Truck ‘built from the ground up’

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This article was published 24/05/2019 (2477 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OAK LAKE — Dwayne Wiltshire’s first-place finish at the recent Winnipeg World of Wheels has been a labour of love five years in the making.

The award-winning truck is a custom diesel Chevy 1952 boasting an original body of 16-gauge steel that has been stretched, lowered and sits on air.

The truck was essentially built from the ground up. Wiltshire began collecting bits and pieces for the vehicle five years ago.

“My passion has always been building something,” Wiltshire said.

His first vehicle was a 1949 Chevy pickup half-ton step side. He bought the truck when he was 14 and worked on until he was 16, rebuilding it so he could drive to high school and later college.

At 17 he bought a ’57 Chevy four-door, but the bottom rotted right out. Fortunately, he was able to use parts for the rat rod.

His modification and restoration bug has only grown over the years.

Wiltshire considers himself a Chevy guy, and finds that he gravitates to the brand.

Everything on his 1952 truck is original — including a factory fender, hood and bumper.

But Wiltshire has made some modifications.

“Everything I do, I work the metal, I weld the metal,” Wiltshire said.

He limited his use of Bondo Body Repair, mainly employing the tool to clean the fine lines.

“It took me five vehicles to find a bumper that wasn’t twisted and a grill that wasn’t beat up,” Wiltshire said.

The running boards of the vehicle are factory made and are unique because they start slim and go wide. It took Wiltshire seven running boards and countless harvested parts to find the perfect fit for the cab.

Creating the truck involved years of intense background work. Wiltshire has tirelessly hunted for unique pieces, finding what worked with the vehicle with a lot of trial and error.

His vision was complicated because the ride is a ton and a half truck.

“It’s different than the half ton, the three-quarter ton and the one ton,” Wiltshire said.

The ton and a half truck is about 13 centimetres wider, 13 centimetres longer and the hood is about eight centimetres narrower. On top of that, he needed length and width in the front to get the diesel engine under the hood.

When he first put it together, the engine fit perfectly, but when he put the body on the frame, the wheels didn’t line up at the centre of the fenders.

He had to slide the engine more than 30 centimetres back to accommodate, so he could fit the radiator in and have wheels in the centre of the wheel wells.

To create the unique look for the truck, Wiltshire transplanted a cab on to the original chassis which was spring ride and changed it to independent front suspension so it could go air ride.

“When I landed it in there, I had to move everything back,” Wiltshire said.

It took two air rides systems for him to find one he liked.

His current system is RideTech, which allows him to operate it from his phone.

Wiltshire is always pushing himself to learn and perfect his skills, and draws from experience as a licensed mechanic.

“You know how all that stuff works — it’s just trying to get it down to an application that you can fit in,” Wiltshire said.

He talks to a lot of people for advice, and working out calculations to create the most effective airbags for the truck.

“I’ve learned a lot in this,” Wiltshire said.

» ckemp@brandonsun.com

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