My 1955 Chevy 3100 build

[dsraven]

welders series has a lot of misc brackets, tubing, eyelet ends, poly bushings etc etc that come in handy for projects like that. a Canadian company so USD gets you more for your money.

[55 Chevy Dave]

DS,

After I welded the crossmember into the frame, I bottomed out the rear suspension, took a measurement and then fully extended the rear suspension and took another measurement. I left some extra room in the loop to ensure that the driveshaft never touches it after it is powder-coated.

That's how I figured out how much to cut out of the loop.

[dsraven]

good plan. I have blown a few ujoints over the years when doing burnouts or fast take-off when I encountered some wheel hop. they can make a mess of things when they spin on outta there.
as a heavy duty mechanic I remember once where a long haul trucker stopped by holding his intermediate driveshaft, the one between the tandems, in his hand. it failed a forward u joint and when the shaft hit the highway it broke the pinion shaft on the rear axle right off clean like you sliced it with a knife. he used a heavy tow operator to get the truck and trailer to our shop. he unhooked the tanker full of latex paint on the side road by the shop, engaged his interaxle diff lock to allow a short drive to the shop door and while doing a U turn at the end of the street he got to watch the tanker of paint drop the dolley legs of the trailer through the roadway, due to a void under the pavement, and the trailer tipped and rolled on its side dumping latex. that was a mess. hazmat crews had to come in and clean it up and I think they cleaned the storm sewers for a distance as well. all at the truckers insurance expense, he wasn't having a good day for sure.
anyway, good idea to have that loop installed if you have some HP under the hood.

[55 Chevy Dave]

Its been a long time since my last update here. So I'll try to catch up a bit. For my next project, I moved on to modifying the rear bumper. I didn't get a rear bumper with the truck, so I purchased a remanufactured one some time ago.

First, I found that the bumper needed to be dropped a bit, so I cut the stock mounting brackets and rewelded them lower. That lowered the bumper. I then wanted to fill the holes for the bumper mounting bolts. I cut some new brackets from a piece of rectangular tube and welded them to the back side of the bumper where the holes used to be.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I also wanted to shorten the bumper as the ends of the bumper stuck out past the rear fenders. I found that I could cut about 3/4" from each side right where the outer mounting holes were located. Two less holes to fill!

[55 Chevy Dave]

I cut openings in the bottom of the rear bumper for the exhaust tips.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I haven't decided if I should cut the ends of the exhaust tips to fit flush with the bumper. I kind of like them sticking out a bit. What do you think I should do?

[55 Chevy Dave]

I mounted the rear exhaust hangers and also welded a rod around each opening for the exhaust tip so that they didn't look like cut holes.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I didn't like the big holes between the rear fenders and the bumper so I made a piece to fill in the holes. I think I'm going to weld them to the rear fenders and blend them in a bit.

[gigamanx]

Those exhaust tips are very cool!

[55 Chevy Dave]

I decided to modify the front bumper again. After narrowing it like the rear bumper, it seemed a bit plain. A while back, I saw a picture online of a modified front bumper that I really liked. I couldn't find any information on how this was done, but it looked like they used the bumper ends from a 55-57 Chevy Bel Aire. I bought some used ones online, had them dechromed and then worked on grafting these to the front bumper.

They were too wide so I narrowed them making sure the centerline of the "bump" was lined up with the headlight above.

[cameo]

looks really good. To me, the 55-59 bumper seems like an after thought, but not many trucks came with them. and when a farmer adds his own, they look like they were planning to tow their barn behind them every day.
This looks clean and sleek!
keep posting your progress!!

[55 Chevy Dave]

It got a bit ugly before it started to look right. At one point, I thought I might be buying a new front bumper!

[55 Chevy Dave]

The ends were still too far from the body. Some relief cuts and some heat from the torch and they went where they belonged.

[55 Chevy Dave]

Now to fill in the holes between the bumper ends and the front fenders. I started with a wire form and filled the tops and sides with sheet metal and blended them into the front fenders.

[55 Chevy Dave]

I still have some smoothing work to do on the bumper, but I'm pretty happy with it to this point.

[B52bobardier1]

Very nice and this is how GM should have done it. Well done!!

Rick

[Rickysnickers]

Another member posting some good work. Well done!

[dsraven]

nice work. that takes time to engineer after you figure out what you want. thanks for posting.
if i were to suggest anything it would be to allow some room for body flex and exhaust flex. maybe work a flex tube into the exhaust ahead of the tips if you find the tips bump occasionally