I got tired of my peeling crusty door panels and broken plastic window cranks on my 1st gen so I decided to make something else. The truck is a 1980 longbed I got for $250 a few years back and the entire build theme is making use of old, on sale or cheap stuff. It has this cool patina and while I wanted to updrade the interior I didn't want anything new or shiny.
I had some old aluminum diamond plate left over from a flatbed skin. It is oxidized, stained and sctatched... Perfect! I cut some pegboard to fill the gap where the stock door panel sits in and to eliminate rattles. I used scews and brass finish washers to attach the panels give it a kind of mil spec riveted look. I relocated some speakers back to the stock location spaced with some cork so they didn't rub on the windows; I previously had a set in the "kick me" spot which was a waste of time in this truck. The speakers sound better in this location anyway.
A nice suprise was that the doors now close solid and don't have that tin can sound anymore. I also found a pair of visegrips in the passenger door
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Window cranks: After seeing a few of the rat rod guys at car shows I have started liking the idea of using weird objects as parts, so I am trying to go this way on the interior of this truck. I wanted to use something I had laying around in the garage and I found an old rusty animal trap. I cut off the spring and JB welded the ends off some spent 20 guage shot gun shells for the handle part. I just drilled a hole and tacked them to the regulators, then tacked some of the little bits of the trap to the crank part for looks.
So is anybody else doing any cool door panels or other cool interior stuff made from odd things? Post up pics...
