Check out current issue of Hot Rod magazine

[MBF]

Pilot house on the cover, and one of the features. We have arrived! Mike

[Dan Babb]

I'll have to check that out.

Does this mean that our trucks are all worth about 5k more now?

[msjenkins]

I get Hot Rod and mine doesn't have a Pilot House on the cover. What month has the Pilot House?

[Tony_Urwin]

October. It just hit the newstands this last week at my local bookstore.

[NiftyFifty]

October. It just hit the newstands this last week at my local bookstore.

What a wicked truck...love the non-finished exterior...gotta get it guys

[Bob_Koch]

The issue is October, 2010 of Hot Rod. The owner kept the truck very much original on the outside, dents and all. It has been passed down through the family. The marvel is it hosts a 440 engine that is supercharged. The supercharger is in the bed. The engineering to accomplish having the radiator and supercharger in the rear makes for one interesting truck.

Here's a few more photos from a forum about it:

[pflaming]

Will probably have to get the issue to get my answer but I wonder how he worked out that finish and if he did a clear coat. I too like the original patina it just impossible to paint that kind of a finish.

[Bob_Koch]

articles says three coats of matte clearcoat for the finish.

[pflaming]

I've been watching this 'patina' finish for a while now. I wondered how they got a 'shine' on the old paint. Here is a bit more information but I certain not all that is available.

A clear coat that’s not glossy, but is a semi-flat clear coat, is termed a Matte finish.

Definition according to Sherwin Williams: CC947 Matte Clear coat is a Premium, pre-flexed, elastomeric, versatile urethane clear coat that provides the ability to achieve various gloss finishes for today’s “low gloss” refinishing requirements. CC947 is packaged as a “flat” clea r coat. This gloss level can be adjusted to achieve eggshell, satin and semi-gloss by adding either CC950, CC940, CC939, CC931, CC930, CC921, CC920, or HPC15 clear coats.

Matte finish. It has to be mixed into the clear coat. Once it's sprayed on, it will be matte but will still provide the protection of a clear. One plus is that it doesn't show finger prints nearly as quickly as the gloss clears.

Or: PPG's pre-flattened clear coat, code DCU 2060. Just as the name says, it's a pre-flattened clear coat that is put over top of a basecoat to give it that flat satin look.

I got these definitions / descriptions by googling.

PS: Somewhere I recall reading, clear coat will NOT adhere to shiny metal. The metal has to be 'primered' first. Is that a fair statement?

Edited August 23, 2010 by pflaming
ps

[Merle Coggins]

That looks like the same truck I saw at Mopars in the Park last summer. I talked to the owner briefly. Rather than mounting the blower under the hood (where there would have been plenty of room) he ran a jack shaft under the truck that drives the blower in the bed. The plumbing for the radiator and charg air cooler was impressive too.

[ggdad1951]

where does this bad boy "live"? I can't quite make out the plates.

[Dan Babb]

I wonder if you really get the benefit of the supercharger with all that plumbing. The centrifugal type blowers only start to make boost as the rpms climb.

So if you have to be at 4000 rpms to get to peak boost...but you have to first pressurize all that plumbing...then it seems to me that you wouldn't feel the effects until you're on the gas for a short time. Not quite the quick rush you usually get from a blower.

The article didn't really have a lot of tech on how he did it all....but did have some drawings of the shaft he ran through the frame brace that's near the back of the transmission.

[HanksB3B]

Hank

[49powerwagon]

That pilothouse seems to miss the whole point of pilothouses to me. I don`t mind it being hotrodded, but it seems to me to be engineered right past the point of logic.

[Young Ed]

That looks like the same truck I saw at Mopars in the Park last summer. I talked to the owner briefly. Rather than mounting the blower under the hood (where there would have been plenty of room) he ran a jack shaft under the truck that drives the blower in the bed. The plumbing for the radiator and charg air cooler was impressive too.

Yup thats the same truck. I've been parked next to it at North St Paul Car show. I apparently didn't upload the picture of our two trucks together to my photobucket though.

[Dave72dt]

That pilothouse seems to miss the whole point of pilothouses to me. I don`t mind it being hotrodded, but it seems to me to be engineered right past the point of logic.

Another case of "doing it because I can". Would have made some sense if there wasn't any room for it up front but there was. Logic had nothing to do with it.

[Dennis_MN]

where does this bad boy "live"? I can't quite make out the plates.

The plates are Minnesota collector plates and I did talk to him a year ago at Mopars in the Park. I think he said he was from the Brainerd, MN area.

His response to the question "why in the box" was the same as "why does a dog lick his balls"

Because he can! The mechanical linkage to that blower is an engineering marvel.

Dennis