52 5 window ground up build

[Fenhold]

I've been wanting to start this threads for about two years.......so here we go.
This truck belongs to a good customer of mine who was interested in restoring it to use and eventually pass along to his son. I own a stereo shop but have a good assortment of tools and basic fabrication skills so I said what the hell...bring it down. I started on this in December of 08 and work on it Saturday afternoon after work.

After 20 years of sitting the truck sputtered to life and he limped it down to my shop.

[Fenhold]

a couple more pics before I tore into it.
(a link or quick tip on how to place the pics so I can add text would be great!)

[Fenhold]

I started with the front end to see what I was up against. Going into this I knew absolutely nothing about these trucks. The first thing I learned was that
I hate clutch head bolts. The second was that the 50's must have been the golden age of rivets.

[Fenhold]

The bed had none of the original wood left. There was a 1/2" sheet of plywood
with about 2 trashcans worth of leaves and a lifetimes supply of black mold. Even the wood blocks that hold up the bed had wandered off.

Once the bed was broken down I attacked the cab with its endless supply of pedals. When I first looked inside I thought "good lord it has five pedals". There were two cable type pull handles on the dash too. one for choke and the other was rigged up to the throttle.

I couldn't believe how much room there was with the bench seat out.

[Fenhold]

after a good number of Saturdays I had the truck picked clean but little in the way of a grand scheme. After hours of internet searches, phone calls and exchanges (with a rather rude someone whose company might have the words total and cost in their name) I decided to call No Limit. Good People! They had done several of these trucks and had what I had in mind to get the suspension going. I ordered up some parts and set to clean up the frame.

I set up one of my old Ez-up frames and picked up some disposable plastic drop cloths. I gaff taped them to the poles and to the floor. My ghetto blast tent was only big enough to do one half of the frame at a time but it got the job done.

[Fenhold]

I found a few gems like this as I cleaned up the frame. I mentioned that there were a few cracks in the frame to the owner. He said that he was not the leas t bit surprised. He remembered one time (about 30 years ago) when he went with his dad in the truck to pick up gravel. The jackhole operating the front loader dumped the whole load all at once and the front end of the truck almost came up off the ground.

I heated the area and got the frame straight(ish). After grinding a bevel I drilled out the end of the crack and welded it up.

[Kodiaks53]

Looks like that truck had a rough former life, but it sure looks like its in good hands now!

[Atommik]

It looks flike you're off to a great start!! I'm doing an s10 swap, but if I build another I think will keep the original frame, just so I can do something differnet.

[pgf545]

Looking great....keep up the good work!!!! Those welds look great.

Bernie

[xpickup]

Fenhold, Frame looks great. And I agree those clutch head bolts do suck! Keep up the great work, and love all the pictures.

Shannon

[Fenhold]

I have a little time so I'll post some more.

With the foundation of the front suspension complete I moved on to getting ready to start the rear. I figured the best place to start was picking the rear end itself. After lurking here and talking to the guys at No Limit I decided on a Borg Warner 9 bolt. The width and the price/availability were the two main reasons I went with the 9 bolt. The truck will have plenty of power but won't be beat on (too much). I picked up the rear end disc to disc complete for about $150.00 at a local junk yard. I have to say that prepping the rear end was one of my lest favorite things I have done on this project even up to present time. That housing is like the Swiss army knife of brackets, tabs, clips, geegaws and receivers. I think I used more flap wheels and cut off wheels on the rear end than the entirety of the frame.

With the rear end prepped I was anxious to get parts on the frame. After reading through the instructions several times I was stumped at step one.

1. Find your desired axle center

Feeling like an r-tard I asked No Limit how to determine the "desired" center. I hadn't noticed but they pointed out that the rear axle isn't centered in the fender from the factory. Freshly armed with what should have been obvious I reassembled the bed and fenders, borrowed two wheels and got started. With the axle visually "centered" I borrowed a bubble type pipe center finder to find the axle tube center. With the center marked I hung a plumb bob off of the boxing plates and scribed the new center mark on the frame. This gave me the reference mark I needed to locate the correct position for the rear shock mount bar. After tacking it in place I double checked my measurements and welded them up.

[Fenhold]

With the shock bar in I wanted a quick simple project for a Saturday afternoon so I test fit the aluminum fuel tank. My quick simple project turned out be needing to add notch for the fuel filler neck.

[Fenhold]

The single most nerve racking thing I did on the frame was placing the front 4 link hangers. Being that this is the first time I have done this and my nature to be as precise as possible, I literally spent about 6 hours measuring, clamping, remeasuring, reclamping , staring, pondering and second guessing. After the fact I asked what the acceptable tolerances were and 1/8" was deemed acceptable. I figured I had it to within 1/32" from left to right frame rail. I came up with the term "Sharpie close" to keep myself from doing this again. The entire time I was envisioning the truck going down the street like an Econoline E-350 where you can see the entire side of the van.......while following it. You know you've seen one too. Once the hangers were in place I welded them up and sprayed the frame with rust encapsulator.

To finish the rear suspension mock up I needed the pinion angle. The engine placement was one area I was lacking confidence. I had asked about having the motor mounts installed on the front cross member when it was made and they did what they could based on a similar year truck. I praise them for their effort but it didn't work out.

I was lowering it in place and heard the dreaded "thunk" before the motor mount holes lined up. The next few weekends were spent trying to avoid the inevitable. I tried a Moroso oil pan, different LS1 adapters and motor mounts. Once I got the clearance I needed the pipe dream of not placing the motor my self came crashing down once I put the cab and radiator in place. The water pump pulley was sitting inside the radiator fan shroud and I had a ton of space behind the motor (not for long though). I walked in a circle for about two minutes, got over it, ordered some trim to fit mounts and took it all apart.

That was definitely a Fozzie Bear moment. Waka waka waka!

[Fenhold]

Thank you all for your comments and for checking out my build!

[jfortvalley]

WATCH OUT when moving the motor back the fuel lines for the 5.3 come pretty close to the firewall . on the drivers side

[Fenhold]

Originally Posted by jfortvalley

WATCH OUT when moving the motor back the fuel lines for the 5.3 come pretty close to the firewall . on the drivers side

Thanks for the heads up. A recessed firewall works its way into the build, but not quite yet.

[Fenhold]

I put both fenders, core support and electric fan roughly in place and moved the motor back enough to have a gap large enough to finagle the serp. belt in. For my effort i received another "thunk" as the passenger side head backed into the firewall. I did some exploratory cuts with my air saw and got the motor in place. I searched for options and ended ordering a Direct Sheetmetal recessed firewall. I would have gone with the *****in Products firewall but I am doing a firewall mount brake booster/master. If I did it over again I would have made my own firewall from scratch. I assumed that what I had ordered would be stamped. It was multiple cut pieces welded together and thus had considerable waves. Since I could go no further forward with the motor, I bolted the motor/trans together, jacked the trans up to the frame until the cross member was flush and worked on squaring it all up. once I was happy with the clearances I welded the frame mounts in place.

[Fenhold]

With the motor and trans in place I got the pinion angle I needed to complete the rear suspension. It took me several weekends to get all of the brackets squared up on the rear end. While I was working on this I looked into gears for the 9 bolt. I found a link here somewhere for 9bolt.com and ordered 3.45's and all of the goodies to get the rear end done. Once I welded up the rear end mounts I dropped of the rear end and parts to be rebuilt. A friend of mine mentioned having remnant pieces of 1/2" stainless tubing at work. His employers idea of remnant and mine are off by about 8'. He does industrial scale piping so anything less than 10' goes in the crapper. He dropped off a few pieces and his 1/2" bender. I ordered up a Mastercool flaring set and started forming up some fuel lines. I spent lots of time forming the lines to the frame. I was able to form them so that they run along the inside of the frame and come out just before the boxing plates where I mounted the fuel filter. with the tank dropped down they can be "corkscrewed" out of the frame if need be. One thing that had bothered me was that the frame twisted if I stood on either of the forward running board arms so I made a simple x brace to minimize this. With all of these things coming together I shot a couple of coats of chassis black on the frame.

[c10derek]

great looking build. cant wait to see more, keep up the solid work.

[Fenhold]

Originally Posted by c10derek

great looking build. cant wait to see more, keep up the solid work.

Thanks!!

[69CST-V]

Great work.... I'm in for the build.

[solidaxel]

With all that welding, is that frame staying square, corner to corner?

[drivea55]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

With all that welding, is that frame staying square, corner to corner?

I am sure that they are measuring as they go to watch for that...

Frame looks really nice, keep up the good work!

Brian

[Fenhold]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

With all that welding, is that frame staying square, corner to corner?

I'm doing what I can, but this thing had been abused every which way before I started. The rear bumper was a length of steel I-beam and it was beat to hell. The front end was much worse. I'm fairly certain that the two frame rails are very slightly offset. I'm counting on 1/2" holes and 3/8" bolts to give me a little wiggle room.

The few people I have shown my progress to were surprised at the time I am putting into this considering it's just a "cruiser". This is a button soup build. It quickly escalated from "lets clean it up so I can drive it" to "lets make this so my kids can hand it down to theirs". As time went on I told the owner about all of the local shows and meets. He said "cool, you take it". He's a 7 day a week work kinda guy. I suppose that will mitigate the separation anxiety when I'm done.

Thanks guys!

[Fenhold]

A few more minutes and a few more pictures. While the rear end was being assembled I started assembling the front suspension components. Finally a sense of accomplishment.