57 NAPCO rebuild

[Blackie]

Originally Posted by dsraven

wheels look good at that spot in the front fenders. since it has trailing arms, which run the axle through an arc, i would say to remove the spring and run the axle through a full suspension traven run just to be sure it wont rub a tire with wheels turned to lock, both ways. it would be great to have the correct size tire for your wants but the larger size tire it has is just some built in assurance.
thanks for posting your progress, it helps the rest of us get off the couch and out in the shop. lol.
curious what engine and HP the stock donor came with too. was it roughly the same dimensionally as the LS? the hole in the floor would work either way?
nice to see your parts arrive, even if the box was only part full. hopefully everything is still straight and it will fit well.

Good idea re the coil spring removal, will do that before welding any mounts to the chassis. I do all my posting at work, when at home I spend my time in the shed not in front of a computer or a TV :-) . Stock Patrol had either a 3 litre turbo diesel 4 cylinder or a 4.2 litre petrol 6 so engine wise nowhere near the same dimensionally. The trans was either a 5 speed auto or a 5 speed manual and they are much the same size as the 4L60 that is in here now. No idea what sort of power the original engines made other than not much there is a good reason why LS and Barra engine swaps are so popular into these things

[Blackie]

Spent a little time last night getting the body mounts correctly lined up so see how I am going to mount it - the front ones are near on exactly where the Patrol body bolted on - will just fill these holes in the chassis and redrill in the correct spot about 1/2" away

The rear mounts are directly on top of the chassis so a simple saddle mount with a nut welded into it should suffice there, and bolt it down from inside the cab.

Had a dig up inside the plenum chamber - not much stuff up there!!! Guess this is a common rust spot for these things with a big plenum and a tiny hole that looks like it would block up pretty regularly!!

[dsraven]

looks like an easy fix.
bear in mind that the original mounts were set up so the cab could pivot on the driver's front mount in order to get hood alignment etc correct. not that your new frame and engineering wouldn't account for that.
curious if you will use donor body mounts, since you may need to move the rad support mount anyway. it would be more modern than the old metal on metal front cab mount and the rubber conveyor belt style rear cab and rad support mounts.

[Blackie]

Originally Posted by dsraven

looks like an easy fix.
bear in mind that the original mounts were set up so the cab could pivot on the driver's front mount in order to get hood alignment etc correct. not that your new frame and engineering wouldn't account for that.
curious if you will use donor body mounts, since you may need to move the rad support mount anyway. it would be more modern than the old metal on metal front cab mount and the rubber conveyor belt style rear cab and rad support mounts.

I did buy a set of cab mounting rubbers from LMC but you are correct I will most likely stick with the Nissan ones - they are quite a bit taller which will help my cause and obviously a lot newer design which should make for a smoother ride.

We knocked off early and had a beer in the shed last night my neighbour/offsider is off on holidays for a couple of weeks so it would be rude not to

[Blackie]

Got the body mounts dummied up yesterday, started off by clearancing the floor and thought I would drop the oil pan off the trans - a 5 minute job that turned into an hour long ordeal due to the stupid design of the exhaust system - th ecrossover pipe runs an inch below the rear of the pan making removing the bolts difficult and getting the pan itself off impossible

Had to fire the oxy set up to remove the seized bolts in the exhaust flanges to get the pan off - bolts aren't tight when they are a liquid lots of VERY rude words and the designers parentage was questioned on more than one occasion............

Anyway the trans is toast as expected - oil is filthy and there is glitter in the sump. Having the exhaust so close to it would not be helping its cause no doubt.

[Blackie]

So down it goes and mounts mocked up ready to be CAD (Cardboard Assisted Design) drawn

Good clearance around the trans , front mounts will be a walk in the park.

[Blackie]

Out with the CAD gear and into it .........

[Blackie]

BUT - and there is always a but, I think I have outsmarted myself here, the body is too low on the chassis now, have big clearance issues for both the tray and the front clip - we started sorting out the radiator support and things are getting ugly up here - simple option would be to shorten the front frame horns but I very much doubt the engineer will allow that - need to bear in mind as well that the chassis has 6" raised springs in it and I am hoping to run 2" or at worst 3"

Inner fenders are going to need some big cuts in them to give clearance for the coil towers and shocks on the front.

Other issue is the rear - owing to the kickup in the chassis I am going to lose around 8" of depth in the bed which will make it virtually useless .......

Looks like i just made some more work for myself welding the floor back in - I cut it out in 2 pieces with 1mm cutting discs so not a train smash but there is at least half a days work gluing it back in ......

[Rickysnickers]

"lots of VERY rude words and the designers parentage was questioned on more than one occasion............" I'm glad someone else has these thoughts as well

[dsraven]

personally i would try to keep the lowest part of the body just a little higher than the lowest part of the frame, just marginally higher. otherwise the frame sticks out like a sore thumb below the body, door step/box step area. body lower than frame can result in some body damage because it can get high centered before the frame does.
you can always make a new rad support that will fit the frame and connect the fenders. it if doesn't work you still have the original that way. square tube and a little flat sheet is pretty cheap, compared to a new rad support for you. mock it up in CAD first, LOL
there are lots of raised bed floors in older trucks. some because of frame swaps and some because of crazy built rear suspensions. you gotta decide if it is something you want or not. without it your truck will need to be jacked up off the frame quite a way or the rear frame area will need to be re-engineered. that frame kicks up quite a bit. can you remove the bed and just use the box front and sides for mock up?
you can also fab up a set of inner fenders pretty quick with some flat sheet, or even your CAD mock up system, lol. i've been using CAD for years. works great with using the donor body mounts you may see more body flex than with the original body mounts that were pretty stiff. maybe you wanna use a few more connection points on the firewall to inner fender so that there can be less flex in that area. making it more like a unibody. the original cab simply sat on the frame mounts with a few shims to level things up. it basically became the teeter-totter pivot point. you may not want that with mounts that are taller off the frame mount AND are flexible. on my frame swap i plan to use a length of flat stock welded to the firewall so that the inner fender has a strip to bolt to, more full length top to bottom, than the simple "L" bracket that came stock on the lower end of the inner fender
great engineering and CAD build up. keep plugging away and solving issues as they arise and soon you will br driving. oh, and keep posting up your progress of course.

[Blackie]

Originally Posted by dsraven

personally i would try to keep the lowest part of the body just a little higher than the lowest part of the frame, just marginally higher. otherwise the frame sticks out like a sore thumb below the body, door step/box step area. body lower than frame can result in some body damage because it can get high centered before the frame does.

Did exactly that DS, is why I was aiming to get it where it is - its a little hard to see in the pic but its about 1" above the bottom of the rail. Thinking if it has to go back up I might put a step rail or rock slider on there if the chassis looks too exposed - I am with you on that mate - they look awful if the body looks like its sat up on top of the chassis.

No real progress this week as I had to go away for work replacing a transformer - picked up my donor dash on the way up, it probaby looks abit weird to you lot being RHD

Spent Sunday dodging road trains on a warm day - about 110 farenheight on the way up to site .......

[dsraven]

wow, thats crazy. 43C. the semi must have a super cooling system to drag a train in that temp.
I tghnk you nailed it with the body height off the frame.
is the donor dash about the right width? will you remove the glass and drill all the spot welds to get the old dash out, or do you plan to cut the dash and graft the donor dash to the lip remaining after cutting? glass will likely need to come out at some point anyway, so you can weld properly

[FinnDiesel]

Originally Posted by Blackie

Question for you guys running an LS - do you use a wide late style radiator or can they be sufficiently cooled with a stock style radiator? The reason I ask is I could raise the mounting pads on the rad support to lower it and the stock style radiator will fit between the frame rails - I was planning to use the Patrol radiator and condenser but if i lower the radiator support too much I doubt it will fit. -

I'm running a stock GM LB7 Duramax radiator in my '55 front end and it just fits between the fender lips. So the opening is plenty wide.
We just came back to Canada after working in Brisbane for 5 years. Love your country mate.

[FinnDiesel]

I made the rad support out of 1" square tube. I'll post a pic if you'd like. Don't want to hijack your thread.

[Blackie]

Originally Posted by dsraven

wow, thats crazy. 43C. the semi must have a super cooling system to drag a train in that temp.
I think you nailed it with the body height off the frame.
is the donor dash about the right width? The donor dash is 3 or 4 inches wider than the truck , there are a couple of pretty informative you tube videos of this swap being done,


will you remove the glass and drill all the spot welds to get the old dash out, or do you plan to cut the dash and graft the donor dash to the lip remaining after cutting?
I will cut the truck dash 1/2" or so away from where the garnish sits and weld it in there, hopefully being close to the pressing it wont want to warp as much.

glass will likely need to come out at some point anyway, so you can weld properly
Glass needs to come out to square the cab up anyway mate

..

[Blackie]

Originally Posted by FinnDiesel

I made the rad support out of 1" square tube. I'll post a pic if you'd like. Don't want to hijack your thread.

Knock yourself out mate, any and all advice, criticism or whatever is more than welcome, cheers for the heads up about the radiator - I am mates with Norm from Aussie Desert Coolers so I will get him to sort me out a radiator when the time comes.

Brisbane eh ? Too crowded that joint, especially the gold coast and sunny coast, no way I could live there the traffic would be the death of me.........

[FinnDiesel]

Copied the original mount points so stuff would line up, but fab'd out of 1" tube etc.
Welded mounts so original dual battery trays etc bolt on. Made new mounting points for the front lower and front upper part of fenders.
It isn't fully apparent at the beginning, but the TF fenders have a lot of space under them. I trial mounted the the air intake box, overflow container, 2 batteries, windshield washer reservoir and fuse panel.
All of the Patrols engine bay components will fit under there. Worst case - ditch the TF inner fenders and get more modern ones that fit or fab up. There is a lot of tire room in there already. The GMT800 inner plastic fenders are quite versatile and flexible.
It all fits under the fenders with the important parts accessible . I was initially going to move the batteries to the rear fearing they wouldn’t fit but decided to keep everything stock for reliability as they fit perfectly under the fenders.
I can take either fender off now, or the grille, or the whole clip in one piece quite easily for servicing.

[Blackie]

Something to think about - never envisaged doing that but there is no reason why the airbox couldn't go up behind the headlight

[Blackie]

Got home this morning and got back into it - have lifted the body back up 4" and it has solved a heap of issues. I don't think it looks too terrible with regard to looking too high off the chassis , its still setting over it enough so it looks like it should. Radiator support and grille now clear the chassis - should just be a matter of making some brackets and bolting it on. Waiting on the engineer to come by and let me know what he thinks - everything over here needs to be engineer approved before the DMV will licence it - a real pain in the arse......and not a cheap exercise.

Took the front and rear windshields out, was gonna reuse the front rubber as its pristine then though damn the expense lets go crazy and buy a new one

The rubbers both front and rear were as hard as a bulls forehead - took some cutting to get them off !!!

[dsraven]

the height looks ok in the pics, however tall. like you said before, if it looks like too much frame is showing when it's sitting outside with nothing around it then a set of side bars might be in order to hide the frame. you might need them anyway in order to get in.

[dsraven]

a little trick I have used with success, when lining up body panels prior to building mounts or when shimming body parts upon assembly, is to use a couple of strong magnets, placed at the frontmost and rearmost points available and on a body line that spans the vehicle. then run a string between the magnets and space it off the body with a block of some kind. equal spacing front and rear. this helps show if the body line is following along nice and straight. a third block, the same thickness, can be used under the string, anywhere else along the length, to check if the panels are parallel or not. i used a few cheap office erasers for blocks, held in place with tape. worked great. if you also level the frame, fore to aft, you can use a stringline level to check if the body is parallel to the frame. another trick is to shine a strong light (or laser level) at the string, from a directly level point, and then mark the body at different intervals, then connect those dots with a long straight edge to see if the body is lining up. some panels don't have as crisp of a body line as others so , in my case, i sanded those areas with a long stiff sanding board on one side of the line, to highlight the body line. my project was previously blasted so bare metal at this point, no paint or patina to worry about.
you probably have this already figured out though. just info that worked for me on different projects

[dsraven]

will you still need to raise the bed floor?

[Getter-Done]

Great work.


Just a suggestion ,

To hide some of the frame to body gap maybe use some like they used on the Square bodies in the link below.

Link: https://www.usa1industries.com/1981-...shield-rh-2wd/

[dsraven]

I have used treadmill belting, thin conveyor belting or sheet plastic. Usually a treadmill can be found for free someplace, then given away again for parts after you strip off the belting. Lots of guys looking for the DC motor and control boards.

[dsraven]

under cab is prolly gonna be ok. it's usually the gap above the rear wheels, where ight shines through, that needs attention to look more like a pro build. behind the front wheels is also good to get a cover on so that, on 4x4 trucks especially, water and mud stay out of the engine compartment and off ignition components.
hot water tank wrap is also a great idea to hang under your hood and on the firewall. a little tough on these old trucks cuz there is no secondary structure under the hood to use those plastic push pins on. for those who live in slightly hotter climates (had to, sorry), its a foil backed fiberglass insulation sheet.
when you get to the interior, will you try to sound and heat barrier the cab somehow? I assume you will have a/c, since you have the odd warm day there, lol.