As is the case with most diversions, we meet all kinds of people when customizing vehicles to suit our own tastes – from creative people of character and substance to the pretenders who pathologically lie to take credit for work they haven’t done, speaking of how good they used to be when they were in Astronaut School or whatever – and I have had recent contact with both extremes, the latter helping me to appreciate the former all that much more.
Norm, a man whom I’ve written about previously, belongs to the “creative & substantive” group of individuals and with his permission I’m appreciatively able to share one of his current projects.
Having conveyed his mental picture to me in the form of a scale model ’51 GMC, I’ve got to admit some admiration here for not only his inventive vision but also the flat-out cajones it takes to start and persevere through an undertaking of this scope. I know this man capable of seeing this project through to its successful completion so I’ll let him take it from here through some excerpts of his emails:
Hi,
I thought that you might be interested in a few photos of my ‘51 GMC truck project. I’m doing a 3″ chop and 4″ section. I’m also lowering the roof crown about 2″. All this is resulting in having to lower the floor about 5″ to have at least a little head room. I’m also cutting the cab crossways and extending the doors 4″. The whole affair is on an ‘80 Buick chassis.
The spots that you see around the windows are from drilling out the spot welds that held the inner shell to the outer skin. I used a spot weld cutter like a 3/8″ hole saw and works pretty well. The problem is that they put a million spot welds in the truck. The dashboard was welded to the windshield frame in the same manner.
I took the firewall out for the section job. I am also thinking about putting in a new one that is properly recessed for the giant engine that is going into the truck. In fact putting the engine/trans in is the first step in putting the truck back together. I want to be sure that the floor and firewall fit around the running gear.
While grinding on the welds I had plenty of time to think of various things. Things like what is accuracy anyway? I read a book awhile back on building the Dobson telescope and he was making mirrors in his back yard that were accurate to one half of the wave length of visible light. He was only using hand made forms and abrasive compound.
Anyway I call this one vice grip envy.
This is where I left off the other day, it is actually starting to look like a vehicle part.
I have a bunch of other pictures if there is any particular detail that you want to see more of.
Enjoy,
Norm
