ClasSix Part 1

Today, we're starting a brand new project. We've got a classic 1949 Chevy 3100. And by the time we're done, it's gonna have a great retro look and be powered by Chevy's vintage straight six, but we're starting off with a road test to see what the 60 year old design has to offer. It's all today here on trucks.

Hey, welcome to trucks. Well, today is a good day because we get to start on a brand new project. Check out our 49 Chevy pickup. Now, this thing is in great shape, especially considering it's 60 years old. This thing is still largely original, still has the factory straight six engine and three on the tree manual transmission. Now, this thing's obviously been gone over at one time or another. It was freshened up with some paint that wasn't easy. 10 or 20 years ago.

Uh,

pardon us, sir. But would you tell us what business you're in?

Well, certainly, I'm a farmer

powered by several versions of a bulletproof in line six. The advanced design series trucks were little more than tractors with doors. These vehicles were made when trucks were a single purpose vehicle and had to be tough. And that's why they're still around today.

Now. It's pretty interesting what just a little bit of research will tell you about a vehicle. We picked up this history guide from motor books, which incidentally is available from the truck's website. A little bit of reading told us that. Although this is a 1949 model pickup truck, these vent windows didn't come into play until 1952. So evidently somebody along the line has done some part swapping on this truck.

Now, by the time this truck rolled off the line, there was new 3 million Chevrolet trucks on the road. This particular body style span from 1947 all the way up to mid year, 1955. And GM refers to it as the advanced design series, pretty modern styling for the day. So if you're thinking about a classic looking pickup truck to restore or to modify an advanced design series, Chevy, well, there's plenty of aftermarket support and tons of replacement parts available.

But like we said, this thing is in really good shape because almost all of these trucks were actually used as trucks and hauled stuff around and it shows in the bedside it's got a little bit of damage, but the bed front panel is nice and straight,

the wood planks, I'm sure they've been replaced a time or two. But take a look at this tailgate doesn't show any signs of abuse. It only has a couple of dings, a little bit of rust where the paints flaked off, take a look at that heavy duty bumper.

You know that sucker is not original.

Now, inside here, it's pretty obvious it's been upgraded as well. For instance, all these trim pieces. Well, they're really nicely painted.

The seat has been recovered and it's hard to tell whether the rubber floor mat is original or not, but the ultra trick cassette deck. Well, that's not original. That's an upgrade as is the steering assist knob.

Now, the headliner, it looks like the original piece, but one thing that's not original are these seat belts.

Now under the hood, we've got the stock too. 216 in line six rated at 92 horsepower. Our factory oil bass style air cleaner is missing a few pieces, but someone has upgraded to the 12 volt alternator instead of the old school six volt generator.

Now, our horns look a little out of place and we're not real sure if they're factory or not,

our wiring. Well, it could use a little help.

Overall, we got a real solid truck. We're not planning to do a restoration. So it's an excellent truck to hot rod up.

Now, it's big fun to check out a new project vehicle. And it's always interesting to wax poetic about the history of a classic truck, but we've got some cool plans for this thing and we're gonna change it around just a little bit, but like it is, it's practically a time capsule. So, just like we do on a brand new truck, we wanna give this thing a thorough driving test except with small problems.

Now, that noise you heard was a faulty water pump. Like Kevin said parts for these old trucks. Well, they're not that hard to find a quick call to o'reilly Auto parts. We had a remand pump in our hands. So, rather than risk damage to our half century old radiator, we're gonna replace this pump before we take the road test.

Now, today must be our lucky day because all the bolts came out pretty easily and didn't break off in the block making this pretty straightforward. R and R.

All right, with our new water pump, cleaned up, we're gonna hit the mating surfaces with some lock tight spray adhesive. It'll hold the gasket in place

a little extra insurance against leaks.

Now, the reason I didn't paint the water pump or even bother to throw on a new V belt. Well, this water pump is just a temporary fix to get us through the test drive as part of our plans involves yanking this engine back out anyway.

All right. Fire this thing up, man.

Oh, that sounds much better.

Now, we can finally put a few miles on this thing

up next. We'll get out on the road for a new truck test. 60 years in the making and later, we'll show you how to restore vintage stainless steel trim. Stay tuned.

We got our flat foot.

Why

of

Bali?

Our classic Chevy is a time capsule and it's great to be able to drive a vehicle that reminds us of days gone by, but it also reminds us how nice we have it now with today's modern trucks that quite frankly ride like cars.

Now, whether you're driving down a winding two lane road

or a plain old plow gravel road, you feel the road and not in such a good way,

the highway, not much different, there's a ton of road noise and wind noise and chassis noise and vibration

and it almost feels like you're literally driving in a tractor

testing out these tires. Huh?

So after hogging the wheel for most of the day, I decided to let Ryan give it a shot.

Now, this is by far the oldest truck I've ever been behind the wheel of. And I was really curious to see how it performed

and first things first was a horsepower test

and we barely won that one.

Now, with just a three speed, the straight six was really humming just to maintain highway speed

and these paved roads were riding on.

Well, they're a luxury and something they didn't have way back when

now stepping into a classic truck like this gives you a much different perspective

even though this truck was ahead of its time when this model debuted. In 1947.

You know, you don't appreciate it until you ride in something like this and this is a full load vehicle. It's got wipers and two of them,

two beers. We're rolling in style by 1949.

Now, on the country roads, the skinny bias supply tires. Well, they did. Ok, but on the highway they were a little loud and a taller profile. Well, it didn't help with steering response either.

Now, the old style crank case vent was definitely working as you can see on the bottom and on the top too.

And I don't know if it was the road noise or the blow by in the cab. But Ryan got a little forgetful.

Your, uh,

your turn signals on it.

Well, there's no indicator

here. How am I supposed to know?

Oh,

well, at least it's only been like five miles. So I don't look like the stereotypical 88 year old man driving the

thing.

We're back at our favorite racetrack us, 43 Raceway Park in Etheridge, Tennessee. So we can set up a closed course and not get any tickets.

Now, just for kicks, we decided to do a straight line acceleration test knowing this is not a performance vehicle, but it actually did pretty good. But stopping.

Well, that's another story.

Mm. You stop short

now with Lee Springs in all four corners it actually handled ok. But there was one persistent problem

seems to be stuck in gear again,

these ship levers hang up,

it gets hung in the middle of the no man's land in transmission world. Go ahead and try that all. We're good. Ok.

That's one reason to go to an automatic man.

Oh, gosh.

Oh, you piece of crap.

Yeah, baby.

Again,

up next, we'll show you our plans, Torey

this classic and later a little elbow grease can save you a fortune on bright work. Stick around.

Got

it.

Hey, welcome back.

Well, that was a boatload of fun, man. And it kind of brings you back to a time where everything was just a little bit simpler, including the vehicles and the truth is blowing the cobwebs out of this thing. Well, it did it more good than anything because it ran perfectly and there was just a few tiny little

we had to complain about. Yeah. Our little trip back in time was the most fun I've had behind the wheel of a truck in a while now, like Kevin said, this truck did great, but there are a few areas that could use some improvement just for the sake of safety

and

daily drive.

Now, the only thing that really stopped us in our tracks was the shift linkage getting hung up in between gears. And if you think about it, that's a whole lot going on in that one mechanism.

Here's your first gear in and down

second gear,

third gear

and then in and straight up is reverse.

Now, after 60 years of hard driving and constant shifting, it's no surprise that the square machine corners are gonna get rounded off and sooner or later you're gonna get stuck in between gears.

Now, for us, the best way to repair the 60 year old transmission and shifter

is to simply replace it. We're gonna use an automatic type, possibly even an overdrive to help us out on the highway speeds.

Now, as far as power plants go with this 216 is obviously a durable engine. This one's taken plenty of abuse, but it's way down on power. I guess we could freshen it up a little bit, but it's got an antiquated oiling system among other drawbacks.

Now, you see you guys swap V eights into almost anything, but there's just something to be said about a hopped up straight six that can keep up with those V eights

and if we play our cards right, it should live a long life too.

Now, drum brakes in theory are actually more efficient than a disc brake set up. But you guys saw what happened at the track when we did our braking test, throwing a rainy day and you guys would have swapped ends in a drum brake vehicle like this. Well, you know what I'm talking about? So a disc brake upgrade, it's in order here. Now, take a look at the suspension. It's a parallel leaf spring straight out

that is one step above the horse drawn buggy, we passed on the road. So we're swapping the suspension as well. We've done a bunch of research and settled on a Mustang two style suspension, but instead of throwing a bunch of cash at it for a turnkey bolting system, we've got something in mind for you, Diy guys with a bit of welding skills. So keep watching and, uh might catch your interest.

Like Tommy said, we're gonna replace that transmission with a later model automatic and a traditional you join equipped drive shaft.

So that means the torque tube and the axle that's attached to it, it's gonna hit the scrap pile, but check this out. It's got a pivot point built into the rear suspension. So the torque tube doesn't bind up as the suspension cycles. And we're also going to replace these old school skinny leaf springs with some sort of link set up. It's got some adjust building built into it that

we can dial in our ride height and our pinion angle without too much hassle.

But before the stuff hits the recycle pile, we'll check this out.

The shackle and leaf spring, eye bolts have a grease fitting built into the bolts. It's probably one of the reasons these trucks last so long.

Now in the interior, we'll get rid of the speed knob on the steering wheel and throw on some self canceling turn signals to help Ryan out and we're going to relocate the fuel tank from behind the back seat,

get rid of the fumes. Now, we love the classic styling of this truck. So we're not gonna re invent the wheel, but we're gonna incorporate some custom techniques from the fifties and sixties into the body work for the paint. We're liking the aged look. So you're gonna have to keep watching to see exactly what we do. But trust me, the paint job is gonna be cool. And since we're keeping an in line six in our classic truck, we've decided to name this project. Class six. And believe me, this is one project. I can't wait to get started on,

build on a budget truck projects that save you time and money.

But one of the cool things about these older vehicles is that some of the trim pieces and bright work are made from stainless steel, which has got a really nice luster and it stays shiny forever. But the problem lies when it gets dented up like this headlight ring. Well, the cheapest way to fix this short of somebody giving you one is just to fix it yourself.

Now, there's a couple of tools that you're gonna need to do this repair. The first one is a body hammer with an end that's small enough to get to the backside of your repair.

You're also gonna need an anvil or a piece of steel like this one. That way you've got something to hammer against and you don't push the metal too far risk burning through during the course of your repair.

Now, you've heard me say this before, but you want to ask the metal to move rather than telling it to move, that means soft hammer blows and letting the metal respond to it.

Just like a lot of the fender trim and moldings from the fifties and sixties. This stainless steel headlight ring allows you to see the progress on the front while you're actually doing the repair from the backside.

When it looks like you got your shape back, take a fine tooth draw file and gently file over top of the peaks that you've created with the hammer from the backside.

And here you can clearly see the low spots that the file teeth have not touched. This tells you where to place your next hammer blow.

A

couple more well placed hammer blows with a pick hammer and a quick test with the file shows us that we're right on track ready for the next step.

Yeah,

I do.

And the next step is 180 grit sandpaper on a soft block while you're doing this. Be sure to keep your repairs small, don't sand into the undamaged stainless.

Now, if you take a closer look, you can see that the file marks have been repaired, but the 180 grit scratches need to be repaired as well. So we'll step up to 220 for the next stage

after 220 we step up again to 600 grid

and we'll follow it again with 1500 grid this time using water so that the ultra fine sandpaper doesn't load.

Now, even though it's pretty shiny. After the 1500 we're going to polish it up in two steps. Starting with a coarse pad,

using a stainless steel buffing compound to rough out the scratches. Keep your work piece between the three and six o'clock position with the buffing wheel rotating towards your body.

Now that's got the gloss up nice, but it's a little inconsistent. So now we go to the last stage,

a white rouge compound on a much softer buffing wheel finishes the job up nicely.

Once the repairs buff back to gloss, you can buff the surrounding area to blend it in.

The last sage is a high quality metal polish with a microfiber towel. This makes this piece look like it was stamped out yesterday.

Now, on the backside, you can kind of see the repair, but when you flip it over

all you see is camera guy, Rob.

Hey guys, check this out. This is bully dogs GT tuner and it's available for most late model gas and diesel powered pickups. Now, the gauge function can monitor over 20 inputs. The performance tuning feature offers multiple levels of performance and according to bully dog, their driving coach can improve fuel efficiency by over 30 percent depending on your current driving style. It does that using visual and audible alerts prompting you to better efficiency. Now, if the driving coach is the feature you're after, well, the watchdog is the device you want and they both work by simply plugging into your OBD two connector. We're anxious to see how this thing works. We'll put it to the test later this year.

Now, if you've got any questions about anything you've seen on today's show, go to Power

Block tv.com and I'll answer one for you. What happens if I got metal to Polish? And I don't have one of these fancy wheels. Well, almost everybody has a rotary tool like this one we got from Matco and you can get the same results. It just might take you a little bit longer. Thanks for watching trucks. See you guys next week.