hello from Arizona

Howdy, I'm Bill from northern Arizona. Here is a little info about my 1950 Chevrolet 3100





Year 1950
Make Chevrolet
Model 3100
Location Prescott, AZ
Type Truck
Ex. Color black & gray primer
In. Color blue and gray
Transmission TCI Streetfighter
Horse Power 355
Engine Size GM-ZZ4 5.7L


ZZ4 GM perfomance motor.

The ZZ4 350 c.i.d., 4-bolt main, 1-piece rear main seal crate engines has 10.0:1 compression, 355 hp at 5,250 rpm and 405 ft./lbs. of torque at 3,500 rpm. To make this package work GM Performance Parts has installed forged 1053 steel internally balanced crankshafts, 5.7 in. powdered metal connecting rods with hypereutectic flat top pistons with offset pins. Hydraulic billet steel roller camshafts are installed with .474 in. intake lift, .510 in. exhaust lift and duration at .050 in. for intake is 208, and exhaust is 221 and a lobe centerline of 112 degrees. Stamped steel self-aligning rocker arms with a 1.5:1 ratio are used on cast aluminum 1987-91 Corvette L98 cylinder heads. Which have 58cc combustion chambers, 163cc intake runner volume. They have a 1955-86 bolt pattern with "D" shaped exhaust ports and center bolt valve cover patter layouts, no exhaust heat crossover passages and the ends of the heads are drilled for standard accessory bolt patterns including angle plug configurations. Aluminum dual plane intake manifolds with dual flange set up. Cast iron Long style water pumps is used with standard "V" belt rotation and 1979-86 power steering pump bosses. GM HEI large cap with internal coils are installed to deliver the spark.

Click to expand...

TCI street/strip 350 transmission with extra clutch packs and a manual valve body.
With the manual/automatic valve body, it allows me to manually shift the vehicle into each gear or place it in the drive position to remain fully automatic. In either mode, I get a shift that bangs through the gears. When I use the manual gear selection feature, the StreetFighters upshift and downshift right when I move the lever, with no lag or governor override.


Complete PAINLESS wiring harnes.

Mustang II independant front suspention with rack & pinion steering.

Power brakes (front disk & rear drum)

New auto meter guages in the original holes.



Electric fans.

Tilt steering.

Z28 rear end

Summitt traction bars

16 Gallon Summit racing fuel cell with hidden fuel door in the bed of the truck.

Aluminum wheels.




Future Plans = New paint job:
Top half will be a metalic silver and the bottom will be a laser blue mica with blue pearl.

The truck started as a $600 devorce revenge from an ex-wife. The Mustang II frontend was already welded in. The cab and bed were in good shape. Front fenders are OK. Rear fenders needed help. I'm burnt out on banging on them so I'm just going to get new ones. It had no steering column, no seats, no gauges basically no interior. Truck didn't have a motor or tranny. It did have what looked like a buick rear end out back. It had 4 different tires on black steelies. The truck was part green, orange, gray primer, black primer. It didn't have a bed inside the box.

Now I'm going off memory dating back several years.
My father in law & I took the truck down to frame and cab. Installed a painless wiring harnes. Mounted the fuse box under the dash where you didn't have to stand on your head to change a fuse.

Ordered the ZZ4 from GM Performance. Got the TCI street fighter and fuel cell from Summit. We have friends that run a junk yard but they are a 4 hour drive away. Still worth it.

We went to the yard and picked up Z28 rear end with 3:73 gears. All the brakes were in perfect condition. (Car shouldn't have been scrapped) Even the lines were intact. Picked that up for $150. The we found bucket seats and the tilt steering out of a mid 80's Trans Am. Another $150 there. $300 out the door with a rear end, two seats and a tilt steering column. OK deal in my book.

We mounted the motor low and forward with custom motor mounts. This way we could fit the motor and the huge distributor in with out cutting the fire wall. AFter we got the drive train all in we noticed that the rear tires were too far forward in the wheel well. So we moved the fenders forward until the wheels were centered. Then cut and reshaped the running boards to fit.

I got tired of the multicolored truck so I did the whole thing in gray primer.



Our daughter Lexi with "her" hot rod.



Willow Lake in Prescott.


I got bored and decided to primer the tail gate in black primer then tape off the letters CHEVROLET and paint them laser blue.





Since I just couldn't leave the tail gate black I did the fenders in black too.

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We had an alternator on the truck from a junk yard. The internal regulator decided to wig out and spiked to 18V one night on the way home from the movies.

So I used it as an excuse to get a 100 amp chrome alternator.

I drove around for a while with the black fenders and tail gate. Then got bored with that look. All the while I have been trying to decide on a paint scheme that was different from the rest. I know I wanted a two-tone but wasn't sure.

Blue is my favorite color so That would be a part of if. My other car is (gasp) an import tuner. A friend and I did a custom paint job on it last year. So far in 2007 I have won 3 trophies at car shows. (1st, 5th, & best of show)


Enough about my rice burner.

Anyway The blue is a custom mix with blue pearl added in. I want to use that on the truck. Since I'm a Dallas Cowbows fan and my wife's old school colors are blue & white we are going with a contrasting color of silver.

So the truck will be blue & silver. I wanted something different so one afternoon I taped off the truck and came up with idea.

Since I had blue paint in rattle can, I decided to see how I liked the dash painted blue. The only down side to this experiement It that when I paint the truck for real I'll have to sand all this off.

sanded and primered


metalic base coat






camera phone picture

Here are more pictures.









I also did the doors in blue & silver.


Keep in mind this is all temp paint done just to get ideas.

Both girls.

Whew !

That's a LOT of work there , thanx for saving an old truck that was prolly headed to the crusher .

I ended up selling my 66 Mustang for money to put into this truck.

The driver's door window had a crack in it. There was a rock chip in the driver side front window.

We have 100% glass coverage with 0 deductable.

So I called the insurance Co and made an appointment for yesterday to have a new door window and a chip repair. We have new weatherstripping for the front windows. So I asked how much to replace the weatherstripping while the truck was in the shop. They quoted me $40. Fair enough.

The glass shop pulled out the broken door glass and cut a new piece of glass.





After that was done they pulled out the weatherstriping and repaired the rock chip.





When they went to put in the second windshield it broke on the drivers side.

CRAP

Well the glass that was in the windshield was clear. All they had in the shop was the smoked. The Manager couldn't just put in one smoked and leave the other one clear. So he replaced both front windshields.

When I asked for the bill for new windshield glass and weatherstripping instalation The manager said it was too much fun working on a truck that was older than him by 2 years. Its free. Have a nice day and take care of this old rig. She'll treat ya good!



On the way home I stopped by my in-laws house and they gave us two recliners. So here is a picture of the hot rod actually hauling a load down the highway.

Do I notice am XM antenna on the air vent? If it is how happy are you with it mounted there?

Bill!

I'm a big fan of your truck AND your photo posts! Great shots of your ride! No doubt the end product will be killer, but the two tone primer thing will be hard to beat! Thanks for sharing and taking the time to put those pictures up for us to see.
What a fun idea.

willardgreen said:

Do I notice am XM antenna on the air vent? If it is how happy are you with it mounted there?

Click to expand...

Works well there 99% of the time. Easy to feed the wires through the vent.

I took these last week at Watson Lake in Prescott, AZ

Just wanted to add this here




The Chevy V8 is my shepherd.

I shall not want.

It maketh me burnout on black pavements.

It leadeth me beside busy freeways.

It restoreth my soul.

It leads me in the path of quickness for its name sake.

Yea though I walk through the valley of rice, I shall fear no turbo for torque art with me.

Thy rod and thy piston they comfort me.

Thou preparest a track before me. In the presence of mine enemies thou hast anointed my bearings with oil.

My truck over powers.

Surely traction and victory shall follow me all the days of my life

and I shall dwell in the house of the v8 forever.

Amen

More pictures

I went to a local race shop. The owner made me a custom fabricated fan shroud out of flat aluminum. Its now installed and polished.

Gordon (friend with a 74 Nova) and I were working on the hot-rod in the garage at another friend's (Bev's) house.

(Bev has a 1929 Model A Sedan Delivery and a 67 corvette. She also has a lift in her garage.)

The Chevy has an oil leak from sitting too long while under construction. With the Route 66 fun run car show coming up I needed to fix these leaks. ( www.azrt66.com )

The front seal is leaking and its leaking at the back of the intake manifold.

We cleaned up all the sludge from underneath the truck and pinpointed exactly where it was leaking. I got all new gaskets .
We also installed some chrome door trim around the cut out on the fan shroud.






Before



After

Here are more pictures from the shop. The motorhome, 1929 Model A delivery, 1967 Corvette (1 of 22 made with those options) and the Cobra belong to Bev. This is her garage next to her house. The drag race Jeep with the NOS injected 440 belongs to a friend of hers. The 1974 Nova belongs to Gordon.

I pulled the intake manifold off the Chevy and cleaned it up. Painted the Bowtie blue. Installed new gaskets and chainged the oil & antifreeze. I had to make a parts run for antifreeze since the truck was all apart I was forced to take the 67 Stingray.








BEFORE



AFTER

Last week I scrubbed my upper A arms and shock tower to remove 30 years of road grime from the 1978 Mustang II suspension.

After removing years of road grime and grease I sanded down the parts to remove any paint and surface rust from the 30 year old pieces of metal.

I also sanded and cleaned my calipers.

Then I painted my A-arms gloss black and painted the calipers a metalic red.



This is what it looked like when I started.




This is what it looks like now.

Hey Sweet-Looking Good!

Thanks for sharing the pics. Sorry that you were forced to drive the vette to the parts store!