After 50 years of use, three owners (all family), 145,000 original miles, an engine that has never been rebuilt, and a recent coast-to-coast trip, the concourse-correct restoration has started. The frame will make the 1-1/2 hour trip to Windsor, CA for acid dipping tomorrow, followed by some minor repair work and powdercoating. I started driving this truck when I was 12 years old in my great grandfather's field. The truck will be restored with mostly NOS parts, which I have been purchasing over a period of eight years.

 

Thats a clean looking fridge! Nice to keep it in the family. Good luck on your restoration, keep us posted I will be following your progress.
Wally

 

looks like your having just as much fun as I am...lol At least you were able to get yours all the way apart, I have to do mine a section at a time being its just me working on it. Whats your plans for paint?

 

Paint will be in the original colors as seen in the pictures, however the scheme will be returned to factory original with the upper half of the truck being white.

 

Very cool!!! Do you have any kind of overdrive? I went to the darkside with mine and don't know if these trucks ever had an overdrive available. I just remember working on my neighbor's stable of 55 - 59 Ford cars and he had overdrives in most. Your truck would be even cooler with an old overdrive in it.

 

Unfortunately no. Overdrive was an option for the 1960 trucks. I thought about converting to an overdrive transmission, but I'm still debating. The transmission is original to the truck, and unless it can be converted to overdrive, I really don't want to swap it. The truck has spent the last eight years running at 3000 rpm on the highway daily, so I'm sort of adapted to it by now.

 

How bitchin is that fridge...... Great shape to start the construction

 

I just picked the frame back up from acid dipping this past Saturday. The difference is unreal. All the original scoring marks made by the metal presses at the factory are still visible and all rust in between the riveted pieces has been removed. The frame is now at the body shop where the front spring mount will be bent back into alignment and the entire frame checked with a laser alignment system for straightness and squareness.

Before:





After:

 

Nice, keep up the good work. Wish I was able to go as far as you are with mine, just kind of hard to do by myself...

 

I wish all of the trucks in Ohio looked like that! Darn salt on the roads!

 

The frame is back from powder coat. The powder coater worked for a month on the frame, ensuring all the factory press/score marks and part number stampings were all preserved. By acid dipping the frame instead of a harsh media blast, pre-heating, and double-baking, the finish looks exactly like epoxy but with a vastly higher durability.

I'm now working on the brake lines. The Inline Tube reproduction lines were close, but needed quite a bit of work to ensure a 100% match to the originals. After about five hours of adjustments/work, the lines are done and will be headed to powder coat.

More pictures to follow soon. In the meantime, here are some "teaser" photos. A website dedicated to this restoration and the 57-60 trucks will commence construction next month.

 

Very nice ,Dustin.Looking forward to following your progress.

 

wow! that frame is just plain beautiful!!

 

Looks fantastic, keep up the good work! Looking at this makes me wanting to powdercoat my frame instead of just painting it like I was planning to.

I wish I could find a place to get my frame acid dipped in the Seattle area, right now I've got a combination of bare metal from grafting on the IRS and IFS but there's a lot of frame left that's still original and I'd love to get it all acid dipped to get it to a consistent starting point for final finish.

Keep up the good work, I can't wait to see the site you put together to track the progress.

 

Damn nice truck BEFORE ya started the work. Gonna be better than new when done. What are the plans for the engine? 292 I think right? And why not just use this thread for yer build blog?