53 Chevy - Done

Home stretch...

The Frontier Days Parade was quickly approaching but I figured with some extra effort, we just might be able to make it this year.

Electrical

For the wiring, I chose the Highway 15 wiring system from American Autowire. Very reasonably priced and excellent quality. Directions were very easy to follow and are based on a nice modular design. You don't have to wait to finish the entire job to see results. When you finish with the first bag of parts, you can start the vehicle. Then after each additional step, new functions are enabled. Really helps with the motivation. All in all, it took about 2 weekends to finish. There was not a single aspect of this product I wasn't thrilled about. I highly recommend it.

Bed Wood

Red Oak for the bed came from Fine Lumber. This is a local Austin business owned by a member of my church, Robert Timmerman. I have known Robert for many years. In fact, Robert gave me the wood for my first Chevy truck 20 yars ago. He's near the top of my favorite Aggies list.

My step dad helped out a lot with ripping the boards down to the right width and cutting in the required grooves on each edge.

It took several days to put on all the layers of stain and varnish.

Glass

With just a week to go before the parade, the truck still needed glass installed. None of the regular automotive glass businesses wanted to mess with it. Finally, I lucked out and found Mike Shambarger at Classic Auto Works. Mike builds hot rods and has done a number of Advanced Design trucks over the years. He just finished a build and had an available bay he could fit me into before he started another build. Problem was, I didn't have the glass ready. Another good friend, Ann Loosier, came to the rescue. She works for Anchor-Ventana, a local commercial and residential glass company. Although they don't normally do automotive glass, she arranged to meet me at 6am in the morning and have one their top guys cut the glass and have it all ready by lunch time. Unbelieveable and not a moment too soon. We immediately drove the truck 40 miles, sans windshield, to Mike's shop. Mike had all the glass installed by 8pm on July 3rd. Just 12 hours until the parade. Only problem, the bed wasn't done...

Bed Assembly

We made it back with the truck from getting the glass installed at 9pm. My wife and I worked until 2 in the morning installed the wood and stainless steel wear strips. If you look closely, you can see that we couldn't get to all the bolts. Good enough for the parade but will need to remove the bed to finish the job later.

Frontier Days Parade

Frontier Days is Round Rock's annual 4th of July celebration. Among other things, it includes a parade and a reenactment of the historical Sam Bass shootout. Entering the parade had been a goal pretty much since work on the truck began. It was a lot of work all the way down to the end but we made it, just like on the Hot Rod reality shows on tv. It was a beautiful day and my family and I had a great time. We couldn't believe how many people attended the parade. It was especially great having so many family and friends cheering us on during the parade. My daughters and two of their friends threw out 4 big buckets of candy. Certainly a red letter day. We got a lot of compliments on the truck. Especially those stylish front wheel covers :-)

Time to cruise

The truck is not 100% done but at least now I can drive it around. It even made its first trip to Home Depot. Between trips, I will work on getting some wheels and a few other odds and ends. Should be completely done in time for football season.

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