I try to send out a newsletter to the all the customers and vendors we work with on a regular basis to show the progress of some of our build on a somewhat regular basis. But A good portion of our work may not fall under our the umbrella of "Pro-touring", But I have gained alot of great friend through this website and thought a updated thread about different project we are working in our shop large or small might be of interest. We do a lot of different work beyond the Chevy Muscle cars that seem to fill a majority of our shop space.
So here we go. A local Customer that I met a small local show just about a year ago that owns a large engineering firm down the street from me started talking to us about building a 1947-54 chevy truck. I informed him that one of my magazine editor buddies had an older chassis with all the suspension and such set up was for sale for a really good deal. Well after purchasing the chassis, he went to a local truck auction that was selling 47-54 chevy truck stuff. This is the really ironic part, He bought 2 cabs, 2 hoods, 6 doors and 1 set of inner fenders. He had some bed sides and a few other NOS or really solid truck parts in storage already. So this is what we started with.
Well after some time of discussion we decide to chop the top 1.5", section the cab 1.75" and lengthen the cab 3". We had big plans. So after some major planning, some precise lay out and cutting and some retacking of all the parts back into position. This is what we had.
Well if you remember back to the beginning of the story my customer bought a big pile of parts at an auction. Well a little ways into the build we realized he bought some ton and half stuff. Now the ton and half trucks we found out have longer hoods, which we thought might help us have less welding when we would have to section the hood to fit the cab buy joining the stock half ton hood to the ton and a half on top. Well yesterday we started layout the hood on the mocked up front sheetmetal to start the surgery and realized the ton and a half hood maybe longer but it is also sectioned 1.75" from the factory....... It fits like a glove. It is just a bit to long, but it fits like we wished we could have planned. Just dumb luck. Here is pic of the stock hood next to the sectioned hood.
Like Hannibal Smith from the A Team says, " I love it when a plan comes togther".
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
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