Hey Dano,
I had no idea you could do that to a seat. I can't tell you how many seats I passed up that were the wrong color - you are the man. Thanks for that one - good tip. Your truck is looking great!

Ben in Austin

 

Dano I have seen the fabric dye spray before, but never tried it. Tell us, is that durable? seems like it would flake off like paint? Very curious!
LOL...when I was 16 I had a 78 pinto. Even though it was a Pinto, it was a great car and some days, wish I still had it! Anyway it was Hugger Orange and had a black interior, the carpet was black but faded and still in good shape, just faded.
So one day...you know those days when you want to see change? like right now? I painted the carpet....regular black spray paint..didn't last long, but it looked nice at the moment...I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

 

Thanks! It's hard to keep going, trust me, sometimes I'm draggin' my tail out there but onceI get the juices flowing it's hard to stop. I don't mind the patina look it has now, not at all, but if the steel underneath is to survive, it's goona need to be stripped. THe blue was a re-pain some years ago, and is showing alot of waterspots underneath the paint. Then there is rust brewing at the door corners and cab corners. Eventually I'll have to address that. I will have a couple promer spost on the doors as i have to cut-in for the stock outside mirrors, and repair what the P.O. had done to the doors with the cheap mirrors that were on there. The tailgate (if I decide to run it, probably will) would be mis-matched too. Only have 3 major hurdles to go over yet combined with a lot of small stuff. Wiring, exhaust and new driveline (current one is about an inch short) With christmas here, I'm gonna have to put a turnicate on this hemmorage for now. I just hope I have a good tax return next year to pay for all this..


That would be fun, think I've heard of that show too. I get a little booklet every year of all the car events in OR, WA, and ID. Might have been where I saw it. I usually dont go much farther than Salem, depends on if I have the kids with me or not too. I usually like to run with someone else, if I go much further, not that I'd have any problems, but you never know. Once it's on the road and i get the bugs worked out I'll have a better idea how it's doin.

 

You could always run a spacer on the differential end of the drive line to get you by for a while. Something like this (although it is for a Mustang):

 

@Ben- You bet man, it's all in the name of building on a budget!

I've used stuff Duplicolor put out in the past and it's about as good as you experienced with your carpet. Rubbed/scratched off easy, didn't last long at all. My dad has been using a line made by SEM and swears by it. He's done dash pads, door panels, etc.. That's what I used and is the first seat for me and him with the stuff. I've been told by many others that this is the next best thing before going full on dye through the auto paint suppliers. We'll have to see how it wears. I sure like the way it turned out, much more convincing than the crap Duplicolor puts out. It seems to have bitten into the vinyl real well, you can run your hands down the seat and it feels as if it's the actual vinyl. I'm sure if you raked a fork or screwdriver down it, it may leave a mark. When i put the seatback on it didn't leave any marks at all on the seat bottom where I had to connect the hinge. Prep is a big deal too. Must make sure it's clean, clean, clean....no oily substance. They also sell a vinly prep to go with their spray dye. I used that too.

LOL- Yeah I tried a supposed "carpet dye" from Duplicolor to dye my tan rugs black in my Duster some years ago. Then my seat in the car was tan too, a velour insert. Can't say it lasted any more than a year before tan started showing where my feet were wearing and my butt-spot in the seat. Makes you wonder where all the paint went.... Not sure if SEM has a carpet dye line, never bothered to look.

Gimmie this next spring/summer and I can give you better feedback. This is the 1st high wear item we've tried to use this stuff on. Will have to see how it holds up.

 

Reminds me of a girl I knew in high school in the 80's. She had a '65 Mustang that her dad redid for her. When they changed the outside from green to maroon they died the upholstery black using that cheap spray dye. The first night she cruised her Mustang, her nice red skirt had black all over the back side.

 

Oh that would suck! It'd be even funnier if she didn't know that it had rubbed off!

That spacer you posted would have worked provided that I was using a 8.8 or some kind of rear axle that uses a flange like that. Mine's straight yoke to yoke using a u-joint. The driveshaft shouldn't be too expensive. I got a quote to build a completely new one for $150-175 or if I can find one that just needs to be shortened up and rebalanced for $75-$125. Exhaust will be in the neighborhood of $250 and the wiring is still to be determined. Just have to stick to the smalls and what not till I get through Christmas.

 

Dano, on the dye, thats cool, I will be around that long for sure!
Thanks for the info and keep it up!

 

Maybe Santa will bring you a sleigh full of parts.

 

nice build post some more pictures

 

Well I guess I'd better get on the ball and update this thing! Been busy through the holidays and hit the '56 hard in between. Snapped a bunch of pics and been too lazy to add them so here we go-


Had to get going on the column install and that ment gettin a lower column mount done and getting hte floor plate to work for me. Here I used the original pieces and only really modified the lower two pieces incase I ever wanted to go back to the OEM column for any reason. So i closed up the hole in the lower plates for the column pass-through and had to (for some reason) clearance the brake pedal hole a bit more. Dunno why, the body seems square and sits well onthe frame... maybe the brake pedal iteslf was bent a bit. Oh well, I had aready bent up the shift rod to accomodate what was there so I i were to try to bend the brake pedal back it may cause clearance issues with the linkage. So i let it be and just worked with it. Also tack welded some flange nuts to the bottom of the lower plates for securing the lower column mount to the plates themselves. A bit of an errector set if I may say.






Then fabbed up a throttle linkage using some steel rod and threading each end with joints that happen to come with the truck.




Here's all the accociated pieces involving the bottom of the column. Lots o' parts there! All painted and ready for install. And other pics showing all installed.





Got the heater assy installed. Everything fits good. I decited to leave 2 of the 3 motor wires inside the cab. Just left the gound wire in its stock position on the firewall.




Next was to removed the 3/4 plywood the PO used as a battery tray. Cleaned up the rear tray bracket and the runingboard arm, sprayed with neutralizer and squirted it with black. I ended up using an aftermarket coated tray from napa and it seems to fit real well. Fitted it to the stock rear bracket and the runningboard arm with stainless bolts and hardware.



The battery cover ihad was ok but one of the locking levers was rusted so bad that it bent easily. Got this one for a song-and-a-dance from a local 53-56 F100 parts guy. Works like a champ!

 

I got bored one late night and decided I needed to fix the mirror situation. Using a template I located where the holes 'should' have been and peeled back the paint. In doing so i found out the PO brazed in tiny patch panels where the mirror holes use to be in each door. Soooo with some drilling, dremeling and hand filing, I regained the stock mirror holes. And let me tell you... nuttin looks better than those stock mirrors houng out there on these trucks! Put a real smile on my face when i was done!


the mirrors were Vintique Re-pops i had gotten at a swap meet last summer. Not bad units at all for the price. I think they were only $25 per mirror If I remember right.



Christmas brought me new door regulators! All the shafts were stripped out on both the inside openers and the window regulators. Was gonna rebuild all of them with shaft repair kits but had scored really nice inside openers and then, who can argue with Santa on the regulators! (Santa got a pretty good deal on those too!)

I was so giddy I had already installed the one door opener before taking pics!

And the old units below. I'll still keep these and rebuild the shaft and keep as spares.




All installed with new handles and window cranks from Vintique Inc.



After Christmas i sent the driveline out to have it shortened and balanced. Here it is all done with new u-joints, shortened, balanced and painted for $95.

 

Nice work!!.. I need to finish my floor panel and battery hanging too..

Sam

 

I remember doing these jobs brought back some memories ;o).. you are doing nice work.
Same colour as my truck was to. I just hope them mirrors and window regulators are better than the junk I bought. Window winders lasted one day and all the teeth rounded off and the mirrors rusted and the alloy bubbles in no time.. Keep up the good work

 

Oh man don't say that! The regulators didn't look to bad and felt really good. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. That's why i'm keeping the original units and replacing the shafts. I cleaned up the original rollers and re-used them onteh new regualors. Seem to work really good and quite smooth. Will have to see..