Fat Herbie: 1959 Chevy Apache LBZ Swap

Project Fat Herbie:

1959 Apache fleetside longbox.

Donor truck is a 2006 LBZ crew cab 4x4 with 113,XXX miles, and LT3 interior that was rolled. still ran and drove nice.

The name Fat Herbie: I initially bought a rolled 59 NAPCO panel truck and was going to put my truck body on it but decided it wasn't going to be the nice daily driver I wanted it to be so I sold it. It had mismatched junk tires on it and one of them was a "Fat Herbie". I had never heard of the tire before and liked the name so I cut it out of the sidewall and kept it.

I plan on driving and keeping this truck till i'm dead and gone so I decided an LBZ was what I was going to get. nearly 2 years later I finally found a rolled low mileage LBZ.

I'm not rich and I do all my own work so this won't be a super fast build most likely but I will post updates as they happen.

Donor Truck when I got it. I wanted to drive it some to see if there was anything wrong with it so I would know after the swap if it was a swap issue or an issue it had due to the roll over so the roof had to go so I could physically drive it. you get a lot of looks driving a convertible crew cab truck around.

Frame was shortened 30 inches. I left the firewall on it so I could drive it to wash frame, move to around etc..

The floor had plenty of rust so I replaced the inner and outer cab corners, steps and floor pans. First time I had ever done that before and it was not fun!
Finished up the underneath side with 2 coats of POR-15 and 3 coats of undercoating.

I got the cab mounted. Just tacked the mounts on for now in case I need to adjust anything.
Just tossed the bed on temporarily mainly to see it and keep me motivated I guess.

I'm just going to leave the truck is natural patina and lineX the bottom tall enough to cover the patch panels. This will be my daily driver for my business and will be used as a truck and driven on gravel roads so i'm not to interested in paying big bucks for a high dollar paint job.

the pic below is not the greatest. I enclosed a small area in my shop in order to heat it so I can only take a pic through the doorway for now.

Well a lot of work done but most of it boring and not much that's interesting enough to take pics of.

Got some Anthem 20" Wheels to fit the used set of 37" Tires I got.

Front fender wheel opening were lengthened to allow for room to keep the factory radiator, intercooler etc.. setup up front.
Rad/intercooler sit at an angle so they were stood up some and that saved room but not near enough.

Brake lines extended and while they were exposed I put in a line lock.

I made my own longer Hydrboost lines as the aftermarket options were expensive already and having them ad extra length was even worse. That saved me a fortune.

4" MBRP exhaust with muffler since I got it for free.

Got a steel driveshaft and had it shortened up. Sold the OEM alum shaft and actually came out ahead on that.

Deleted the EGR, added intake pipe to get rid of the guly intake heater on this LBZ. Didn't need to be done now but it won't get any easier than with no front clip on it so why not.

Have a PCV reroute and FPRV shims to install yet.

Seats, steering column, throttle pedal, new electric wipers, dash skeleton etc.. were mounted up. I'm 6'2" so to give me more leg room I square cut the drives floor to allow the pedals to move forward and I cut the back wall to allow the seats to go back farther. Those 2 things made a huge difference. Once the seats are in you don't even notice the cut in the wall much.

All holes( LOTS OF THEM) welded shut in the firewall.

Fresh air vents removed(rusted out anyway) and patched over.

Classic auto air mounted to firewall to get everything situated for clearances.

Everthing then was removed and the entire cab top to bottom was cleaned and sanded then primed which is where i'm at now.

Now ready to be 100% coated in Lizardskin.

Once this is all coated I feel like the hardest part of this project will be behind me. we'll see if that holds true.

Very cool project!
Can't wait to see it completed.
Keep us in the loop!
Dave