My Contribution To Truck Rebuilding

Lee had been rebuilding a 1953 (or is it 54?  He has told me a thousand times and I can't remember) GMC one ton flatbed pick up truck.  He had the engine rebuilt and has been putting everything new and rebuilt together.  He drove it this week for the first time.  He just drove it far enough to take it out of one bay of the garage to the one with the lift.  Then he used the lift to remove the flatbed part.

This is where I come in.  I don't do car stuff.  That is Lee's area of expertise.  Before we were married I had a car, a truck, a motorcycle and a sailboat.  I could change the oil and the spark plugs and that was about it.  Then we got married and I happily turned over the vehicle maintenance to Lee.  Wood and paint are apparently MY area of expertise.

 

The wood on the bed is in seriously bad condition.  The idea was to sand it down and put a few coats of polyurethane on to protect it.  After a few hours with the belt sander we realized that the wood is not going to look good even with a shiny coat of poly.

 

Now the plan is to fill the checks and splits and coat the whole thing.  I am hoping to find some truck bedliner in a spray can.  We don't want to spend much more money on this thing.  We have probably put more money into it than we will ever be able to get back.  If we thought we could get our money back, the thing to do would be to buy all new oak boards and then use the polyurethane on that. 
 

 
These trucks aren't old enough or rare enough to demand high dollars.  But this is a real cool truck and we are using a lot of John Deere parts and colors.  There are a lot of farmers around here and John Deere is king.  I figure a farmer can have a truck to match his tractors and it will be useful besides.  A win win!

In the meantime, after we get it painted, it will be fun to drive it to a few of the cruise nights held locally. Buchanan has several Cruise In nights  If nothing else, we will have a useful truck until a "green" enthusiast buys it off of us.