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This is a 1935 GMC we restored for Salit Steel of Niagara Falls , Ontario . Next year, 2005, will be their 100th anniversary in business. This truck is the same make and model as the first motorized vehicle they ever bought. It is not the original vehicle as that was scrapped a number of years ago. This truck was purchased with the lugger body attached and is original to this vehicle, but, the original company truck shown in old photos had a flat deck body. It was decided to restore the truck as purchased as Salit Steel had a long history in the scrap business and owned many trucks of this design. This truck was imported to Canada from a Tonawanda New York plant in 1976. It had spent it's entire life as a plant truck never having been licensed for street use. The lugger body was installed in 1951.
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| This is the truck as it arrived at our shop. It was stored inside from the late 70's until it's purchase by the new owners.
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A little rough, but overall a very restorable piece.
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| The interior is a little worn. All the extra levers control the lugger operation.
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| This engine was started, and the vehicle was test driven about 2 hours after arrival at our shop. An oil change, fresh gas and battery, and a point adjustment were all that was necessary.
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| Some rust was encountered in a few areas.
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| Cab corners were bad as are lot of other areas not visible until several layers of paint were removed.
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| Door bottoms were repaired as rust had perforated them across the seam at the bottom. Probably due to it's many years of outdoor storage before being brought to Canada .
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| The rear cab wall was damaged due to wood rot in the mount areas, This had allowed the body to settle on the frame and had worn away about 4 inches of metal from contacting the frame.
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| One of the reasons you do not see many restored GMC or Chevy vehicles of this era is due to the amount of wood used in construction. They are basically a wood body with a metal skin nailed over top. You need to be a carpenter, as much as a mechanic, to restore them. The roof on our truck was pushed in about 6 inches, probably due to damage while loading a scrap bucket. This broke the rear window allowing rain in and as a result a lot of wood needed to be replaced. We had to bring in a cabinet maker to build the driver's door hinge post. Rot in this area caused the door to drop about 12 inches when opened. All other wood work was performed in our shop.
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| Here is the frame sandblasted and minor damage repaired and awaiting paint.
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| Painted and reassembled. All suspension parts were inspected and reused as they showed little wear. The speedometer shows just over 17,000 miles.
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Here the engine is being reinstalled. It was regasketed and painted, but is otherwise original. The carb, water pump and fuel pump were rebuilt due to leaks and for reliability. |
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| The body is in the paint booth for initial primer. A task that will be repeated many times.
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| Here it is primed and installed on the chassis. The firewall was painted the final body colour before installation just to make it easier.
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| Fenders, grille, running boards are being smoothed before priming again. [coat 2 or 3???] Many of the raised diamonds on the running boards were worn through. We had to weld them up and grind them to shape as replacement parts for this truck are difficult to find.
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| Here we are back in the spray booth preparing for the colour coat. All inside areas are painted and masked first. This allows the painter to concentrate on the outside without having to open and close doors, hood etc.
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| Preparation requires masking the vehicle right to the floor. This prevents any dirt blowing up on your paint during the spraying.
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| Here it is still wet to the touch. Boy did I catch it for opening the door to take this picture.
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| Here is the lugger box sandblasted and ready for paint.
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| Paint and a detail stripe complete this piece. The white was added as so much green paint seemed to need a little added colour to dress it up a touch.
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| This is our striper, Gord Brooks from Stripes and Signs in Niagara Falls , Ontario . He is applying a gold line to duplicate details we found while stripping the many coats of paint.
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| A little detailing was added to the lugger before installing it on the chassis.
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| The completed interior is changed slightly. All the operating levers were left out to make room for passengers. There were so many levers and they were so poorly placed that the truck was difficult to drive.
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| We recreated the original lettering by copying it from an old photo. The phone number is a combination of the original exchange. EL stands for Elgin or the 354 used today and the rest is the balance of the current phone number.
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| Completed and posing for some professional style photos.
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| Loaded for delivery and unveiling to the owners. They had not seen the vehicle since leaving it here for restoration.
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