Upside down, back to front, long low 63 fleet

[63inoz]

Just made my first post in introduction section.
Now I want to get a thread going to refer back to when progress gets problematic. So to explain
Upside down - in Australia, down under, hangin off the bottom of the earth.
Back to front - we drive on the other side of the road, nearly said the correct side, but thought probably too early to be controversial.
Long and low - cos long looks lower, thats an opinion dont shoot
63 - love the wrap around screen, love those A pillars, wanted the later chassis. Just cant go down to the local junkyard and pick up a later chassis to put in a 60-62 around here. A 63 has it all, for me.
Fleetside - cos I like em. Love steps on fifties. Appreciate that someone bothered to design a tub for the new shape of the sixties. Thats another opinion, please like whatever you like.
Just got this 63 from a parts yard in Los Angeles. $1000. Few bits missing from engine bay, carb, radiator, alternator. Otherwise all there. 350/350. My buddy in LA crawled all over it, couldnt find any significant rust except the bottoms of doors, fenders, cab corners, rockers.
Its about to land here and I cant wait to get into it.
The shipping co said to feel free to fill it up with parts, no extra charge, so Ive got lots of boxes of large or heavy items coming too. Spindles, brakes, rust repair sections, rear tank, windshield, and a windshield and gas tank for my 71 Camaro. Otherwise these items would cost a bomb to get shipped here.
Plans first up are to get it driving asap, but at the same time get it as low as possible, keeping 4" clearance, and on coils. Looking at 2.5 spindles, cut springs, pancake crossmember, tubular lcas, dont know if a body channel is possible, cant find a thread on it.
Seems to me getting the front down is the biggest challenge, especially to keep the 4" ground clearance we have to have around here. I dont mind cos I want it safe and dont want to smack the road with the lcas.
And then theres the rust repairs, must do to get it going, paint can wait till i can get some brainspace back.
A few pics for now and I'll be back when I've actually done something.
cheers
Tony

[Palf70Step]

Welcome to the board. Looks like a Good starting point

[Captainfab]

Welcome to the forum

'63's are my favorite year.

Looking forward to your progress.

[Bomp]

Welcome, looks like tons of fun.

[The Rocknrod]

Welcome to the forum, keep us posted on your progress.

[63inoz]

Thanks guys. Would love to report progress but still waiting to get it off the boat, customs inspection, blah blah. So keen to get into it. Got it all planned out, got a few cans of wd40 ready. I've read so many builds on here I think I'm ready for anything it can throw at me.

[allytle]

Looks like a great canvas to start with. Congratulations!

[63inoz]

A few more pics.
I've been unpacking some boxes. 2.5" spindles, 3" front springs, 5" rears, front disc kit, wheels.
Lots of other boring stuff that you've all seen a million times, rubber moldings, rust repair sections.
I dont know how many mobs are making these repair sections and I've read a lot of criticism of them. Gotta say so far these look pretty well made and dont scare me from a welding point of view. Hopefully fitup is good.
Want to get all the new suspension bits in asap to check the ride height before anything else. Work is pretty busy right now so not a lot of me time lately.
Got a few days off coming up in a few weeks so hoping to hit it hard then. I'll let it soak in wd40 till then

[Bluelucille63]

Nice find..working on my 63c10 also

[63inoz]

Originally Posted by Bluelucille63

Nice find..working on my 63c10 also

Yeah lovin the 63s.
We seem to be a small group within a small group.

Originally Posted by forestb

where did you get the push through cap?

https://www.summitracing.com/int/par...16bt/overview/
cheers

[forestb]

where did you get the push through cap?

[rusty76]

Cool truck. I will be watching.

[63inoz]

Little bit of progress over the last few weeks.
Ive been way too busy but a buddy told me a bit of a horror story about the pressure washing they do in quarantine so we just had to investigate.
The motor is full of water, we tried to turn it over but its hydraulic locked.
The truck is in the carport so i have very little space to work but got the intake off, see pic of water in intake ports.
Got heads off, 3 cylinders with lots of water and rust already, and seems its a dislexic 350, you know the 305 model 350, so nothing i wanted to remember in pics.
Anyhow the heads are 416s with the 194 valves and theyre flat top pistons so its probably a good enough motor for what i want, just not a 350.
Researched 305s a bit and lots saying to just go down the junkyard and pull a 350 and trash the 305, but those kind of junkyards dont exist in this half of the earth. Not impossible, just not that easy.
Just gotta get the block out of it and get it all cleaned up asap and we'll make some decisions then.
Also check out my grill, saw the damage in the pics I'd seen, chose to ignore it, looking at the big picture, you know. Now I need to deal with it. You all probably know how hard it is to get a good 63 grill in the states, let alone trying to get one posted to here.
If anyone has a partly trashed grill that could give up a section of criss-cross that i could graft in, that may be an option I might like to hear about.
Thought about cutting the rest of the crosshatch out and replacing with horizontal 3/8 square bars. Custom!!? Jury is still deciding.
Also if anyone has any theories about why cutting it up was a great idea in the first place, that could be interesting.
Anyhow gotta get back to making some space in the workshop where I have some solid roof beams that can handle the weight of a sbc.
My camaro is in there with all the front sheetmetal off and that takes up a lot of space.

[Captainfab]

That's too bad about the water getting into your engine. A lot of people really bash the lowly 305's but in my opinion they aren't that bad of an engine. Like any SBC they can be built to be a decent running engine that is plenty good for a driver.

[rvrfoot]

That motor is clean inside.

[63inoz]

Hey Captn, realistically a good 305 is as good as I need for a daily work truck.
Cant feel any lip in the bore tops, can still see plenty of crosshatching in there.
With those heads and flat tops it really should do what I want.
If I knew it was a 305 it wouldnt have stopped me buying it, other things are better than i expected, so its snakes and ladders.

And rvr if you mean clean, like washed with water, ok I get it.
Otherwise yeah it doesnt look at all cruddy inside, I dont think its done much work actually.
But when i dropped the oil out of it, the first litre was clear water.
So i think i gotta get inside there asap if i want to save it.

[rvrfoot]

How did water get inside of it?

[The Rocknrod]

Okay we will be waiting -

[63inoz]

Just after my last post my phone totally died and I couldnt get any of the photos off, until last week a guy told me he could try to get into the memory.
So he did well and got it all backed up.

Started fitting 3" front springs, 2.5" spindles and 245 45 17 front tyres. Took a photo with 1 side done to show the change. Wanted to get an idea of the ride height.

Put the motor back in to give the suspension something to suspend.

Bed wood then no bed wood.

Have to push it out into the big blue shed to work on it for the moment, tight space in the carport.

[63inoz]

Moved the camaro out of the back workshop to make work space for the truck. The camaro is nearly finished and can fit in the carport with still room to walk past it.

Got the truck out the back in its new home for the moment.

some pics of hood damage and rust.

[Palf70Step]

Nice, looking forward to seeing you get rid of the crustieeze.

[63inoz]

Some more pics of rust, everything i expected.
Probably the same old shopping list most people have.
Inner and outer rocker panels, floor outers, cab corners, a pillar bottoms, b pillar bottoms, footwell pieces, fender bottoms, door lower inner and outers.
There should be a rust pack special.

Also a bit in the knee knocker area.

So we have original light green, an off white, light brown, dark green and dark brown.

Another pic of a bit of a mockup with the suspension at ride height and a new wheel/tyre sitting in.

[63inoz]

The mock up with the wheel in the front wheel well didnt do it for me.
I need 4" ground clearance to be legal around here and thats what Ive got in that pic.
So getting into it now and pancaking the front suspension.
Came up with a mad idea to take 2" out of the front and 1.5 at the back.
Posted about it in the suspension forum, nobody there came up with any reasons to not do it so i bit the bullet and did it.
Because of the curves everywhere it wasnt a straightforward cut.
The front cut line varies from 2" in the middle at the front to about 1.75 at the outer edges where it mounts.
Overall theres about 5/16" tip back from front to back where it mounts to the frame. This should add about 2.5 degrees of extra castor, which will be negated a bit by the slight nose down stance I'm planning for.

[SkinnyG]

That's a neat idea by angle cutting. I never thought of that. I moved the lower control arms forward 3/4".

If you're using the 73+ control arms, you will lose more ground clearance because the a-arms are thicker. My '61 has the crossmember 4" off the ground, but the 73-87 arms hang another half-inch or so below.

[63inoz]

Hi Skinny,
I reckon I spent a good day on the grinder getting everything lined up.
A consistent 1.5 would be easy by comparison. You can measure, mark, cut, weld.
With the angle of the cut and the curves of the crossmember its a lot of back and forth, trial fitting, measure, mark up, grind some more. Ended up with a pretty good file finish for the tig.
My other theory is that the standard suspension has the cross shafts sitting horizontal, as long as the truck is horizontal. If its nose down, bum up a bit, the cross shafts actually have a bit of a negative rake. That cant be good for suspension travel with the lower ball joints trying to actually move forward and upwards.

Ive also moved the cross shafts 1/2" forward, no clearance issues around the pivot area at 1/2", just a bit around the shock body when you get down to the bump stops.

I dont have an option here to drop in to the local parts yard to get later model arms, discs etc. I do plan to build some arms once the truck is actually approved and on the road.