December, 2018
Now that Ryan is 16, we purchased this truck to do a complete restoration. The idea is to tear the entire truck down to the frame and keep as much original as possible. Ryan thinks we need to re-power the truck with a diesel. I’m not opposed to that option, as I would like to allow for some slight retro-mod.
Interior 
Side View
Ryan and I got the old truck running and was able to move it around under it’s own power. However, even after tearing down the carburetor and making some temporary modification, the engine is in a serious need of a full rebuild. At a minimal, the head and valves clearly need refurbished. However, we found a diesel engine out of a 1980’s truck. We’re going to try and retro-fit the newer engine with minimal modifications.
We also removed the old flat bed. I was hoping to reuse this bed, but it was in pretty bad shape. We will build a new bed at a later time.
Ryan cutting off the old flatbed 
Removing the flatbed 
The flatbed is off
August 2019
Truck is in the shop and getting stripped down to the frame.
Right side removed 
Only the cab remains
Dec 2019
We’re down to the frame
January 2020
We started body work on the cab. Needed to replace the corners with new sheet metal. Ryan is quite the welder.
February / March 2020
More body work. Stripped the rest of the truck down to the frame. Time to mock up the new engine and transmission.
April 2020
Spent the weekend making motor mounts. Covid-19 is keeping us in the shop. However, it’s tough to go out and get parts, so we need to make everything we can with what we have laying around.
A big shout out to Ron Smoker from Geneva Materials Ron has been a HUGE help with sharing his experiences when building his daily driver with the 12V Cummins which included several phone consultations and many photo exchanges as well.