1940 Chevy pickup build

I've had mustangs and vintage Volkswagens that I've built and sold over the years but never pulled the trigger on a "farm truck". I grew up as a kid around the 80's and 90's street rod scene and always had an affinity for the 30's to 50's trucks but never really considered owning one; until last weekend when I finally caved in and picked up my first pre-war vehicle. It's a relatively stock 1940 Chevy pickup that was supposedly restored sometime in the 70's.



Ended up driving the truck home that day but took a bypass that avoided the mountain road.



Took the better part of the day but the truck made it home. Initial findings, brakes worked great, original 216ci straight six smoked or leaked enough oil to rival the exxon valdez, 3spd bull nose trans was an experience and the wiring was sketchy as hell.... but it started, steered and stopped all the way home.

 

Plans for the truck are to keep a fairly stock appearance with some slight alterations.

Paint:
Midnight blue body, black fenders and crème solids

Suspension: stock straight axle with disk brakes, stock leaf springs front/rear, 8.8 or 12bolt rear axle

Drivetrain: This is where things get a little squirrelly, so far I've picked up a TH400 auto trans and a 396 big block Chevy that's stroked to 427.

Have a new wiring harness on order as well and a couple of other small items arriving soon

The deconstruction begins shortly

 

I say drop that sweet body on a reg cab shot bed 70's pickup from with a D80/D60 under a healthy V8, 37's etc.... wooohoooo

nice truck OP

 

Truck is super solid and doesn't look like it's ever had rust repair...it's super clean and a great starting point

 

Making progress on disassembly and still haven't found any surprises. When I looked at the truck, I ran a magnet over it and couldn't find any bondo in the body. Amazingly it doesn't show any signs of ever having any panel repairs.

Two worst parts are the dent in the lower grill area and some minor rust bubbling in the driver side front quarter. For an 81 year old truck it's damn impressive.

 

Got the bed removed tonight





And a pic of the TH400 that I picked up for the truck, rebuilt with a shift kit in it...talk about overkill, it lived behind a 283 in a model A... the 427 is still at a neighbor's down the road. Will roll it down the street once the rain lets up

 

Xlnt!

 

The rad shell is one part of the truck that I didn't run my magnet over.... which leads to finding some issues with the metal and of course a healthy dose of bondo. That means the shell has to come completely apart in order to do a decent repair.... doesn't sound to bad until you realize it's seven separate pieces that are spot welded together. Drilling out 80 year old spot welds sometimes located in awkward positions is not nearly as enjoyable as it sounds
Not the best picture...backside of the rad shell

 

work is progressing on the truck but it's at the stage where things start to move along at a slower pace.




Hammered out the dent in the front of the shell

 

On a different note .... the new wiring harness showed up and looks good. It's a 21 circuit so I should have plenty of circuits left over.



Got the 427 home... She's a hefty girl

 

Forgot to add... the BBC came with an Edelbrock 1411 Performer 750 CFM carb and a pretty cool aluminum air cleaner. Bloody heavy though so I'm not sure if I'll run it or not

 

That's a beautiful truck, and while I appreciate a street rod as much as the next guy, that seems wayyyy more like a candidate for real restoration than conversion/resto-mod.

Where in Victoria are you?

 

Nice build!

 

Actually located in Mill Bay these days.

As for the truck, the 216 is a Babbitt bearing engine and really does need a rebuild...read total pain in the ass to rebuild. That combined with the 3spd trans and 4:11 rear gears means the truck is more suitable for parade duty speeds than actual usage. A truthful restoration would still see the truck blown apart and re-done as the color palate isn't an original offering.

I did consider a 235 straight six with a T-5 but I'd still need to lose the enclosed drivetrain. I agree it would make a good restoration candidate but it also makes an excellent starting point for what I want the truck to be.

 

Still ripping into the truck... finding some good and some bad as we get deeper into.

Random pic







Rear window flange is a little soft in the lower right corner... but still mostly salvageable





Last time the truck was painted the sill panels weren't removed...they simply painted over them in place; as evidenced by the defining rust line

 

Nice! Looks like a solid body, and that window flange should be an easy repair.

 

I've actually been working on the truck but my updates on tacomaworld are slightly tragic..so bombs away

Grill shell surface rust got treated with rust mort and the panels had some dents removed then straightened before getting a skim coat of bondo... now prime d and ready for paint





Front fenders aren't to bad..no rust or accident damage but as a farm truck it accumulated a lot of small dents over the years. A lot of the dents hammered out and after another skim coat of bondo they look pretty good. Well at least one of them does... still have one left to finish

prior to sanding ..lots of sanding






The rear fenders are a different story... dents and accident damage of some kind. Oddly both rear fenders are damaged in a similar location and manner.

Doesn't look to bad sitting there... maybe I should have left well enough alone



Crazing that one could hope was simply old lacquer paint cracking





That straight edge in a curve is not ideal





On the plus side for me anyway... the truck still has four mostly steel fenders

 

First splashes of paint made it onto a couple of parts... which means the grill shell can go back together once some of the more visible pieces are color sanded






Started ripping into the crusty rear that I picked up for the truck. To be clear, I live in a location that doesn't have a lot of access to old parts and shipping can/usually does cost more than the part. So while it's not ideal for a couple of reasons; I ended up grabbing an 8.2 rear for the truck out of a 71 lemans.





The start of a very long day spent with a cutting wheel and a grinder


Have a few parts on the way to hopefully help it out:
Moser engineering diff cover
Summit Racing Axles
Richmond gears 3.73 R/P
Yukon Dura Grip
and a Richmond Complete Ring and Pinion Installation Kit

Also snagged new and complete drum brakes from craigslist

Grill shell is coming together

 

Got some degreasing done after cutting off the brackets and melting out the old bushings. Then threw some por15 at the rear





Changed up the look of the engine to better suit my style... blacked out the intake/heads and ditched the modern valve covers for some basic chrome






Rear shocks were mounted to an awkwardly mounted plate, outside of the ugly welds the plate didn't line up well with the frame; causing the shock body to rub the frame.



I took the cutting wheel/grinder to it and will be running a bar across the frame to mount new shocks



Based on the condition of the frame, I've decided to leave the body on the frame and not do a complete frame off. Mostly b/c I'm lazy and the body sits nicely as it is.

Got the rear frame section cleaned up and threw some por-15 at it. Followed that up by coating it with some ghetto tremclad Good enough for a farm truck







Cleaned up the gas tank well and dosed it with some por-15

 

The weather has been ok for actual paint so another couple of items got sprayed.










And that's pretty much the Coles notes version of where the trucks currently at