"The Northbay G Machine" 1969 GMC shorty build

[tranz am]

Thanks! Its time consuming for sure but in the end it will be worth it! The measurements involved and keeping things level is a little tricky. One thing to note is that these truck frames are all over the place as far as streightness! Its a wise investment to get a cross type auto laser level. This will help you to get as close as you can. Bubble levels are not accurate enough in my opinion. I use suspension attaching points to level off of in a lot of situations.

Originally Posted by low&slow

I'm defiantly going to tune in on your build. Your steps to your frame build is really nice. I've been thinking about putting a sub frame on my frame, but I think I may run into some road blocks. Not real sure yet.

[tranz am]

Here I pie cut the new rear frame rails @ °45.

[tranz am]

Here the new rails are put into there prospective location.

[tranz am]

Here the rails are placed into position and welded in. then the old frame sectionis removed.
I will be plating the welded areas to add strength soon.

[tranz am]

Back on the project pics to come soon.

[tranz am]

Ok so spent some time last week designing an ajustable trailing arm bracket that would give me a ton of adjustability. Also made a reinforcement bracket for the back side of the crossmember. Sorry for the blury pics. Must of had something on the lense.

[tranz am]

[tranz am]

And with the nascar trailing arms. These have the mono ball style bushings.

[tranz am]

Here the rear end is bolted onto the trailing arms so I can determine the coilover and pan hard bar mounting points. I Set the wheels and tires up to get an idea on how much room I have to work with.
This is a pro-touring build so I may end up using 2 separate coilover mounting locations. I'm thinking one set to the lower trailing arms set at an angle and the second set streight up and down. It gets tricky trying to figure out where things are going to be without actually having things mounted up.

[tranz am]

Today I made some coil-over brackets that hang down to the 15" wheel lip.
Here are the brackets next to the jegs brackets I was going to use.

[tranz am]

[tranz am]

Im mocking things up here. Like I said before im going to use 2 different coil-over mounting locataons.
The pink poster board is a rough draft template for one side of the mounting location that is to be a sheer configuration.

[tranz am]

Got the coilover mounts tacked onto the axle housing

[tranz am]

Got the housing brackets welded up.





The double adjustable Alden Eagle coil-overs I will use until I can get some longer ones.



Coil-overs mocked up. Made some brackets for the cross beam.

[tranz am]

[tranz am]

Finished the upper coilover brackers.

[tranz am]

Made some brackets to make the anti-roll bar removable.

[tranz am]

Just finished attaching the anti-roll bar.

[tranz am]

Today I was going to make the pan hard bar but the serrated mount on the trailing arm held me up. I bought a serrated front piece from keyser Enginering, but it was a different pitch. I called around and found the right one, but could not get myself to spend $65 on a small chunk of serrated aluminum. I ended up changing the mount to have 4 holes instead.







Here I have mounted one of the heim joints.

[tranz am]

Finally got the housing streightened by method of heat and quench. Took a while but it pulled in. You would not believe how cattywampus the tubes were even before I welded on anything! They were off 1/16 on each side!

Once streight i was able to put the Ford housing ends on.

[Justin@EntropyRad]

coming along! dig the GMC front ends

[tranz am]

Originally Posted by Justin@EntropyRad

coming along! dig the GMC front ends

Thanks man! There is just something about 4 headlights that just gets me!

[tranz am]

Ive been thinking, I may run a watts link instead of the pan hard bar. I have an LPW ultimate 12 cover that im thinking about attaching a pivot point to.

[Joe Pass]

Any updates?.....
Joe in Windsor