[Onuma]

A few of you have read about my woes & successes, but I'll list the build progress (occasionally a lack thereof) here.

In 2012 I purchased my 1966 GMC 1000 Custom pickup. She rolled off the line from Pontiac, Michigan with an inline 6 (L6 250, I'm guessing, from the VIN: I1002PD15995A ), 3 speed column shifter (SM-318?), in Light Blue w/ white cab accents. She must have been a sight to see in her prime.

By the time I found her, she had been neglected at best and abused at worst. Someone painted her with an ugly red enamel paint, used her hood as a work bench for spray painting other parts, and then left her sitting in a yard for a couple of decades. Rotten tires, tons of rust, stuck carb, and more. I brought her to a new home.

Could have been a lot worse, but there's a lot of good metal & glass to work with here -- along with a very good frame:



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Fast forward a couple of months, after I put on some new (read: used) tires and did a few minor things, my crazy-cat-lady neighbor smashes up the glass at 2 in the morning! Driver's door glass and windshield were done...



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Luckily, the crazy lady was apprehended that night, where I ID'ed her as the culprit. She confessed to the local magistrate. It took me several months to testify against the neighbor in criminal court, for various reasons (mostly her lack of showing up, or otherwise delaying), so I didn't see any restitution $$$ until almost a year later. Windshield & door glass were replaced.

At the same time as the glass was being replaced, I had a rebuilt carb put on and the gas tank & sending unit replaced.

Next area to tackle was the front fenders. Both had various degrees of rot at the bottom, but the LH side was abhorrently worse. Someone had attempted to repair it at some point by putting bondo over some kind of substrate which had rotted away, leaving nothing but a shell of body filler. Being that I was in an auto body welding class at the local community college, I decided to put my newly-acquired skills to work.

Before:


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After (before primer and just a test fitting w/out bolts):


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Next up, I needed something smaller to focus in on. I decided to shave the antenna off (there's no radio anyway), so I took off the RH cowl cover panel, used my cutoff wheel to take away the rusty old antenna fitting, and plugged it in with a steel slug.



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Then I had to weld a lot of pot holes from that panel, which once-upon-a-time was filled with pine needles, leaves, and bee hives. Tons of rusty spots here, pot holes, and an overly-complex design made it a paintstaking task.

Partially complete:



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I had just finished welding, grinding, dolly & hammering, body filling, sanding...
then right after I hit her with the first coat of epoxy primer in the spray booth, another guy comes along, spraying a different part, and puts his butt right on my freshly-primed panel! He didn't do it on purpose, but now I have to sand it all smooth and do it again next week.

You can see some of the smudges, but I put a second coat of primer on top and let it dry. It doesn't look too bad, considering.


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That's all I have for now. I'll be sure to share more as I make progress.