I thought you may like to hear about a truck resto I am in the middle of with my son. I have posted on the welcome section and am actively looking for a wagon. I have an interest in all classic cars and have had a selection of cars, currently own a 70 dodge superbee, holden torana with a 355 motor(pics in the new intro section) and just sold a 73 challenger hopefully to fund a 57 Buick wagon. Back to the truck. It started as a small project that my son and I thought would be a good ideaand has grown to a fully engineered hot rod project. He has just passed his driving test and in Oz he is restricted to a V6 motor non turbo only so the vehicle is being fitted with a suitable engine. The truck is a 48 chevy, it has had the chassis boxed, a jaguar front end with disc brakes grafted on, a 4 link rear axle and running gear from a modern V6 car. It is being converted to right hand drive. It has had a new bulk head fabricated along with new transmission tunnel, seat belt mounts grafted into the pillars, shaved door handles with remote unlocking and will sit on air bags. what started out as a bit of a resto has turned into a full on rebuild and will eventually have a special PPG paint scheme. I doubt he will ever want to leave it anywhere. Here are a few pics of it as it was about a month ago. The engineering work I cant do as it needs someone with far better skills than me.
That thing looks sweet as it sits. Glad to see you and your son bonding over a hot rod project. The modern powertrain is a great idea. It will be reliable and should get decent MPGs. I have a soft spot for theses trucks. I have been helping a budy work on his 51 GMC. I am intimately familiar with the dern thing now, so I know what you must be going thrugh. Good luck with the project and keep us posted on it's progress.
1948 Chevy truck to the forum. Why would anyone want to fix up a darned old 1948 Chevy truck? Way back longer than I want to admit my son and I started building our 1948 Chevy 1/2 ton panel truck with similar ideas. Swapped in a MMII front end with T-bird power rack, Camaro rear, and went from there. Since so many swapped to suicided doors I used bearclaw latches putting the latches in the body and the pins in the original door positions. Less wires to fool with in a door. Added a remote two step cowl vent and other silly things. Chevy 350/350 auto. I built a rear roll pan with hidden reciever to pull an old AirStream RV. Got body smooth and finished primered. Must have put a million coats of paint on it and sanded off most! Have power windows, all the rubber parts, new front bumper, glass, etc. Then just abandoned it! Son has other interests and I lost interest and energy. So good luck on your Chevy. I can still picture ours Corvette red with wide white walls and chrome reversed rims.
