dings I fixed since I had to primer from the body line down.

What came in for a half dollar hole in a front rocker took on a life of it's own. She's done and it's done right. No patch job. I understand people want to save a buck but do it right the first time and you won't have to fix it right after you fix it wrong.

Gas door was falling off and used velcro to hold it on. It wasn't on the work order either but I had to fix it.

Looks good man. You did the right thing, and hopefully the customer understands and pays for your hard work.

You totally get it though, and I feel your pain! That's the downside of working on other people's projects. No matter what work you do your name will be associated with it as a whole from that point forward, whether you built the chassis or changed a tire. Never good to let shoddy work go out the door, even if you had nothing to do with it...

Now your customer is going to need you to fix the rest of the truck, being the rest of it looks in bad shape as well.

I used to the feel the same when I worked on my own cars Reb. Fix them right the first time and you have no worries down the road. When I was younger, I would go to junk yards and pull parts before I would use body fillers.

Good job Reb!

As with everyone money is a factor. After the bottoms of the doors and rockers were done he got me to do the bedside. I'm working on it now. Biggest issue will be the other bedside and a few small dents. He may do them himself or if he get's some extra money put back he may bring it back. I know how it is so I don't mind restarting on something I have or something I am working on. We all need to do what we can do to help others out. Just the right thing.

I needed a heavy duty work truck. Something I could not only use for the shop but to use on the property. I looked for a long time for a 1 ton dually but just never found what I wanted. A few months back a came across this 85 Chevy. I'm the 3rd owner. The guy before me had the truck since it was almost new. He kept it in tip top shape. 70K miles on it and everything works including the clock in the dash. I have had over a ton and half of gravel in it so it will hold anything I need it to. My problem is that it really doesn't fit into the hot rod shop. I wanted to do something to make it less of a typical square body.

I thought about fixing the body but it is ROUGH. Needs both bed sides, lower tailgate, both rockers and cab corners and a drivers side door. If I would have redone it, it would have been a really nice truck but I would have had $100's in body panels and even slicked out it really doesn't fit in with the hot rod shop. Had to do something a little crazy to make it different that didn't cost an arm and a leg. If I'm going to build a slick shop truck that I tie my cash up in it's going to be something old. This one gets the beater treatment.

We started out with 4 gallons of paint stripper.

The paint stripper took most of it off. Earl went to sanding what was left.

At this point the paint is off. I should have known better but if you look at the door and dog house you can see how the metal is a different color. More on that later.

Then it was off to Ohio to Sketchpads so Taz cold do some lettering on the truck.

We let it dry for a day then started with the brain altering chemicals. First the vinegar. You can already see the rust popping out.

At this point I know something isn't right with the dog house and door. They are not rusting. A little digging and I find out they are galvanized. GREAT! This freaked me out.

Without skipping a beat I remember that a buddy told me about this. Out to the store to buy some Muriatic Acid. I wish I would have done a video on the stuff. It went out and was bubbling with smoke pouring off the metal like it was on fires. I put it right over the pinstripes and all thinking it would eat through them. It attacked the metal but never hurt the paint. Kind of crazy. I used a whole gallon getting the galvanized layer off the front of the truck.

After the acid bath it was followed by a good spray of vinegar all over the body. Let it dry then went with a bottle full or Hydrogen Peroxide mixed with some salt. Sprayed it and within hours this is what we had.

From this..




To this...

This all took place in 5 days. Working about 3 to 4 hours a day between other stuff. Not too bad. After it gets a little darker in about a month I will put some Linseed oil over it to darken it and to slow down the eating decay by more than 50%.

That's awesome Reb! It would be nice to have a place like yours to tinker with projects and such. Although you do most of your work outside the place, at least you have a large area to do it in and a huge lot to build a garage later down the road. Now that it's getting warmer, you won't be freezing your tail off. Now you will be needing a huge fan to cool yourself down with. Can't win huh?

Have two garages just have too many cars and the customers cars like this huge 4 door long bed takes up two spaces. I need a HUGE garage. Still would work outside most of the time. I like the view