Hello, I'm tjet. I'm finally making a solid attempt to get my old '59 back on the road. It's been parked for 25 years or so at my dad's house. The truck was a gift from my dad in 1981 when I was 15 (he got it as a gift too from my mom in 1961 - how cool is that?). I drove this truck when I was in high school in the 80's in Calif. At the time I got it from my dad, it had a 283 & 3 speed. He also put a Dana 60 posi rear end in it. The only thing I really did to it was paint it hotrod yellow & get the seat redone. After high school, I joined the Air Force in 1983. I wasn't planning on taking the truck with me overseas, so my parents let me keep it at their house. The only problem was nowhere to park it. I finally came up with the idea of digging out another driveway on the other side of the house. My parents agreed, so for 2 months during the summer of 1983, I dug out the driveway where the truck currently sits. I never finished the job because to turned out to be a lot of dirt to move. I think I counted about 46 truck loads of dirt in my '59 that my friend & I dug out, and we still were far from being done. Coming back from that last load, my rear end locked up suddenly going down the highway at around 50 mph. I almost crashed my truck!! In moving all the driveway dirt, I overloaded the truck (dumb 18 year old) The u-bolts in the rear broke in half, I let go after I unloaded it. When the bolts broke, the rearend rotated & pulled the ebrake cable tight. To make matters worse, only one side broke, so the rear came back at an angle & steering me into another car real fast. I missed it thank god. Long story short, my parents had the driveway finished by a contractor, & I was able to fix & park my truck there before I went into the military... So, the truck sat for 4 years... When I got out of the military, I couldn't wait to get it running again, unfortunately, the 283 had leaked water into the cyl's & needed a rebuild. At that time, I also had an Olds station wagon that I was driving while I was in the military. It was rough, but the motor & trans was good. So my friend I I decided to install the engine & trans from the wagon into my '59 - Olds 455 I never realized how weak that 283 was until I got the 455 in there. Oh My God. I only drove the truck for a few months before I went to college, so I parked it once again..It was around 1987. Went to college, but halfway through, I dropped out & got at job working on Navy fighter jets at Key West Naval Air Station. So off I went, & the truck sat for 6 more years... Fast forward to the future: I live in CT (wife-kid-house), work in NY for an airline, & yet my old truck still sits in the same place I parked it after I left high school in 1983!!! So, feeling very guilty that I've neglected it for all these years, I've been making an attempt to get it going again. I fly out every few months & work on it. This is what's been done so far: Front suspension rebuild with dropped axle New ported 455 heads installed I'm currently rebuilding a pair of carbs for it (dual quad setup) in CT, & then I will ship them to my dad. My goal is to get this thing driving by Summer '12 Anyway, I'm going out to socal in Jan to work on it (fuel stystem & eng mounts) I hope to learn some good stuff here - Here's my build link http://59chevypickup.webs.com Cheers
I'm glad I never sold it too, came close tho It's weird to think that when I drove it in high school, the truck was only about 23 years old. That would be like a kid driving an '89 pickup to school today.
TJET Your Past History With Your Truck is Very Much Like Mine Dad Bought Me My 58, Drove It all Thru High School, I Even had Early Corvette Dual Quad Manifold! Welcome to The Forum Allen
