OFFICIAL NC FOOD TRUCK BUILD W/PICS

That one of those once in a life time deals. Nice equiment!!!

Concerning the set-up...it looks like your stove/griddle is on one side of the truck and your fryer is on the other. According to health dept doesn't everything to do with cooking have to be under an exhaust hood? If you have cooking equipment on both sides you are going to have to have exhaust on both sides.

oohh, thats changed.....
everything is going against the back wall and will be "side vented" out the back
 
i do plan on a small smoker to roast peanuts and pork that will be towards the front..... maybe just a small roof vent for it, its a sealed smoker(Bradly) so hopefully i can sweet talk them into letting me have it .....
 
but to answer your question, the HD here says a hood isnt mandatory in a mobile unit, but they strongly suggest one, thats where that first set of plans came from

I really like what you are doing, updates?

Lost Nation
I really like what you are doing, updates?

 
yea, ive been slacking a bit and the recent weather has really put a screeching halt on things, but i will hopefully have some good updates with pics by this weekend.....

heres an update teaser...... last week i thought i found the once in a lifetime deal on the silverking and the star fryer....... well, this week i picked up another piece, a caravelle freezer, got too dark for picks today, but will get a couple up tomorrow sometime.......probably late, tomorrow is going to be one of those "huge progress days" in the short term anyway.....
 
i paid 75 bucks for the freezer, its out on the back porch sitting at 14*, i actually had to lean down to hear if the compressor was running or not..... i have wiped that place out though, everything worth getting has been got, 
i also picked up a sweet hand wash sink for 25 bucks...... im going to miss that place :(

ok...im off to the money pit......
freezer is sitting steady at 10*, i almost wish i had a deer ham to stick in there now, lol
im not sure after thinking about it if "huge" is the right word for today..... tons of little tinkering stuff to do, plus a big ol' batch of paint stripping going on as a main event.......
i have come to learn one thing about paint...... baked in the sun, and unprotected, cheap or expensive doesnt matter, its a bear to get back off after a dozen or so years!

ok, heres the little freezer i picked up this week, she has been holding steady at 10* for the past 2 or 3 days now, so i think she is good to go.....
 
a good cleaning and some new vinyl and she will be ready for service.....

hard to tell, but its sitting on 10* 
she is dusty as all get out from sitting, but the scrub brushes come out tomorrow!!

 
after looking around the web i found out these baskets are going for 50 bucks used !!
they will be scrubbed with TLC, lol

ok, now for the big stuff.....
you cant really tell on the timing and tune up, tinkering with the carb, and the blasted exhaust leak i cant get rid of(its time for new manifolds) i have one with a broken ear, but there was about 10 hours of work done to the ol' girl wednesday....
the biggest bang for the buck was the stripping.....lol, about 7 hours of the day, and thats just half the van !! the van has an "E" coat on it, that is about 98% intact, which is a good thing, the less bare aluminum the less metal prep i need to do ......the E coat is the darker blue and gold on the front......
anything you see that isnt the darker blue or gold still has to be stripped, but i am tellin ya..... theres 4 different colors on this thing, and the top two are some of the hardest, most bull headed paint i have ever seen..... the top layer was cracked and weathered to a point it was useless and had to come off, and with all the rivets involved, mechanical stripping is out of the question....
now that im started on it i can see a little brighter light at the end of the tunnel, with any luck and better weather then lately i should have at least a primer coat on her by the end of next week...

what you see done took 7 hours, lol...... nothing i do is simple and easy for some reason....
if you think your in good shape, grab a hold of a 3000 psi pressure washer for 7 hours and see how you feel in the morning !!
by those numbers, im figuring about 9-10 more hours on the outside, and maybe 1-2 hours on the inside just to clean her up real good and get all the dust out the joints and such.....
i will be soooooooo glad to see some fresh bright paint on the ol' girl :)

I like what you've done. Are you using a water base paint stripper? I used a water base stripper on a boat and wasn't that bad or take that long to take the paint off.  Keep up the great work it will pay you back 10 fold. Mike

yea, its called "aircraft stripper" it says water wash off..... im tellin ya though, that is some god awful nasty stuff......
 
the paint is so old and hardened that it still takes a pressure washer to remove it after sitting with the stripper for a couple hours.....without the stripper i cant even wash the dirt out of the paint...
it makes a huge difference!!..... im using a different stripper tomorrow just to see how it works out but im not going to hold my breath, lol....well, yea i am if it smells the same !

and yea, i agree it will be worth it, lol, just a PITA right now
the layers of paint are so thick right now that the rivets seem to have grown in size after stripping it off.....
 

BAB looks like you got your hands full. I think I know what you are going through, I have pains in places I didn't know I had. Nice weather in VT today....35* and raining/sleeting.

oohh wow......86 here, and just as sunny as it can be..... in fact, i think the top of my noggin is a little red, might be time to go buy a hat for the summer, lol

when i built my first rig, i gave myself what seemed to be carpal tunnel in both hands. omg the pains everywhere. I am rough on my body alot, but building this thing was insane. It consumed me, I worked on it in blizzards, rain, and xmas eve. LOL

i know what your saying......
sometimes i just have to walk away from it for a day or two, and then sometimes, im tinkering and stripping and wiring and measuring/designing/etc... for what ends up being close to 24 hours strait.... lol, the first stripping day when all was said and done ended up being about 16 hours between shop time and trips to the steel yard and stainless shop...
 
i knew i have a serious problem when i found myself sitting in the van at 3am the other morning debating on whether to start adjusting the E-brake or go in and get some sleep, lol

RAIN RAIN RAIN !!!!
got some more stripping done yesterday, nothing really pic worthy.....
trying to work between rain showers is getting old! rest of today is a wash, rain on and off, mostly on,  until late this evening...... but tomorrow is mid 70, balmy and breezy with mostly sunny skies !!!!!!!!!
 
i always wondered, is partly sunny the same as mostly cloudy, or mostly not sunny?

i said to heck with it and coated the front end with stripper this evening..... got the first "concrete" coat off in a lot of places and softened up in most.... lol, i just realized its 1:15am, i just came in from washing the stripper off, i need help.....
will still need at least two more coats of stripper to get down to bare metal, but each successive coating gets a lot easier, and takes a lot more paint off...
so all in all..... three coats of stripper on the van to get it done.....
im two coats down now on most of it...... 

my friend on Facebook just referred to me as a male stripper, lmao !
she wants tickets to the next show...... i told her she better bring putty knives and beer !!

Man you have spent a lot of time stripping this paint off. I just took a DA to it and primed.. and painted it with a very inexpensive single stage white commercial paint. As the weather warms up here in ID i am just going to scuff it and have a friend of mine air brush it.. much cheaper than a full wrap.. and very customized. Keep up the good work!

RiceWorks
Man you have spent a lot of time stripping this paint off. I just took a DA to it and primed.. and painted it with a very inexpensive single stage white commercial paint. As the weather warms up here in ID i am just going to scuff it and have a friend of mine air brush it.. much cheaper than a full wrap.. and very customized. Keep up the good work!

 
NOW YOU TELL ME !!!!!
lol, i know...way too much time spent on this part of it, the weather has broke so it should be smooth sailing from here on out       

honestly, its the rivets man.....
dont ask me why, but the rivets got to me..... too much paint, and too many rivets to try and sand around.....
also...even though i gripe about it...... its my zen time... i can loose myself for a couple of hours without even realizing it when i start stripping....... until 6 coats of enamel concrete fluster me, lol, then i just walk away for a day

your doing a great job and it real easy to lose track of time when it for something that your investment. excellent work!

Oh man i agree with you on the rivets, those were the number one killer of my 80 grit DA pads. It was well worth it to get my truck one color, even if the paint isn't the most expensive stuff. And luckily, i have easy access to a vinyl cutter to put stuff on my truck and make it look a little customized.

another reason i decided to strip over sanding is you really dont want to be breathing in any aluminum dust....... nasty stuff in the human body...
you did wear a proper respirator didnt ya ??
 
how long is your truck inside behind the seats to the rear ? is it single or dual rear wheels ?

RiceWorks


Man you have spent a lot of time stripping this paint off. I just took a DA to it and primed.. and painted it with a very inexpensive single stage white commercial paint. As the weather warms up here in ID i am just going to scuff it and have a friend of mine air brush it.. much cheaper than a full wrap.. and very customized. Keep up the good work!

 
 
What type of tool is a DA ? I am guessing its a type of sander or grinder?
 
Great looking work on this project !
 
Joel

DA stands for dual action...... it spins at the same time it rotates, think of a car buffer....

I just wore a regular respirator like the ones used in the medical field. When sanding with 80 grit the particles aren't small enough to pass through one of those. We also have painting respirators when we need them.
     Back Alley has got the correct answer you asked about the DA. It is often used in auto body work in body shops. My brother used to own an auto body shop some years back, and i started back in high school when they offered courses for this kind of stuff. Those skills come in handy, the only downside paint is nasty stuff and sucks if you don't have a well ventilated booth (or any kind of booth for that matter). I painted my truck outside last summer on a day with pretty much no wind!