1954 Chevrolet Pickup - Mental Patience

Another area in need of an upgrade was the '54's suspension. There's nothing wrong with an '84 Camaro clip, but in order to get the old Chevy to lay hard, Eightball installed a pair of 'bags and cut the Camaro's crossmember out, replacing it with a length of 2x6-inch channel. In the rear, the original leaf spring arrangement was replaced with a bagged parallel four-link setup with a Panhard bar from KP Components. Prior to installing the four-link suspension, Eightball sectioned in an 8-inch step notch and raised the bed floor evenly as opposed to building a bridge notch cover for the differential.

When Brian bought the '54 from Tom, Eightball had color-changed it to black suede. Since Eightball had been involved with the truck from the start, Brian figured it would be a good idea to have them continue with the project. Eightball added a few body mods and repainted the truck with red fenders. For some reason, the black suede turned out to be a curse, with everything from the hood blowing up on the freeway to watermelon stripes appearing in the suede finish. After eight repaints and a lot of block-sanding, the bad luck subsided.

Once all the mechanical items were out of the way, Brain and Michele were finally able to take the '54 over to Westminster Auto Upholstery to get the leather interior done. Aware that more than a few chopped rear quarter-windows were broken while being installed, Westminster's Pete Engel did the entire headliner without removing the window glass. Once the nerve-wracking work around the windows was done, Pete re-contoured an S-10 bench seat and tuck 'n' rolled it in black and white leather and vinyl to match the rest of the interior.

To handle the finer details on the '54, Brian contacted KA Custom in Huntington Beach, where Kevin Francis installed an Air Ride Technologies Ride-Pro controller and replumbed the air and fuel lines for show and go.

After a rash of bad luck and a whole lot of patience, Brian and Michele's '54 Chevy is ready to hit the road. We just hope that when it comes to running errands, Michele's luck around shopping carts is better than Brian's luck on the freeway.