Project Daily Driver in the weeds

[jays68yak]

Ive been talking about ditching my little commuter car for a little truck. The Truck would be better for me. I was looking for a running truck to begin playing with, but ended up with this.



Its a 69 chevy 2wd short bed. 67-68 front clip, has a bunch of work done to it. Air bags up front, nothing out back, lays rocker.

Got it home and almost took a tree out trying to get it in my back yard.



To get it out i figured id use my other 2wd truck, the wheeler. Yep still havnt fixed it from blazer fest.



With the trailer hooked to the wheeler, My buddy Jeremy helped me get it in the garage.



Someone before me had Z'd the frame to get it to lay so low. They never finished the job and this is how they left the front of the frame.



After some pondering and looking at it, then some measuring and drawing. I had a plan of attack.



Headed to the shop to cut the steel on the horizontal bandsaw. That thing is a life saver.



After a bunch of other steps and cutting, not to mention some welding. Its in. On the drivers side at least. Its acting like a steering box brace incase I ever decide to crawl rocks with it.



If your monitor isnt too dark you might be able to see both sides. Damn battery was dying on the phone so it disabled the flash.



The plan is to build something fun, cool, usable, and that gets better gas mileage then the crew cab. Was going to go 5.3 liter, but scored a 6.0 instead. Ill be backing it by a t56. The truck came with a new wiring harness that needs to be installed. Also came with new drop spindles and brake booster/master. I hit up the junk yard last weekend and found a hydroboost setup for less then $30. That will soon be finding its way on. Trying to find a 9inch that I can get cheaply and not have to spend a bunch to be the correct width and lug pattern. I also plan on running 20s with a decent sidewall to keep from messing up the rims on pot holes. Its nice to have a garage again and to beable to tinker. Even if the tinkering is the same thing I do during the day.

[project 67 sub]

sweet, gonna be cool when its drivable. keep up the good work

[Posi12Bolt]

that wheeler is way cool!

bet this frame dragger will be too... good luck!

[jays68yak]

Got the passenger side done this morning. Added a box x-member under the core support also. Mocked the core support back up and it looks a lot better. Need to order some new cab mounts and what not to bolt it all down now.

[67cheby]

nice working cleaning up the Z

[kev2809]

nice work..lookin forward to watching this one. whats the plans for rear suspension?

[jays68yak]

Originally Posted by kev2809

nice work..lookin forward to watching this one. whats the plans for rear suspension?

Think trophy truck trailing arms with triangulated uppers. Bags mounted to the trailing arms. Still just a thought at this point. For Sure going to be a triangulated 4 link.



This tax return money is flying out the window. damn it.

Interesting...a 10 inch wide rim fits in the front.

[project 67 sub]

hey i now why lol. its because the control arms are narrowed haha. thought about doing that to mine but ended up not doing it

[jays68yak]

Originally Posted by project 67 sub

hey i now why lol. its because the control arms are narrowed haha. thought about doing that to mine but ended up not doing it

Exactly...wanna trade arms? haha. I think its going to be too narrow with the 8.5s I have for the front. Plus they welded the upper ball joint in on one side.

[project 67 sub]

haha no thanks, and that sucks they welded the ball joint in. i meant to say i thought about shortening the lowers lol.

[jays68yak]

cant have my 6.0L swap looking like all the other swaps out there.......

[VA72C10]

cool build. Will be following along!

[67cheby]

looking good we need to see another shot of that intake cover its pretty WILD looking

[jays68yak]

isnt a cover so to speak. Its the actual intake manifold.

before

after some grinder time

First layer of fiberglass

glass after some drying

Toss some paint on for a guide coat.


Its kinda hard to take a picture of a black thing in the garge with a cell phone.

[67cheby]

WOW...killer work , now i see

[jays68yak]

Finally did some real work to the truck last night. I dont want the box tubing that I added to the frame rail open. So I cut some flat plate and welded it in there. Now to do the other end and then to cap the work from the PO. Those required templates, and I got lazy at that point.

[jays68yak]

Hit up the yard that I saw a disc braked 9 inch in a few weeks back. When I first saw it a few weeks back they wanted $450 for it. I was like for an axle that has been sitting out in the weather in a pile for hella days???? I got him down to $400. But didnt pull the trigger as I thought it was still too high. Today I went with $340 in my pocket, and another $60 in the truck just incase. Had my tape measure and a wheel pattern disc in hand. Double checked everything and made them an offer of $340. Luckily the dude that was running the yard was right next to the dude I was talking to and he asked him if that would work. I dug it out while the dude moved 5 cars to get to it. Forked it in the back of the truck and off I was.

It should be the correct width, its the correct bolt pattern, Already has discs, big bearing, and I can weld to the housing. According to the internet its out of a 77 Mark V, 28 spline axles (thought all large bearings where 31) and sweet 2.75 gears. Also open.

I might be able to use the link brackets on it. I think the lowers might have frame and tire clearance issues. Gotta mock it up and see what happens.

Also got some more boxing done on the frame. Err capping of what has been boxed already.

[jays68yak]

Got the vac booster off the firewall the other day, then mocked up the hydroboost. Still need to lengthen the rod and attach it to the pedal.



Also brought the motor home. The intake is just sitting on there as I still need to clean up a few spots.

[jays68yak]

So hit up the car show on Saturday. I wasnt scared of the rain like everyone else seemed to be. The night before I picked up a rototiller from my dad. Its old and has been abused and he says it wont start. First thing I do when I get to the show is stop at a vendors both to drop and pick up some trannys. A dude walks by and says he has the same rototiller, told him this one doesnt run. He told me there was a dude at the show selling several in the first row. On my way out I picked one up, $30. So hopefully for $30 Ill have a rototiller.

Ok back to truck stuff. I got some lug nuts and valve caps for the truck. I was really looking for a set or 2 of headers to cut up. Figure Id buy some BBC or SBC headers, cut new flanges and make a set to work for the LS. No one liked my low ball offers for their old used headers. Cept for this one dude. $20 got me a set of mid length LS headers. SCORE!

Did get some work done to the truck today. Got one of the firewall patches cut to size and tacked in place.

[jays68yak]

The $20 headers.


Shaving the intake left me with some ugly fuel rails. So I got some after market ones.

[jays68yak]

Oh what a busy weekend. The guy I bought the truck from owed me a rear axle as part of the deal. He had it in a truck still and after a few weeks he had not pulled it. I offered to pull it if I could haul off the whole truck. He wanted a few more parts off of it and we are going to trade some stuff. Im going to end up with the front suspension xmember with arms that arnt cut down, and he will get the cut down arms back. So I picked the truck up at 6pm friday night, by 5 pm saturday night I was home with an empty trailer. Made 2 runs to the scrap yard, got some ok money for the scrap and got me some parts.

The truck was complete minus a tranny......I was beat.

Sunday I got a few hours into the truck. After welding in the floor patch, I cut a big hole in the firewall.

Mock up filler panel

welded and ground most of the way down

Got the drivers side patch installed and mostly welded in.

[jays68yak]

4/7
Installed the custom AC setup today. AKA I pulled the windshield. I saw a spot of rust, more like a 3/8" hole. Pulled the windshield to see how bad it was. After I poked it a few times it got a little bit bigger. Better to fix now then later. Got the windshield out with out breaking it, mostly cuz I bought the tool a while back. Did notice a small chip right in the drivers view. So now im thinking about putting this glass into the wheeler.....its only been broken for like 3 years.

[jays68yak]

4/9 So got some stuff done today.

Cleaned the new suspension xmember


Got the rest of the firewall holes plugged.

And the stock gas filler hole

Did some work to the passenger side lower pillar.


Also fixed the windshield hole

Passenger inside floor and kick panel


Did the same to the drivers kick panel, then this happened

Guess Im done welding this weekend, unless I wanna break out the flux core.

[67cheby]

great progress

[jays68yak]

Time for an update...I never got my welding bottle filled, didnt have cash till pay day and now no welding store is open on the weekend. Did remember a buddy who ran an exhaust shop welding with straight CO2. Luckily one of my 3 CO2 tanks had 700 psi still in her. Hooked that up to the welder.


Then to test out the welder I got crafty and made a cab lifter for the cherry picker. Since I had gone to the metal store earlier I had some fresh 2x2 ready to make it. Add some 1/4 plate and bam I was done.


HOLLY COW did that make that job so much easier. Ive pulled one of these cabs before with a cherry picker and straps...That was scary and Im so surprised I didnt mess up the cab.
So I pushed it off to the side so I could tackle the projects that warranted pulling the cab.

So someone before me decided to box the frame and cut it down....it was basicly 3" tall and 2" wide. While it might of been ok I wasnt too excited about it. Felt too flimsy.

To add some strength back into that section of the frame I added some 2x2x.120 box tubing.

After an hour or so of welding, the box was welded all up to the frame. Except on the ends...I still need to cap those but can do it with the cab on the frame. I even painted it really quick.

Then I tossed the cab back onto the frame with some new body bushings. Also cut down the 87 motor mount towers and bolted those in.