My GMC / Chevy Pickup Page

Most All the graphics and All the backgrounds on this Site were made by Ken of K.C's Visual Designs & Concepts. Please don't take. If you'd like a graphic off this site drop me a line and ask.

Welcome to my Chevy pickup page.

It's an 78 GMC Step Side.

The first pic is what it use to look like the second is what it looks like now. Further down the page you'll find many more pic's and the process I went through to make it look like it does now.

Before

After

Click on any pic to see the larger version.

The restoration is about done. just a few minor things to take care of.

After I get the cab all back together and painted, I get to start on the bed. At present I've got a regular short bed, which will stay on till I get the step side bed done. I'm also mounting a gas tank under the bed, instead of the one that sits on the outside of the frame.

It was a good idea, but didn't work, but you can see what I came up with.

I pulled the front clip and Cut out the floors, and the rocker panels, and cab corners. Then I replaced the floor pans, and rocker panels, and cab corners. And I replaced the drivers door where some woman in a van back into me. can you believe she tried to say it was my fault. My Truck was Parked...lol

The front clip is back on now. but I've still got a bit of grinding to do where I welded on the cab corners. then some cosmetic work. the door I put on was black so I painted it silver. the color doesn't match exactly, but it's better than a black door on a silver truck...lol

In the pic's to the left you can see the cab corners, and the door I put on and painted. I had to move the bed back to put the cab corners in. It's still sitting around back with the grass growing higher around it. lol

The bed is off now and i'm working on putting in the gas tank.

The Beds off in this pic and you can see the cab corners much better.

Here's a pic of the gas tank I'm putting in. Note the bar across the left. that's the tire mount. I removed it and turned it 180 degrees and moved it up the frame about 3 inches and it makes the tank set perfectly level. And eliminated the need to twist a piece of steal for the brace for the tank. The tank sits a bit lower than what I would like. but for now it's going to make the truck drivable. later I'll look for a shallower tanks.

Gas tank Update.

I gave up on finding a shallower tank at a reasonable price. so I went back to the side mount tank. the tank in the back is a good idea, and if I run across a tank later I'll probably put it in. the one I had hung to low for me, so it's history.

And Here's a pic of the bed that I was going to put back on it. It's pretty rough. and the inside of the bed looks worse. it needs all new wood. but after looking things over I found more rust than I expected to find. I decided there has to be another bed out there some where that I can use.

Well here's what's left of the bed. After I've striped it down. I found another bed for $125.00 but it was missing a few things. I was able to take the parts off this bed to put them on the one I found.

	Here's the bed I found. it's in pretty good shape over all. it does need new wood in the bed, but that's not a biggy. And I'll have to pull the Left Support rail out of my other bed. The one in this bed is pretty tore up. I'll bolt it in instead of welding it. since my welding skills are the best.
	I've got the bed off the frame so I can replace the wood in the bed. this seems to be the easiest way I've found to do it. You will also notice the front or the bed doesn't match the rest of the bed. I'm having to combine the best pieces of both my old bed and the new one to make one bed. I'll also be replacing the tailgate, with the one from my old bed.
	here's a couple of pics of the new wood I put in. I was going to go back with pine like it first had, but I found I could get Red Cedar which is Rot Resistant for just a little more so I went with it instead. There are two 1X6s and Five 1X8s to make the bed.
	For anyone wanting to do this it isn't that hard. but it does take a little time to notch and Groove out the boards The hardest part of all this was getting all the bolts loose without breaking them, which I did break off several. but the hardware store has replacements so that wasn't a big problem. Other than that it's just a matter of keeping the bed straight. the wood actually keeps the bed square. so keep that in mind if you decided to undertake this little job. while your replacing the wood you'll see where there could be two more supports run across the bed under neither but they aren't there. because the frame is to close. I found if you get a 10Ft Metal 2X4 cut it to length and put them in where the two are missing, and notch it for the frame it will massively strengthen the bed

Ok More pictures of the bed and cab as progress continues.

As you can see the fenders needed a bit of work. this is only the left fender, the right one was worse, and needed a lot more work. I couldn't get all the ripples out of the fender but I got most of them out.

If you're wondering about the clamps on the rail, I had to do a little welding on the fenders, the metal had tore at the supports.

And this is my original tail gate. I'll replace it later, but for now I've cleaned it up a bit. As I'm sure you know, tail gates take quite a beating over the years, and this one is no exception. I'm going to see if a friend can make me a wind gate with GMC in the middle of it.

Well the bed is finally starting to look like a bed again. it's primered and is ready for paint.

And now on to the Cab.

	Here it is. Sanded down and ready to get primer. It's taken a while to sand out the old paint. in places it was cracking and had to be sanded down to bare metal. Even with a DA it takes a while to sand down a paint job. And when it was as bad and old as this paint, it really takes a while. and doing 90% of it by myself makes it seem like it will never get done some times.
	As you can see there doesn't seem to be any place on the truck that hasn't needed to be sanded down to the metal in places. the weather has really taken it's toll on my poor old truck over the years.
	And here's the right side of the cab. and of course it looks pretty rough right now. but it won't for very long.
	Last pic for now. I haven't decided what I'm going to do about the wheels. paint them the same color as the truck? or back to silver like they were originally.

I wouldn't want to forget to mention, my son. he's staying with me this week and has been helping with the hand sanding. he's excited to see it painted and on the road again. What can I say. He takes after his Father. :-)

This is my son and his first car. his Mother gave it to him after taking it to 3 different garages and no one could figure out why it ran so bad. besides running bad and trying to die all the time, the brakes barley worked. So I got the fun of fixing it also. now it runs great and stops great also. I won't worry as much, knowing his car is running rite.

Back to My Pickup

Next is just some random pic's of my truck as work proceeds. you'll see to the left I've gotten the cab primered. and below you'll see pic's of the bed and cab painted. I've got the bed on now, but not bolted down yet. I'll take a few more pic's later when it's all together. and my new camera shows up. I'm tired of the low quality pic's this camera takes. so I ordered a better one.

Either way I'm sure you'll be able to figure out the pic's with out me telling you what each one is. :-)

And Next comes the completed Truck. It's all painted now and together. it's taken a while to do this but it was worth it. as you'll see when you click on the picks below.

still got a couple of things left to do, but they're minor little things. Like the cab light in back.