I need ideas for a custom interior. What have you guys used for door panels, roof liner, and seats. How long is a stock bench seat.. .could I put a newer s10 bench in? I'm trying to come up with ideas but hit a dead end everywhere... who has some cleaver ideas? Thanks guys
Cloth Interior FWIW , the cloth used in Chevy _police_cars_ is very nice and near impossible to wear out , cheap , looks good etc. Several hot rodders I knoew have had custom door panels made up with it . My old '49 was a gang banger's truck when I got it so the interior isn't stock , if has a nice cloth headliner that extends all the way across and down behind the seat all the way to the floor , this not only looks nice but it had the added effect of damping the sheet metal's tendancy to drum and resonate , makes the cab nice and quiet when driving . Go to some shows and take pix of the various interiors to gather ideas..
How custom do you want and how much money are you willing to spend. I have several friends that specialize in different area's to help with the interior on my truck. I'll tell you what I plan with mine and see if it may spartk some idea's for you. The seats are coming out of a 2005-2006 trailblazer SS. The only reason for this is the seats are leather buckets (black) with the vintage chevy SS embroidered in the headrest. I have a good friend of mine that can work magic with fiberglass. So he is going to help me with the custom center console. In the console will be a touch screen radio, my guages and controls for my air ride technologies air suspension. as well as the ignition key for the truck (I'm putting a push start button on the dash in place of the key hole) Also my door panals will be fiberglass with the speakers built into the panels. Also there will be leather armrest on the door panels to match the seats. I'm painting all the fiberglass to match the color of the truck (silver). I'm going to go with black carpet. I have a friend of mine that repairs and dye's leather, he said that he would try to dye some suede leather material to try and make my headliner with. I haven't really decided if I want to do that or not. I've seen it in a few trucks that way, but I don't know how much in cost I will get into. Suede is kinda pricey. I'm putting a billet alluminum steering column from flaming river in mine as well. The steering wheel will be from Boyd Coddington to match the wheels that will be on it. The door instep will have an aluminum strip on both sides that will have three long slots in them. When you open the door they will illuminate. On the door panals under the arm rest will be a tiny light that will illuminate as well when you open the door. I took those off of broken BMW mirrors. They will work well for they are bright but really small so they can be hidden very easily. This truck as you can tell will be a full out custom and may take me a little while to complete because of the $$$, but it truly is a dream of mine to have a show stopping street rod. I know a lot of people on here are original people, but like Nate told me, It's my truck and you should build it how you want it, so that's what I'm doing. By the way, if you need any technical advice. Nate is the man to talk to, very sharp. I hope some of this may spark a creativity side of you and just have fun with it.
Some of the guys that I talked with at car / truck shows have used a seat out of a 1998 - 2000 full size Chevy truck. It sits basically on the foundation of the old seat and has built in seat belts including the shoulder harness. This would keep you from having to weld a mount for a shoulder strap inside the truck. There are also lots of options for gauges. You can go digital or original styles with updated numbers or colors. For other options you might check out the following web site: http://roddoors.com/directory.html Rod Doors has lots of options for seats, headliners, door panels, and even a cover that goes over the in cab gas tank with built in places for speaker mounts. You can't go wrong, good luck and have fun. JP
I must say , the idea of courtesy lights underneath the arm rests strikes me as a good one , would prolly have maximum effect on the deep door wells of a Task Force or '57 ~ '63 F**d truck... I've always liked how higher priced cars from the 40's & 50's , esp. GM products , used to have great indirect interior illumination , you can have under dash lights or lights under the edge of the seat that will fill the footwells with soft light etc. Sometimes I find older dome lights with cut glass lenses , those I can place in view as they don't look ugley when lit up . Don't forget these new LED's they great but don't focus well so experiment in the dark with placement before settling on your finished plan .
Go to the chevs of the 40s website for some ideas. they have a lot of custom door panels to look at as well as an interior picture of a customized interior with tilt steering, bucket seats, console etc. their wesite is www.chevsofthe40s.com Did you happen to see the interior shot that Robert posted on this site. He's got an awesome bench seat in their showroom truck. have fun dreaming about it. dreaming is alot cheaper than actually doing it.
Here are a few pics I took at the Nashville Good Guys show. The orange one is a 48 chevy truck. The blue one was in a 53 chevy car. I hope the pictures turn out. This is the first time I tried to put pictures on here.
Thanks for the ideas and links... as soon as I get some house projects out of the way I'm back at my truck. J__P__ as for the seat out of '98 are you talking about bench or or bucket? I was thinking about using seats out of 2002 but I think that they are too wide? Do you know if there was any customizing done?
