timelesscustoms

[timelesscustoms]

#karma #chevy #lsswap #bagged #slammed #hotrod #classic #mint #classiccarsdaily

[timelesscustoms]

Tony and I (Chantania) have been restoring this 1954 Chev 3100 since October last year, out of our one car garage. 

This truck has been sitting out in the back forty for the past 20 years, and in between our full-time jobs it seemed like a tall order. But ever since Tony & I found each other, we also seem to have found all the time & energy we never had before to make our dreams a reality.

The build has been a family affair, including our 2 kids (age 6 and 5), Tony's parents (Anthony & Wendy), and my brother (Elijah). We've lost track of all the evenings we popped out to the garage after supper to run a couple welds, or plan a bracket, run a line, etc - just to keep putting one foot in front of other. Trusting in the process and focusing on the end result, instead of how much work was left!

We sand blasted the frame in January, in -20 degrees celsius, with a 5-gallon sandblaster and no in-line air dryer. It took us well into the night, with the kids inside with Grandma making hot meals & beverages, Tony sand blasting, and Grandpa & I working endlessly to keep the blaster from icing up. 

We figure we've put between 600-700 hours into this truck together now!

We chose a clean LS1 for our engine, paired with a Borg-Warner 5-speed manual transmission. We stripped the truck down, chopped the original frame, and grafted on a front clip out of a 1985 Caprice with independent front suspension. From there Tony did a beautiful job of mounting the airbags, and at this point we have approximately 8 inches of height travel. It's going to be laying frame at its lowest point!

The rear differential is out of a Chevy S10 Blazer, so it's extremely narrow, allowing 15" of width for wheels & tires in the back end. We have Gibson shorty headers, combined with a dual exhaust we built using two Flowmaster Delta Flow 50-Series mufflers.

After sand blasting, the frame got etch primer inside & out, Por 15 on the inside, and then we boxed it in front & back. After that we sprayed high-build primer, blocked it, and painted the frame & parts with House of Kolor blue, and Chevy orange on the engine, accessories and brake calipers. The body will also be painted with this HOK blue.

We custom-fabricated the 4-Link suspension setup, cab mounts, box mounts, rad support, shock mounts, engine mounts and more. We did a full disc-brake conversion in the back end with Powerstop drilled/slotted rotors, and at one point we even had the engine harness pulled apart on the dining table at 1am on a Sunday night, doing our LS conversion.

This build has been a labor of love for both of us. We've asked a lot of our family and friends; their help & support, and their unwavering faith in us and our ability to take an old field-find and turn it into a masterpiece. All that's left now is the body panels & interior, which we plan to have completed within the next 60-90 days. We continue to work tirelessly and harder than ever with the end-result within our sight!

Tony and I have both always been hard workers & givers, sometimes to a fault. We're the types of people who inadvertently push our own needs to the back burner, but jump up to help someone else in need. We go out of our way for others, and although we've both had our fair share of ups and downs along the road over the years, we’ve made some incredible friends along the way.

Some days we sit down at the end of a good day's work, and we look at our frame glistening in the driveway, with the kids playing in the grass nearby, a cold drink in hand, and our unfaltering partner by our side, and we feel like the universe is giving back to us. It's what inspired us to give this truck its name: Karma.