Project "Insert Really Cool Title Here"

[kerber63]

Ok, I've been meaning to start a thread for a while now, and now that I'm almost done (again) I don't have many excuses left for not writing this thing up. Like a lot of yours, my '63 started life as a farm truck. My great-uncle was the original owner, I'm its 2nd. My dad and I rebuilt it when I was in high school as a project together and I ran it for about 5 years before deciding it was time to tear into it and do it all again. This current rebuild has been going on for just over 2 years now.

[kerber63]

The first rebuild was pretty typical: small block, T5, plywood bed, good paint. This time around, I wanted more custom stuff that I could put my personal touch on. The first thing I wanted was an under-bed fuel tank. After looking at the aftermarket stuff and seeing what places were offering, I decided to build my own. I had some 1/8" aluminum sheet cut and broke to my dimensions, and had a buddy TIG them together to give me a ~20 gallon capacity. It fits between the frame rails at the rear and doesn't hang too low with lowering springs and blocks - it hangs down just above the bottom of the diff housing. I wanted a trap door in the bed floor, so I put in a screw-in style cap with a vent. The sending unit is a repro stock '63 unit that sits at an angle in the tank. The tank sits a couple inches above the frame, so I had to cut the bed crossmember to fit. The crossmember was reinforced with steel bar.

[kerber63]

I did the body work myself, it's something I've done off-and-on at different part time jobs I've had over the years. I reskinned the bottoms of both doors - inside and out. Reskinned the front fenders, replaced the rocker panels and cab corners. Replated the floorpan, patched the visor and areas around the windshield, welded up the mirror holes in the doors. Smoothed out the ripples and dings on the back of the cab from its rough farm life.

[NEWFISHER]

It sits nice!

[kerber63]

Originally Posted by NEWFISHER

It sits nice!

Thanks Newfisher, I had 2" blocks in the back but they made it sit too level so I took them back out. I'm trying to convince myself to put 1" blocks in to see what they do.

[kerber63]

Now to the motor. Long story: My dad picked up a '67 F*rd Ranger just before I started my rebuild. Of course we started bench racing - he started talking about building a 460 that'll put me to shame. What do I start thinking? Ok, I'll grab a 454 and we'll see who can talk the loudest. So he picks up a donor truck with a 460 and I score a 454 from CL for $100. I get right on it and start tearing into it so I can get it done. The guy who had it told me it froze up so he pulled it and swapped in a crate motor. For $100 I wasn't going to get hurt too bad if it turned out to be junk. The motor came out of a '90 Chevy 3500 tow truck. Found out the crank had cracked in 6 places and #8 cylinder wall was scored pretty bad. So after going .020 over in the cylinders, and a slight deck job to the heads, I was ready to throw in a Scat crank, Comp RV1 cam, and all the other goodies. I kept the stock peanut port heads because I was stoked at how much torque they can see. I swapped out the TBI and put on my trusty Quadrajet. I got a Quadrajet book by Cliff Ruggles and made some pretty good performance mods. After a few months of messing around, I finally got it fired up - in my driveway, hanging from a cherry picker, sitting on a couple 2x4s. And it sounded great.

[kerber63]

The transmission. I had a T5 with my smallblock, and I loved it. Overdrive is awesome. Unfortunately, I was afraid that if I even tried to bolt it to the big block the trans would just explode. So I set my eyes on a T56 - double OD. If one OD is awesome, what would 2 be like? (It turns out it's b*tch*n'.) One of the nearby wrecking yards had a '97 camaro z28 with the trans just begging to be pulled out. Because it originally sat behind an LT motor, it wouldn't work with a big block flywheel. So I had a flywheel made to get the whole thing to work, plus I can use a stock camaro clutch. I took the opportunity to swap out my mechanical clutch linkage for hydraulic. Bolted it to the motor and dropped them in the frame. I moved the motor mount perches to the forward location - about 2" forward. There's plenty of room around the firewall, and the shifter ended up in the exact same location as the other motor/trans combination. Perfect!

[kerber63]

Here's a couple pics of the motor after install. I picked up a 100 amp alternator and March pulleys to run a serpentine belt (not necessary since I don't have any accessories for it to turn, but cool). I got a set of long tube headers and wrapped them. The frame needed to be clearanced by about 1/4" around the tubes for added security. Turns out, they sat a little low. But I liked it.

[rusty76]

Me too!

[Ta2Don]

Sub'd…. Big Block

[G&R's57GMC]

The headers will be fine ....










until the first speed bump

[kerber63]

Originally Posted by G&R's57GMC

The headers will be fine ....










until the first speed bump

Ha, yeah they were fine, I actually bottomed out on the first pothole in the road. I learned to avoid that lane.

[chad64chevy]

glad to see you got the thread started, now just got to get it up to date, lol! looks great, hows the turbo coming?

[kerber63]

Originally Posted by chad64chevy

glad to see you got the thread started, now just got to get it up to date, lol! looks great, hows the turbo coming?

I know, I'll end up cramming 2 years worth of work in about 2 weeks. The turbo's coming along great, I hope to get it on the road next weekend to tune it.

[kerber63]

Time for paint! Fast forward through the months of monotonous sanding and filling and sanding and sanding and sanding.The color of my last rebuild was kind of a BLAH blue, so I wanted something with a bit more green. A trip to the local paint store ended with finding a cool looking teal color - Medium Teal Metallic. Plus a slightly Off-White for the 2 tone. We started with the inside of the cab, so I could work on my interior. I wanted to bring a lot of white into the cab, so the headliner ended up white. Check out some later pics, it all came together pretty nice. My dad and I painted everything in the garage and driveway.

[kerber63]

With the paint and clear on and cured, I started piecing the interior back together. I wanted to get some modern gauges and make them one of the big focus points of the truck. I found some nice Autometer Old Tyme White gauges and picked them up. All electric - voltmeter, water temp, oil pressure, fuel level, tach, and speedo. I cut out a piece of old sheetmetal and mounted them, keeping with the stock-ish look of the original cluster.

[kerber63]

With the gauges sorted out, it was time for wiring. For the most part, everything was still original, 18-20 gauge. I was planning on updating the headlights and sound system, and all the new wires to run to the gauges, plus I had a bigger alternator. So I gutted everything and replaced every wire with new, 12-18 guage stuff. For the most part I copied the original harnesses, but I changed the wire locations in a few places and added some in others. I made sure to make myself some new wiring diagrams (attached file) just in case I ever had any wiring gremlins (what are the odds?). I ended up with a pretty good rats nest, but it wasn't too hard. I kept the original style harness connectors and plugs.

[1963c-10]

Great looking project and nice work on the BBC swap. Did you use the rear engine mounting location or the front? The frame trimming is standard to get a BBC in these frames. Looks like plenty of clearance on the valve covers and HEI. Im doing the same swap in the spring with my 63.

[kerber63]

Originally Posted by 1963c-10

Great looking project and nice work on the BBC swap. Did you use the rear engine mounting location or the front? The frame trimming is standard to get a BBC in these frames. Looks like plenty of clearance on the valve covers and HEI. Im doing the same swap in the spring with my 63.

I moved the motor mount perches 2 inches forward, so the back holes of the perches lined up with the front holes on the frame, and had to drill a new hole in the crossmember for the bottom perch hole. Yep, plenty of clearance all around. I actually had to pull the motor after it was all done and it wasn't a problem at all. One problem I had with the BBC swap was finding headers that cleared the driver side motor mount. I finally settled on a pair from Summit - Summit brand big block truck headers - thinking that I might have to re-route the #1 primary tube. But they fit without any mods, and they were made by Hooker, so I made out pretty good.

[kerber63]

With the new wiring, I decided to do the headlamp relay mod that I learned about on this forum. I headed to the local junkyard and picked up a couple handfuls of relays and started installing. One relay was used for low beams and one was for the igh beams. I took this chance to modify the headlight power with a diode to keep the low beams on when the high beams were engaged. A simple diode from RadioShack wired in after the dimmer switch allowed me to throw a lot more light than just high beams alone. I mounted the relays on the grille surround behind the passenger headlight. I also upgraded from sealed beam halogens to a modern style H4 bulb setup. I had to cut some material out of the back of the headlight buckets, but then the new lenses fit perfect in the grille and the bezels fit perfect around them. I put in clear turn signal lenses with orange bulbs to make the front end look cleaner.

[kerber63]

Since I was running drop springs and blocks, I put in a c-notch just to make sure the suspension would travel. At that time, I started crunching numbers to see how fast I could go with the new transmission. I was running my stock 3.73 open rearend with fresh internals and axles. I calculated that in 6th gear, to be going 70 mph, the motor would be turning 1500 rpm. That was a little low for me, since I would almost never be able to use 6th. So I started looking around for something different to put in back. A buddy at work told me he used to have a '65 suburban, and still had its rearend laying around at his place. He wasn't sure what the ratio was, but he gave it to me for free. I tore into it right away, pulled the cover right away and found a . . . posi unit staring me right in the face. 4.11 posi put me at 70 mph at 1650. It went straight in, of course.

[kerber63]

After the rearend went in, I sprayed some new frame paint cab-back. I took my glass in to a local shop to get it tinted. When I went to pick it up, I looked at it and saw tons of bubbles under the tint. I asked the guys why there were so many bubbles, they told me that the glass was too old and dirty to get a the tint to sit nice and flat. I said oooookaaaaay, please take this garbage off because I won't pay for it. I took it home and did it myself with some tinting from Napa. It wasn't nearly as hard as those idiots made it out to be. 20% on the door glass and wings, 5% on the back glass. No dirt, no bubbles, no problem.

[kerber63]

With my new expertise in the relay wiring world, I wired my dash gauges to act like turn signals. 5 relays hooked up just right lets me use the 2 left gauges as left turn indicators, and the 2 right gauges as right turn indicators. They blink on when the headlight switch is off, and blink off when the headlight switch is on.

[kerber63]

After spending some time putting the outside pieces back together, I took a break to focus on the interior again. I installed a new repro firewall pad set, and a new gray carpet. With the fuel tank out of the cab, what else could I do with the extra space than build a sweet speaker box. Sorry no pics of the build. 5/8 MDF board was used to fill the space behind the seats in approximately the same shape as the fuel tank. I built it to fit down into the cab corners, so 1 big box wouldn't work. To get everything to install (and fit) I built 3 boxes - 1 behind each seat and 1 in the middle between the seats. Then I carpeted the whole setup to match the floor. The soundsystem is all Powerbass - 6 1/2" rounds in the kick panels, 6x9's in the cab corners, 12" sub, and an amp under the passenger seat. It kicks butt. The seats are from a '93 astro van, reupholstered in gray cloth. The shifter knob is a billiard 6-ball.

[sixty4bigwindow]

Originally Posted by kerber63

With my new expertise in the relay wiring world, I wired my dash gauges to act like turn signals. 5 relays hooked up just right lets me use the 2 left gauges as left turn indicators, and the 2 right gauges as right turn indicators. They blink on when the headlight switch is off, and blink off when the headlight switch is on.

Ok now THAT is a badass mod!!!