[Project] My Second go at a build

[winchster]

I don't remember if I've introduced myself or not so I shall do so here. I will also introduce my latest dream. When I get an opportunity to translate the printed pictures of this truck into digital format I will add them to this thread.
We bought this truck in 1990 from the original owner. It was bone stock, complete and running. We then proceeded to put a 350 in it, along with a T-10 and a '69 C10 rearend. I don't have any pictures of any of that. In about 2002 I took possession from my dad and put an automatic, tilt column, and a front saddle from a '77 C10 under it. My son drove it to school for his senior year and then we parked it. I've finally decided that I want to do something with it so here goes.
This is what I'm starting with:


and this




I forgot to mention the goal here. I personally love Gene's truck and mine is going to go on a '78 K5 chassis with 33x12.50 I kind of got tired with the whole hot rod thing and I really want a 4x4 so I figured I'd give both these old trucks a new shot at life. I really wish I had posted all my original work back in 2003.

Thanks for stopping by. Any and all suggestions, comments, help, or constructive criticisms taken gladly.

[winchster]

Ok, so I have a question.

Is the '49 frame flat front to back? I ask because I need to figure out how I'm going to go about mounting the fenders and cab on the K5 chassis.
This is my theory, those of you that know better please chime in and correct me if I'm wrong. I think that I can mount the front fenders on the K5 chassis, with the fender sitting level to the frame. The rear fenders mount level to the frame and at the same elevation as the front. The cab lines up with the front fender mounting holes and sits level with the imaginary line created by the front and rear fenders.

[OrrieG]

I chime in. You are starting in the right direction. Aligning the cab and front clip on the AD's are hard. First get the fenders and radiator core so the front tires are centered in the wheel opening. Get the height you want (this is all mock up at this point). Now set the cab and hood. This is the critical part, cab angle, hood and core alignment. The radiator core, hood and cab must align first. Then the fenders are fitted to the hood and cab. Then the bed. There are lots of posts on here about hood misalignment because the fenders and cab angle were done first. Before starting make sure the frame is level front to back and side to side. $5 magnetic levels work great for this, I have 4 I keep on the frame when doing stuff that needs to be level, one for each frame rail and one for each front and back cross brace. Good luck.

[winchster]

Thanks, I think I understand what you're getting at. I'm going to have to find some build threads that match up to visualize. I've been searching but maybe I'm searching for the wrong phrases. LOL

[winchster]

Made some slight headway today. I will have some real progress made after Kevin and friends come relieve me of some "excess" material this weekend.

[Steve@OldSub.com]

Find a copy of Tex Smith's How to Build Hot Rod Chassis book. Look inside that book for the Frank Kozinski (sp?) article on subframing one of these trucks.

Right now Amazon has one copy available for less than $20.

Frank makes a jig that captures the relative positions of the cab mounts and the radiator mount. A jib like that would allow you to transfer the correct location of the radiator mount to the new frame once you made your cab mounts.

I think you may need to mock up the truck including the front fenders in order to make sure you get the fenders over the tires the way you want and then get the cab mounted in the right place. But using this approach should mean the front clip is mounted relative to the cab in a way that allows the hood to fit right.

Those are my thoughts on how you line the stuff up correctly. As long as you mount the fenders and cab high enough the bed isn't hard once the front is done. Of courses knowing its high enough probably means mocking that up too.