Marvin (1953 3100)

[torchlight]

A few quick updates. Work on Marvin continues, nice and steady.



First, a couple pictures from a couple weeks back:

Doing some initial mockup to find the centerline with an old smallblock motor:


Also have to mockup the rear end for the same exercise. This is a new 9-inch Ford rear end housing from Moser that will be used for the truck:




Then fast forward to today - took a couple hours off of work this afternoon to drive up and see the progress:

Now we can mockup with the motor we will be actually using - the LS 5.3L crate motor was delivered recently. Transmission is also on the way now (a built 4L60E), but it has not arrived yet:


Also, you can see that Marvin now has a new rear suspension!


This is exciting, and I love what the shop did with the rear setup. They did an awesome job at listening to what I wanted for the truck. You can see it is setup as a 4-bar (but not parallel) with coilovers and using a wishbone-style (or y-bar) track locator. The bars and cross-members were built out of big, beefy chromoly tubing, and the bracketry was laser cut. Can't heap enough compliments on the tig welding all around. Coilovers and mounting hardware just for mockup purposes for now - some nicer stuff will go on later in the build. The whole thing is mostly just tacked to the frame for now - final welding in will happen a bit later. Here are some more pictures:








So, progress continues. More to do in the next few weeks. New IFS from Scott's Hot Rod's should arrive in a couple weeks. Once the transmission arrives, motor mounts and transmission crossmembers can be dialed in. And, sheetmetal work on the cab will be starting in earnest soon. Will post more updates after my next visit!