1954 Tonka Star Kist Tuna Truck Restoration Box Van Starkist 725 Refurbish Advertising Restore

I purchased this 1954 Tonka Star Kist Tuna Box Van Advertising Truck on eBay February of 2023 for $. This is a pretty rare truck and made in only one year. Outside of missing two rear hub caps and one rear door handle, the truck was surprisingly complete for being almost 70 Years old. The body while extremely rusted and corroded was in great shape, only having minor dents and dings, the front hood had a pretty good dent, the grille was bend inward as many of these trucks are from being rammed into another truck, the box van body had several pretty decent dents as well. After sandblasting the body and completing the minor dent repairs, I used JB weld to fill any leftover pitting after the high build powder coat primer was wet sanded, then sprayed one additional coat of primer to give the uniform base coat color. I was very happy with how the body came out. The original wooden bed had two screws pulled out of it while disassembling and I found it was extremely brittle, thus I decided to make an entir