With good help hard to find, Dad had a hard time keeping up with the all customers coming in to his garage so I helped out by changing tires, fixing flats and tire balancing. I was commuting 240 miles daily between a 4 year electronics technology school in the mornings then returning in the afternoons to work at Dads garage.
After successfully graduating from the electronics school, I found employment as a Field Service Engineer with a very well known company and started driving constantly to the various sites in the area providing repairs and service to the products the company manufactured.
Garage work, electronics school and commuting long hours are typically foreign to a young woman growing up in Northern Georgia but my family lineage on both Mom and Dad’s side of the family consists of mechanics that live by the saying, “you gotta do what you gotta do.”
Years have gone by and Dad has since turned the running of the garage over to my older brother and now spends his time restoring jeeps and trucks from the 40’s and 50’s with fishing and hunting as seasonal sidelines. Dad has restored a 43, 44 and two 1952 M35 military Jeeps , a 65 pony Mustang and a 52 Ford F100. The 52 Ford went to a museum and each of the jeeps won first place for most original at each of their first car shows. He is one of the few people I have met in my life that I would consider a true master craftsman.
He had been searching quite a while for a 50’s model, five window Chevrolet truck for a restoration project and during my work travels, I discovered a 55, first series, C3100 deluxe sitting in a field. What you can’t see from the “before” graphics is the rust around the cab support posts and floor pan. Northern Georgia’s frequent rain, humidity, red mud and leaves really works on a vehicle quickly regarding rust.
Over three years time minus an occasional bass fishing or spring turkey hunting trip and under the direct supervision of his cat, Dad worked constantly on the project. Working by himself, he fashioned supports for moving and lifting the cab, bed and drive train components using only periodic assistance in rodent control from his shopmate. LMC, Becky in particular, provided outstanding parts support and assistance. Dad scoured over Northern Georgia for restorable used body parts and made new friends of many of the 50’s/60’s garage owners and older vehicle enthusiasts of his generation.
The entire truck was gone through including sand blasting the frame and body, complete drive train overhaul, painting fenders and bed sides off the truck, complete internal cab and dash restoration and new wood for the bed. The cab support posts required replacement due to rust as almost all of us can remember following an old chevy truck down the road that was “leaning to the right”. The truck is painted the original colors for the truck thanks to the legible serial number on the truck nameplate and the Dupont Automotive Paint archives. The only deviances from original on the truck are that turn signals were added (from a 56 truck) for additional safety from today’s drivers and the bed boards were made of oak vs painted pine in the original. Dad did all the work by himself but I did get to help him install some of the new windows.
As you can see by the pics, the truck turned out excellent but then again, everything Dad does, he does it right. Dad had previously restored older vehicles from the 40’s and 50’s and he said after finishing the 55, “I may not restore one of these new ones again”.
I didn’t get to help dad much on this project but what little I did do, it felt good to give back to him after he has helped me so much throughout the years.