1946 Chevrolet 1/2 ton Pickup Restoration --- In Progress

My father had a Gulf Service Station when I was a kid and he had a truck like this for his 'road service' vehicle.  He painted it orange and blue and had big Gulf stickers on each door.  He also had an old tire tied to the front grille because in those days it would not be any big deal to just push broke-down cars to Joe's Gulf.

I found this truck looking around on the Internet.  Here is the story as best as I can understand it myself:

I bought this truck in New Hampshire.  The truck was first rodded-out by some guys in South Carolina.  A front clip off of a 78 Camaro was welded to the existing frame.  This must have been with the cab still on the frame.  All-in-all, I think they did a good job at this.  They used the Camaro rear, wheels, and bucket seats in this build. The bed was welded up with steel plates.  The story went on that they had a really hot 427 race car engine in it.

The lore goes on:  In some deal of lost money or a twist of fate... as the guy in New Hampshire explained to me, he ended up with the truck from these guys because of any inability to resolve some kind of debt.  He thought the race car engine was still in it but it was really a junk 305.  I cleaned it up a little and even put some re-built heads on it but the rings and bearings were still about shot.  I have decided that it makes more sense to put a brand new 350 Crate in it rather than mess with that one.  It ran good enough for me to drive it some and really figure out what I wanted to do to with it.

December 2006.

The off-chassis restoration begins...

The cab is loose and just setting on the frame.  A fun thing to note is the truck is still drivable,,,  

November 2008:

There was a lot of rust and damage to the frame... mostly around the old wooden bed mounts and around the rear leaf-spring brackets.  One major focus was putting lighter coil springs in the front.  I hope to make it have a softer ride.  The front-end bushings and ball joints were replaced while everything was so easy to get to.  The back leaf springs were about broken off off the chassis from the excessive rust and torque resulting from the Camaro rear.  Rear shocks now replace the original shock dampener boxes.

The current work is to strip all of the body parts and get them ready for sandblasting and a new paint job...