This is part seven of a series of posts on this highly custom 1938 Chevrolet Truck restoration, for the introduction to the project see part one. In post two we look at the individual truck parts that make up the front end build. In post three, we cover the chassis and drip rail. In post four, we show you the process of metal finishing the fenders. Post five takes us through the panel restoration of the original inner grille housing panel and a custom touch of deleting the cowl vent panel. Post six takes care of the lower cowl metal and left hand front fender.
We look at few areas of restoration and customization in this post. First, the toe board panel, which is a simple repair back to stock, followed by the ‘B’ post door lock upgrade. We installed a modern system that will involve electric door poppers and a remote key fob. We kept the original exterior door handles for a vintage look. The door handles will therefore be a fixed item, non-pivoting.
Last, we take a look at the inner fender support panel; this panel has to be heavily modified to take the new location of the modified hood side panels. Since the hood side panels are now a separate entity to the hood, they needed to be built a lot stronger. They are now stand alone panels, where as before they took added strength and support from being joined to the upper hood via a hinge. The hood side panels sit in position with the aid of two location pins that are welded onto the inner fender support panel.
Stay tuned for future posts on all the custom modifications in this area.
Toe board restoration
Toe board taken out of the floor and in need of repair.
Restoration of toe board is complete.
Door latch upgrades
The original door catch and lock system.
Modern locking system grafted in.
Alterations to support hood modification
Inner fender panel custom build.
Left hand lower cowl section repaired with simply made tooling.
Custom inner fender build to meet and match hood sides.
Another view of the fender meeting the custom inner support panel.
Hood side modification in progress.
Building and customizing the hood side to sit in place, without being supported by the top of the hood.
This is part seven of a series of posts on this highly custom 1938 Chevrolet Truck restoration, for the introduction to the project see part one. In post two we look at the individual truck parts that make up the front end build. In post three, we cover the chassis and drip rail. In post four, we show you the process of metal finishing the fenders. Post five takes us through the panel restoration of the original inner grille housing panel and a custom touch of deleting the cowl vent panel. Post six takes care of the lower cowl metal and left hand front fender.