The Apache
 

Sorry if I'm a little long-winded... I'll keep it as short as possible.

Last April, I got home from the NSRA mini-nats in OKC and decided I wanted to get started on my own hot rod. About 20 years ago, my dad bought a '57 BBW with a '55 front end. It had a short wide bed he traded for a '59 fleetside bed. That's why it's so pieced together, but I think I'll have a great looking setup when I'm done. Thankfully I have a dad who's into old cars and had some idea of what might be popular in the future. So I came home and pulled the old truck out of the ruts it had sunk into.

Here it is when I first hooked onto it with the lawnmower...

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And when we pulled it out and got the bed off. Man did it sit high!!

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And with the front end and bed sitting on it.

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That's my dad. He'll be in quite a few of these pictures probably.

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And then pulled it down to the shop to get to work on taking apart everything on the front end and then reassembling it. Basically seeing how everything fit, what we were missing, and breaking loose all the nuts and bolts to get them freshened up.

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Re: The Apache
 

Welcome Aboard!

You've got a jewel of a project there...

Keep the pics coming...

What are your plans for it?

Ken

Re: The Apache
 

All the while during this process, we were getting excited so we started planning and pulling out all the parts we had for the truck. Our first idea was to make it a budget truck and just get it running as quickly as possible. Since this would be my truck, my dad gave agreed to let me use anything we had laying around for the truck. Since then, I've decided I want it to be a little nicer (basically add a new set of wheels instead of ones from the attic and an air suspension). I still want a simple driver though... So here is what we started pulling out.

Pulled out the original gauge cluster we have. It looked great and I fell in love with the superman shape. Since we built our woodie and I realized how much better original gauges look than street rod gauges like VDO makes look, I decided you can't beat the original look of cars from the 40's, 50's and 60's.

This was when I decided I wanted the original look of the truck to be kept (minus the stance and sound aka the most important things!).

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The wheels I pulled down from the attic. We had a full set of them and they just needed to be shined. At the time I loved the look of Radirs and wide whites so I thought this would be a killer look. It still might be, but I won't be using them anymore. The one on the left was after we shined them up. They would have looked really nice!

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them with a wide white we had just taken off our other car

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The cans on the hood of the last picture are the paint we got for the engine and frame. The engine we had for this truck was a spare one we had in the shop. It's a 350 that came out of my grandpas 72 a long long time ago that my dad was smart enough to latch onto. Four bolt main and being as popular as 350's are, I don't think we could have had a better motor.

When I started to think about the truck and what I wanted the motor to look like, it had to be nostalgic. At the time I was thinking of an old hot rod shop truck and what might have been in a 55 hot rod shop truck? The first overhead valve and hot rod motor - the oldsmobile rocket. Long story short, I bought the oldsmobile valve covers for the 350 and a friend of our had an actual olds/caddy breather (not a new one) that he donated to our build. That's why I brought up the paint in the last picture. It's going to be oldsmobile green along with the frame, so that kind of dictated what color the truck will be. I'm thinking a light green right now to compliment the dark green under the hood.

Re: The Apache
 

Welcome.
Glad to see you're going to get it back on the road.
Kim

Re: The Apache
 

Hey! Thanks, Ken. :metal: If you'll stick with me for about another hour I should have them all spelled out. Basically a really great cross country driver. Low, loud, and besides that pretty simple stock looking. The specifics change pretty often, but those are the basic guidelines!

Re: The Apache
 

Me too. Glad I could save one. Thanks, Kim!

Re: The Apache
 

To come right out of my last update, I mentioned a friend of ours donated a real Olds/Caddy breather for the engine. I need to take a post to thank a couple of our hot rod friends. Without them, this build would not be what it is today. Thank goodness they have helped out a fellow young hot rodder. I figure the easiest way to do this is list it out...

Our friend Larry:
350 transmission he took out of his '40 Ford to replace with a 700R. It had less than 2000 miles on it!
Edelbrock 650 carbuerater with electric choke. It had less than 500 miles on it.

Our friend Otis:
The real Olds/Caddy breather to match my fauxs-mobile valve covers.
An airride suspsension to come in later posts (I've got a lot of questions about this and I know someone on here will know the answers).

Our friend Millard:
He subframed it... pictures to come in next post... and it looks like the frame was made that way.
He also replaced the steps on the cab, the cab corners, some rust on the bottom of the cab, the hinges and hinge pockets for the doors.
He has the doors fitting perfectly with small gaps all the way around by squaring up the body and fitting the doors well.
He's also promised to completely rebuild the front end here in a little bit.

Our friend Ed:
Found us a brand new Edelbrock performer intake manifold at a garage sale still in the box.

The engine was rebuilt by our friend Steve Frahn. He did a good job and put us onto a rams horn exhaust manifold or two (I decided on the rams horn that pull back at the bottom to keep the nostalgic look going).

The biggest thanks has to go to my dad who has so far provided the truck, an engine, a bunch of extra pieces, his expertise, his shop, all his tools, money on parts like fenders, paint, and lots of other things, and his friends like Larry, Otis, and Millard.

Talk about a good bunch of guys. Those are all pretty necessary parts as you know, and this truck would not be possible without them. So I just wanted to say thanks to everyone, and I'm sure somehow there will be more to come.

Re: The Apache
 

Now back to the pictures...

As I mentioned, it has been subframed. We used an el camino front end instead of the camaro front end. It's a little narrower and it fit really nicely. We moved the front wheels forward three inches too to center the wheels better in the fender. We also got the rear end from the el camino and will use it too...

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Her first time back on the road in years. Pretty cool sight I thought.

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And on the lift...

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My dad had already removed some leafs out of the rear end years ago which is why it sits so low in the rear.

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Measuring and sizing up the new front end...

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And it's on :metal: Stance is getting better!

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A close up shot of the welds

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And then we took it home... more to come soon!!

Re: The Apache
 

Got it back home and the next things we did were fix some rusty floors and get the brake pedal mounted. The brake booster will be underneath the cab in order to clean up the firewall.

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The plastic block we won at the NSRA show that inspired me to build the truck. I don't think we thought it would come in handy that quick. You can see how nicely the subframe is grafted on too.

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Our simple motor mounts.

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Here we were mounting the steering column and used a seat from a 57 ford to measure it. We kept the stock drop with a little modification to keep the stock theme going. The steering column is from an eldorado I think... My dad had it laying around and told me it'll look nice because its really clean looking and all it has on it is the gear shift, the key hole, and the blinker switch. Otherwise it's smooth.

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See the gauges? Check.

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We had to make our own bracket get the brake pedal and booster bracket to work. You can see how wiggly the lines in the floor were from where someone tried to fix them. We straightened them up later on as you'll see.

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We had to add this much onto the floor to keep it from having holes on it. Not the neatest work, but it'll do! Someone had tried to fix it before us but had done a terrible job.

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Passenger's side.

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We got a seat finally. Late model Chevy bench seat. I wanted it to be as basic as I could get, and we didn't have one. This one was $30 if I remember correctly, so we got it. Test fitting a seat cover... Nah!

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The floor from the firewall passenger side.

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Driver's side

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The seat without the blanket

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From this view you can see the floors where we patched them. Turned out pretty good in my opinion.

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Re: The Apache
 

.... and here I was thinking you were just getting started... keep 'em coming!!

Re: The Apache
 

Next up, we finally got it in the shop. Took it all the way down to the cab and the frame. Here we got to work on the firewall and cleaning up the inside of the cab.

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Tacked in the floor. It probably would have been fine if the last owner wouldn't have widdled on it like they did. It's solid everywhere else that you can see.

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We made a plate to cover the hole where the old column and shifter went. We also had to extend the hole out to get the brake pedal to come through nicely. Thank goodness for the plasma cutter.

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The steering column all the way out.

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Better picture of the brake mount

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I learned to weld starting with the frame. Really the whole truck has been a learning experience for me. I didn't know a whole whole lot about cars before this one. Just the basics and a lot of cosmetic stuff from my mustang. Welded up the crossmember and ground it smooth.

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And then started on the firewall... Boy was that a long project. There were about a thousand holes it feels like.

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Closeup of the passenger's side.

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The middle.

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And driver's side.

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Then I started working on the seat. I took off the plastic covers on the side that they started putting on the newer cars. I hate that plastic stuff, and I wanted to keep it going with the original theme. I also cleaned up the brackets and repainted them and the springs.

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Without the covers. I think it looks much better, and we'll polish some smooth headed bolts and put those on there. They'll look nice when its done.

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Re: The Apache
 

Next up we went to Goodguys in DFW in the fall. I bought some new steps for the truck, and we already had corners for it. The next few pictures show how they were rusted and bent up.

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Next we took the windshield out and the cowl cover off.

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And there she sits

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Got her out in the sun for a while.

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And here are the seat risers we made if that's what you want to call them. It sits up nice to the steering wheel, comes back to the corners nicely and really makes the wrap around back window look great, and it is comfy. Leans back just a little bit.

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Next we covered up the holes in the corners of the cab. My first real metal fabbing test. Not bad if you ask me!

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Next up are some of the pictures of Millard's handiwork. He's slicked it up even a little bit more since these pictures. He put the steps in, cab corners, new hinges and lower hinge pockets, and fixed some rusty stuff on the underside of the cab. He also squared the cab up and got the doors fitting perfect. The pictures don't do it justice at all. He is really a whiz.

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AND FINALLY that is all I have. It's down at Millard's waiting for us to pick it up. The reason we haven't is because of a little SWB 64 that came across our path. The goal is to get it sold and fund some more of this project. So for now.... I'm going to go make a thread for the cash cow! :metal:

Re: The Apache
 

Yep! Now I'm done. Had almost a years worth of progress to post up! Thanks for staying in for it. I know I took too many pictures of the tiny stuff, but someday it'll show someone the effort we put into it all.

Re: The Apache
 

A couple more pictures I had... Just a drawing I did (luckily I'm artistic and I've got a pretty good imagination so hopefully that'll help the build :rolleyes: ) and some images from the wheel visualizer on newstalgia. I don't think that's the exact green I'll be using, but there weren't many to choose from on the website.

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Re: The Apache
 

Great start!! Its going to be a killer truck when you are done!

Re: The Apache
 

Looking real good.
What year El Camino clip is yours?
My truck has a 67 Chevelle clip which the same as the El camino.
Kim

Re: The Apache
 

I love those Apache's

Re: The Apache
 

Thanks man! Really looking forward to getting her put back together.

Re: The Apache
 

Me too! They're quickly becoming my favorite.

Re: The Apache
 

I'll have to get back to you on that. I want to say it was post 72.

Re: The Apache
 

Kim,

I found out some more about the el camino clip and rear end we're using. It's all from a '75.

Re: The Apache
 

A little progress on the truck... We have a nibble on the '64. Once we get that sold, we can start looking towards sand blasting and paint and body work.

Also, I will start posting pictures soon of the air ride system my friend is giving us and start getting an idea of if it will work or not and if it will get me low enough or not.

Annnd... something really cool that I have from our trip to GoodGuys Scottsdale - I got to meet my favorite builder, the man himself, Delmo :metal:. What a cool approachable guy too. One of the coolest car experiences I've had, and hopefully my truck will be up to his level of coolness... We will see!

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Re: The Apache
 

Great build, looking good

Re: The Apache
 

Sweet progress

Re: The Apache
 

this thread is like an apaches junkies heaven and on its first page alone so many pics keep up the good work