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OLD RED
December 2000

Back to welding and fabricating. For this month, these will be the steps:

1. mount the '93 rear suspension and shocks
2. install engine/tranny and fabricate the rear tranny mount
3. measure correct driveline length
4. find a gas tank in the junk yard and install it
5. remove engine/tranny and cab
6. fabricate and weld transition "beauty plates"
7. box middle of frame
8. cut holes for exhaust system
9. clean up the frame: weld and grind all holes, fix old botch jobs from previous owner
10. complete disassembly of frame in prep for powder coating.

Steps 1-4

Engine angle, pinon angle, transmission clearance are all details that must be right if the drivetrain is to work properly. The angle between the pinon and driveline should be about 5 degrees to keep the driveline from oscillating around the pinon.

The rear suspension is mounted using some old chevy spring "perches". We tried both under and over the axle mounting and settled on over the axle. Brent fabricated the upper shock mounts. For the lower, we went to the junk yard a scavenged lower shock perches from a Jeep Cherokee. From the same car we got the gas tank, sending unit and mounting straps. Back to the shop and it all went together.

L to R: preparation / setting the engine angle / more checking / setting the pinon angle

Finished!

Steps 5-8

Welding beauty plates with frame on its side / Far right, closeup of beauty plates

These beauty plates are simply pieces of 11 gauge steel that were fabricated to cover the original transition from the '64 frame to the '93 clip.

Steps 9, 10

A LOT of welding and grinding to fill 30-40 holes in frame. Disassembly reveals that this truck was a mating of a short bed and long bed. The mating was pretty crude, so Brent cut off all the old stuff, rewelded and ground the result to a smooth frame.

Disassembly / Frame ready for the sandblaster and powder coating.
Total disassembly is necessary, since the powder coat is cured at 400 degrees F.

Note holes in the crossmember for the exhaust system

Bonus! we had enough time to begin the disassembly of the engine. During the remainder of December and January, the engine will go thru a complete rebuild and installation of new "power" components to bring it up to about 400 HP.

Updated August 10, 2001
Email to: tuku@tuku.com
BuiltByNOF