'Wintergreen' 1969 GMC Build

[cdngearhead]

Hey Ken come on up.

I'm still coming over for beers Russ.
Just in Athens. Flying home tomorrow after beers on the beach for the last 2 weeks.
Have to try and get paint on my frame before it gets cold

[rusty_67]

Originally Posted by rwade

What is the paint code or number for that shade of green? Love it!

Wade

Hey Wade,

Haven't forgotten about ya, just need to remember to look at the can while I'm in the garage. Will PM you once I do.

Russ

[rusty_67]

Originally Posted by kitsbeach

Nice truck.! Just bumped into your thread and see that you and cdngearhead are from Kelowna. I'm down in Vancouver but figured there has to be a few of us BC boys on this site.

Too bad about the paint fiasco but good to see it back in your garage and moving along.

Hey Ken,

Yeah there's a few of us on here. Had a look at your truck, looks to be in pretty good shape, good grab. If you're ever in the okanagan come by for a beer!

Russ

[rusty_67]

Originally Posted by cdngearhead

Hey Ken come on up.

I'm still coming over for beers Russ.
Just in Athens. Flying home tomorrow after beers on the beach for the last 2 weeks.
Have to try and get paint on my frame before it gets cold

Athens eh, sounds nice! Now that the days are getting so much shorter I'm spending more evenings in the garage, so hopefully this project will see a bit of progress.

[rusty_67]

Well its been about 2.5yrs since my last post, but Wintergreen is still alive and well. Sooo much has happened in the last couple years, here's a quick rundown. I grew a beard, went to China, went to Hawaii, went to China a couple more times, got married, started a brewery, FINALLY got my truck painted, and became a father. So that's the short version, I'll back track a bit and bring you up to speed on the truck.

[rusty_67]

I rebuilt the steering column with new bearing and all. The shaft for the column shift fit really loose inside the column, I'm not sure if I was maybe missing a piece, but just so it was snug in there I added a foam/tape 'bushing'. Then it got installed along with the refurbished cluster and fancy woodgrain steering wheel.

[rusty_67]

I ate some weird things in China.

Duck Tongues:


Scorpions and wasp larva



And an assortment of other bugs

[rusty_67]

I fit the box on, got the windshield in, and started installing the A/C kit. I had bought a used Old Air Hurricane AC system from someone on ebay. It was cheap, but was missing a bunch of parts and some parts were broken. Nice thing was I was able to buy bits and pieces straight from the folks at Old Air products. They were quite helpful. All said and done I probably ended up spending the same as buying it new. Oh well...

[rusty_67]

I did a bit of a custom job on my old Honda Elsinore. Some purest might think I ruined it, but it was missing so many of the original components anyway, and I wanted to make it a bit more of an urban scrambler. Don't worry, I still take it on the trails.

Before:




After:

[rusty_67]

Got the rest of the body panels fit up.

[rusty_67]

I picked up some used AC Controls. Gave them a good once over then added the limit switches, etc for the Hurricane AC. I was getting bad at taking pictures at this point, so last picture is the only one I have of the AC Controls installed. Shows a bit of the interior progress as well.

[rusty_67]

Got married in my parents backyard. I should mention that when I asked my wife to marry me we were pretending to take a drive in Wintergreen. I asked her to grab the map from the glove box and when she opened the glove box door there was a ring waiting inside. Not only romantic, but it associates good feeling with the truck, allowing me to get away with what a huge expenditure its been.. well sort of get away with.

[rusty_67]

Off to paint again! Third times a charm... right?

[rusty_67]

Yes! Yes it is!!! Finally found someone honest and talented to complete the job. Couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

[rusty_67]

Rebuilt the turn signals complete with clear lenses. Then Installed them along with the grille and front bumper. Also going with clear side markers.

[rusty_67]

For all of you wondering, yes, that is a 1967 Grill. I opted to remove the GMC letters from the hood and use the 67 grill with the embossed letters instead. I think it looks alot cleaner especially without the painted black inlays the other years of gmc grill had. The grill already has holes for the top bar so adding it was easy.

[rusty_67]

Then this happened! Welcome to the world, future GMC enthusiast, Adelaide.

[rusty_67]

I test fit the bed wood. I had purchased a set of longhorn length bedwood from some one locally so I had remove 6" from it. I also found the stainless strips locally too. they are really nice as they actually have studs welded to the bottom so there are no bolt heads to hide. The only issue was that since they were one solid piece I had mill out the stock bed strip notch in the wood so that they would sit flush. It was easy enough with a table saw though. Also, you can see in this photo that I have installed the rear slider.

[rusty_67]

One other little custom touch I am doing is instead of the typical woodgrain on the lower trim I am making my own out of images of weathered wood. The bed wood will also be stained and sealed to look this way. Here is the tailgate band cleaned up with the weathered wood vinyle tape and new lettering.

[rusty_67]

I made a bit of bold choice with my wheels and not 100% sure its the right one yet. I got my hands on a set of 22" GM transport wheels, 'the big ass steel wheels'. I had them sandblasted and powder coated white. The biggest problem so far with them is that they have a very negative offset. So I am in the process of having some custom hubcentric wheel spacers machined up. The rears are a full 3" thick while the fronts are 2 1/8". They will also protrude a bit to act as a hub cap of sorts. I had toyed with the idea of somehow adapting the dog dish styl hubcaps to them, but they didn't look as good as I thought they would so I'm gambling on these spacers being both functional and visually appealing. In the second picture the front of the truck is sitting up on stands so it doesn't look like it should. Will look better once the front end is sitting a bit lower.

[kitsbeach]

I don't see your pictures popping up..?? Maybe my browser..?? I don't know...can anyone else see them..??

[rusty_67]

Originally Posted by kitsbeach

I don't see your pictures popping up..?? Maybe my browser..?? I don't know...can anyone else see them..??

OOPS!!!! I forgot to put them in a shared folder. Guess its been so long I've forgotten how to do this. Let me know if you still have trouble seeing them.

Thanks!

[kitsbeach]

Originally Posted by rusty_67

OOPS!!!! I forgot to put them in a shared folder. Guess its been so long I've forgotten how to do this. Let me know if you still have trouble seeing them.

Thanks!

I can see then now. Thanks.!
Posted via Mobile Device

[hewittca]

I like your build so far! Those Transits are a bold choice. I have those on my truck as well. Instead of spacers in the rear, I modified the wheel to have a 4" backspace instead of 6". I'm curious to see these adapters/caps that you have come up with. That's a neat idea.

[rusty_67]

Well I pulled the truck outside this weekend an its amazing how much better perspective you get in the daylight. I'm definitely starting to question the 22s at stock height. I thought the front end was going to sit a bit lower. After some hmm hawing I think I'm going to shelf that idea for now. There's a set of 6 bolt rallys for sale locally here so I think I'll pick them up, get the blasted and painted and just get them on there for now. Its a classic look that you can't really go wrong with. That and I can get the wheels and new tires for not much more than what I was going to be paying for the custom spacers.

I'm also not stoked on the way the lower trim is looking. Its partly because the segments of tape I chose for each piece of trim aren't matching up to well. I'll have to redo a couple and then, with the help of the sun, reassess. The box is also sitting a bit high, or my cab is sitting low... I hat to think about trying to shim the cab now that everything in the front end is lined up.