Ol' Green '70 GMC C2500 Father/Son

[clay68c10]

I like your aux gearbox idea, definitely unique.
Have you ever seen a Ranger unit available used? Probably rare but it would be worth keeping an eye out for one.

A 400 with a mellow cam and Vortec heads would be a great choice for what you're doing.
Or an 880 roller block based 350/383.

[connorm]

Originally Posted by clay68c10

I like your aux gearbox idea, definitely unique.
Have you ever seen a Ranger unit available used? Probably rare but it would be worth keeping an eye out for one.

A 400 with a mellow cam and Vortec heads would be a great choice for what you're doing.
Or an 880 roller block based 350/383.

The Ranger's seems fairly hard to find. The aux gearboxes are also somewhat hard to find. I think most of it seems to be that people don't really know what they are and there's not much value to them for most people. I also live in the midwest and we have more 2 speed axles in the medium duty trucks, rather than aux gearboxes. I did find a 6041 4 speed Spicer unit on Ebay. It's about 1k but its in Montana so shipping is around $500-600. I am going to keep looking locally.

A 400 with an rv cam, decent heads, knock off ZL1 intake and quadrajet and HEI is what I'm leaning towards now, but that's a ways off. The 307 just keeps chugging along. And doesn't have enough power to hurt anything. I am planning on doing "supporting mods" before I do an engine swap. I'm just trying to keep that in the back of my head.

[connorm]

Well, I'm overdue on an update on this. I ended up buying a new daily driver so that has taken up some of my time.

https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/...=1#post9368842

I do have Ridetech shocks on this truck now. These are not the shocks that you would get if you called and ordered shocks for a coil sprung 2500. These are threaded bodies, aka coil overs or shock waves, with no spring/air bag. Typically smooth bodies, aka shock replacements, would be used. There is no functional difference between the two, although the valving is different.

On the front I really needed a 4.1" travel but I couldn't find one laying around so I put a 3.6" travel with a longer eyelet to bring it back to the right travel range. As you can see with the rubber bumper I am running out of travel so I really need to buy a smooth body that has the right travel. This will get me the better valving and the correct travel.

On the back I have a 6.9" travel with a 3.7" eyelet. This is a fairly common set up and I have no reason to upgrade.

These are single adjustable and it is amazing how a single rebound adjustment can affect the ride quality of a rusty old 2500 truck. I have messed with the tuning and a little bit and will continue to. When I really settle on a set up. The link below is to the coil overs and replacement shocks. Let me know if anyone has questions on any of this.

https://ridetech.com/product/coilove...le-adjustable/
https://ridetech.com/product-categor...ch-1-5-shocks/

[connorm]

This is an overdue update but I have gotten the truck out a couple of times. The first picture is just a picture that I liked, the second was at a cruise in at Bret Voelkel's cruise in at his shop in Ireland IN. Besides this I am just going to be using the truck for the most part. I just bought a 1953 Merc Sedan 2 Door Post car.

[Getter-Done]

Nice looking vehicles

Flip For Ya.

[connorm]

Originally Posted by Getter-Done

Nice looking vehicles

Flip For Ya.

Attachment 2419987

Thanks, I didn't realize that it was sideways

[hewittca]

Nice updates! I have a question on the shocks. Why did you go with something like those versus just a set of stock style replacements? I've always just slapped new stock shocks on my trucks but now I think I've been doing it all wrong!

[connorm]

Originally Posted by hewittca

Nice updates! I have a question on the shocks. Why did you go with something like those versus just a set of stock style replacements? I've always just slapped new stock shocks on my trucks but now I think I've been doing it all wrong!

I had always just put replacement shocks on all of my vehicles until recently. I work at Ridetech and was able to piece together this set, and from now on I think this is what I'll be putting on vehicles.

A big part of the draw of these shocks is the adjustability. You start in the neutral zone and then you can add more rebound or take it away. With just the rebound changing you wouldn't think that it would make much of a difference then you would think.

I am obviously biased towards Ridetech shocks, but we are on the higher end of quality and cost. We are owned by Fox and use a combination of their shock bodies and internals with valving that we have specified. If you have any questions let me know, and if you want to talk to a sales guy I will get you in touch. The links below are for our shock replacements. It's a little funky with the finding the compressed and extended lengths, but we have bolt in stock replacement, and some lowered combinations. The aluminum and steel web pages are below. The steel are a little cheaper but the performance will be about the same.

https://ridetech.com/product-categor...ch-1-5-shocks/
https://ridetech.com/product-categor...l-body-shocks/

[hewittca]

That's good info, thanks. Not to derail your build thread but I do have one more question about the shocks. My trucks are always super low, so any moderate bump ends up with the rear end slamming into the frame. Would I be able to mitigate this by dialing in the compression of one of these shocks?

[connorm]

Originally Posted by hewittca

That's good info, thanks. Not to derail your build thread but I do have one more question about the shocks. My trucks are always super low, so any moderate bump ends up with the rear end slamming into the frame. Would I be able to mitigate this by dialing in the compression of one of these shocks?

The valving in these shocks is very different than normal so the ride will be different, you can make it stiff in the rear but nice bump stops might be the better solution? Without knowing the whole set up its hard to make know for sure. Being able to adjust the stiffness should help. If you have any more questions or wanna go further please reach out and I will help you, or I will get you in touch with one of our salesmen.

[connorm]

Well I took the truck up to Indy this weekend to pick up some wheels for the 53 Merc I just bought. This was a couple hundred miles round trip so I did a little pre check. I ended up messing with the PCV house and shortened it up as there was a crack in there. It turns out that this made a huge difference in driving, all for the better. I ended up getting 13.5 MPG at pretty much all 65 MPH. I was very happy with that and that is the best I have gotten. The 47 Hudson is my buddies and I got the wheels from his grandpa, I stayed there Friday night and mounted and balanced the wheels then helped move about 13 Hudson step downs on Saturday then drove back last night. I ended up getting gas in Bloomington and got caught in the Little 500 traffic downtown and it was a MESS

[connorm]

Well I'm talking to the guy that is selling this gearbox. Right now nobody really knows what it is, but it is a mix between a Brownie Box and a Ranger Overdrive. With no make/model there is no way to know the overdrive/underdrive without having the box in hand. I am also working through the price and shipping from California to Indiana. It's kinda a long shot but it's worth a shot.

https://www.pirate4x4.com/threads/wh...drive.2715456/