Another red 64 swb

[AUS64c10]

Originally Posted by Shooters_7

Steering wheel is on the wrong side of the truck for yall isn't it? How does that affect registration for these type of vehicles? Love the truck!

LHD vehicles of a certain age are allowed to be registered here with out being converted to RHD.

[AUS64c10]

I've managed to get a few things done over the last couple of weekends;

Fitted some new shocks all round and got the Ididit tilt steering column installed:



Just waiting on some new parts to finish off the new steering shaft.

Gas tank out and new seal and filler neck tube - no more gas smell in the cab



Got a new master cylinder and will redo the front and rear brakes hopefully this weekend. It seems like every time i go to do something on this truck I have to fix something else unexpectedly or get half way something only to find out I'm missing a vital part. Murphys law i guess.

[AUS64c10]

More work has been completed;



New front brake rotors, pads, wheel bearings and brake hoses



Sway bar mounts are a bit odd and then the one on the lower arms are so badly aligned they tear bushes to pieces, Might just throw the bar away and buy one that would fit properly. I've pulled the front sway bar and mounts out the road worthy








Still waiting my new intermediate steering shaft and UJ to show up then will book the truck in to be engineered.

[AUS64c10]

Been awhile since i updated. Got all the steering sorted and the new shift lever from Ididit fitted.

I ordered some new sway bars and after a lengthy wait they finally turned up. I went with Hotchkis front and rear sway bars in the end.





I only managed to fit the front swaybar today and it was a bit of a battle. The instructions said to drill and chisel off the rivet. That took a bit of effort one was easy the other rivet was stubborn as. All that effort was in vain thought as when i trial fitted the bracket I soon released the rivets didn't actually need to be removed. A bit of Google searching proved it when i worked out all the photos shown in the instructions were of '67 or later frames and the rivet is further forward on those frames. Oh well lucky i had some bolts to replace the freshly removed rivets.

After that I decided to hold off on doing the rear one today and to do some more research.... Yet again hotchkis only confuses things; the instructions show the bar mounting to the top under side of the frame rail yet the pictures on the website show it mounting in a different place.

[Bigru]

Nice looking truck!

[LostMy65]

I'm sure it feels good to finally be digging into it.

[AUS64c10]

ack at it this afternoon; started fitting the Hotchkis rear sway bar and again drilling and knocking the heads off the rivets in the frame proved a challenge. I couldn't get the rivets out from below so ended up pulling the boards above the frame rails and that made it a lot easier. It worked out better for drilling the holes for the mounting brackets too. I totally underestimated how long it would take just to remove the two boards but glad I did.



I should have it in tomorrow but I still need to find someone to weld the brackets on the trailing arms. There probably won't be much of a difference in handling compared with my old sway bars but at least now they are fitted properly and not just poorly retro-fitted from some other truck.

[TJ's Chevy]

Nice work!

[Modges'66]

I would really like to see what the Hotchkis set-up looks like on the rear.
Can't wait to see pics!

[AUS64c10]

Bolted everything up this morning and I must say I quite like this set up even if it did take a bit of time to fit. It think its because it doesn't get in the way of anything as it mounted up and out of the way. Would be a lot easier to fit if the bed was off and it would help to ensure things were all lined up a bit better I think i did OK considering.

Sway bar:



One compromise is the bolts for the trailing arms interfere with the hand brake cables. I used a couple of 9/16 sockets as spacers and longer bolts to get around it for now but I will have to fix it properly later on.



If I could be bothered cleaning under the truck it would come up really nice. Everything under there is just coated in dust and oily grime. Somehow i can see that idea permanently being moved down the priority list. But it would be nice not to get covered in it every time I work on the truck.

[AUS64c10]

Hard to believe it's been a year since I updated this. I've had the truck on the road for a while but not using it much. It took nearly 6 months for a new windscreen to arrive from the US. They were available locally but I was not willing to accept a Chinese made windscreen or one with the blue tint band across the top.

I will now get some new seam sealer in the cab seams before repainting it and fitting the new windscreen. Just to mix it up a bit I got some new American Racing Torque Thrust wheels for it too can't wait to see them on the truck. 18"x8" for the front and 18"x9" for the rear.

[AUS64c10]

update: wheel fail

Was feeling a bit motivated so I decided to go and and buy tires for my 18" wheels in my mind 255/40R18 for the front and 265/40R18 would be big enough. In reality its not.

[AUS64c10]

I'm not sure if I'm winning with this truck currently. I have a squeak and rattle in the steering column; I know the rattle is in the shifter assembly but cant pick if the squeak is in the top or bottom of the column. Being an Ididit column it not as easy to pull apart as the old chev one and it looks like the lower section is pressed together. It will cost hundreds to ship it back to Ididit in the US to be fixed but I don't think I have much choice currently.

Today I pulled the lower steering shaft out and cleaned it up as I never painted it when i fitted it originally. It cleaned up really nicely but I then destroyed all my pretty painting when i refitted it. Once i got it all back together I was just checking it was all ok operating the steering lock to lock when noticed at full lock on the left the front would lift up about an inch. On further investigation i found the pitman arm is hitting and then riding up on the front sway bar. Not sure what i will do about that yet.

I have some more tires on order with a larger aspect ratio so will get them fitted early next week and hopefully it will suit the truck more.

[Cape Codder]

I don't like the way low profile tires look on these trucks. Need to fill those fenders with rubber. Love the wheels though.

[DKO]

Beautiful truck! Drive it and enjoy it. I've never owned a car that I didn't get fru$trated with at some point or another. Keep at it.

[AUS64c10]

Well got some different tires fitted today. Now the wheels look huge and the rolling diameter is bigger than before as well so the speedo is out too. These are 255/60R18 on the front with a 8" wide rim and 265/60R18 on the rear with a 9" wide rim. I think the 55 profile tires might have been a better choice in hindsight.

I may just give up on the 18's and see how much it will be to get the chrome stripped off the 15" wheels and get those powder coated.

[azdude1964]

super clean

[Cape Codder]

I like the new rubber. You have the look of the wheel wells filled with a tire that will ride nice and handle well.

[AUS64c10]

Being sorting out a bit of stuff on the truck recently.

Finally got round to fitting some of the parts i bought late last year for the truck. I got some 2.5" CPP drop spindles and some Belltech 1" drop springs from Summit Racing. I also replaced all the ball joints and and control arm bushes while i was at it.

I still have new tie rods and other steering components to fit and one of Captinfab's power steering adapter brackets but i pretty happy with the increased suspension travel and it does sit a tad lower in the front now and should drop a little more once the springs settle in.

One of the biggest wins but smallest fixes was sorting out the rattle in the steering column. It was as simple as swapping the hard plastic bushing with a flexible urethane one. Turns out the rattle was just vibration from the shifter rod transferring into the steering column.

[Grizz1963]

This truck is exactly (almost) how I want mine to be in the end.

Looks beautiful.

[northern 85]

Very nice truck!!!

[Grizz1963]

Bit of a thread hijack here, but it is kind of relevant.


Karma is an awesome mistress.


Last week I got a PM via the Chevy Truck Forum from a New Zealander, who lives and works in Australia but was somewhere in Europe travelling with his partner in a camper van for the last six months.
He needed a recommendation on a non franchised garage to carry out some maintenance including new shocks all round on their camper van.

So we went to mobile Whatsapp chat mode.
I found and shared some garages but it seemed that everyone is booked quite solid.
So they decided to come to England, then fly to Iceland for a week on Friday and get the van sorted once back here.

I offered them my home as a stop over to use as a base while regrouping and doing London touristy stuff.
I think they were a bit surprised but I managed to convince them to stay ove a few days.
Of course lots of car and truck was spoken and we spent some time in my garage too. Arron's dad is a mechanic in NZ so it was a good time.

The cats both loved them and having the company and Caroline got herself a cat fix.

As always it was great, like when the McMurphy's were here, to have company in the house and being able to spend time with like minded people.

Caroline and Arron are those types of house guests you do not know are even in your house.
What a pleasure to have had them here.

They previously did 42 states in the USA over 8 months and covered 24000 miles on that trip.

So had this on my drive for a few days while they slept in a real bed.



Arron's Chevy thats in storage in Australia at the moment.

Link to his Build: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=590143



It seems winter is here.

When I work in my office ( I work from home ) in winter the small oil heater keeps the chill at bay.
I had a personal wager not to turn the heating on till end October. Made it to 6 November though winter has not yet gone bitter cold.

What is funny though is that both cats often do a double decker in my office to be near the heat.



Of course this is more like what they like...... toasty

How I found Dukey, next to his latest hairball. Bleughh.



Friday today means weekend, unless I get a call out to work in London tomorrow.

[AUS64c10]

It's been a while since I've been on here. Sadly I sold the truck a bit over a month ago. After getting back to Australia I think i was ready for a new project. One the guys who had looked at the truck when it was for sale (before i left for the UK) dropped me a message and we worked out a deal. Seeing it drive off with the new owner made me miss it immediately. The new owner loves it to bits and is planning to use it as an everyday vehicle.

Despite a lot of looking I haven't replaced it yet either.

[rvrfoot]

Sorry to here that you sold it. It was a nice truck.