Old School Hot Rod Truck (1964)

[Arekusu]

Since I changed my plan under recommendation of a lot of people who have done this high power motor thing before... my trailing arm connection piece from Poterbuilt needed to be remade for a 9".. problem is they never made one for the Fab style of housing. I understood that and Fab work takes measurements (I had none). I got the new bar for the 9" but it was a bit wider left and right than predicted. Soo my buddy who is holding this thing for me in his garage on jack stands has been getting antsy since he pretty much lost his garage. My buddy Keith.. he's good shi*, he's country and an Engineer.. so the ingenuity is crazy. lol He came up with an idea to make the porterbuilt connection piece fit (as it was off a few inches due to the different style housing). We used a tree as a mandrel, and used his truck winch to bend the bar after it was bolted to chains. We tried getting an exhaust shop to put a bend in it but no one wanted to play. So we did this. I held the bar in place while he pulled the slack out of the cable and chain, then stepped back while the winch did some work. We ended up with a bar that is just about perfect and now my buddy gets his garage back as he can roll the truck in and out of it now.

One crappy part in switching late to the Fab 9 housing .. with the back brace.. my notches now aren't wide enough.. well hopefully the suspension will still get enough travel when I launch it.

Alex

[likaroc13]

Looks so clean underneath, & those are some fat meats for sure!

[Arekusu]

Originally Posted by likaroc13

Looks so clean underneath, & those are some fat meats for sure!

Thanks Likaroc! I hope to keep it close to this.. with maybe some extra rubber undercoating from the full slicks I plan to run.

[Arekusu]

Small update from the past few weekends of working on the truck.

We have pulled the bed off and on about 8 times now with at least one more repetition left.

We repainted the back of the cab, got a lot of runs in the clear.. sanded them out flat then burnt through the clear, paint and down to the primer.. so another repaint of the back is in order.

The bed wood has been re stained and re cleared and looks a hell of a lot better.

Fixed the door dings (both doors) due to lack of door checks, as well as where I took about an 1/8" out of the top of the passengers door because it didn't fit. aka.. re paint.

Got a new water pump pulley that actually fits the Stewart Stage 3. Jones Racing helped me with that and the customer service was awesome.

I re did the fuel line along the frame rails.. I was never really all that happy with all steel braided. So I got stainless steel 1/2" tube from

http://www.mcmaster.com/

A 37 degree Parker flare tool, and tube -8 AN fittings. The parker tool says not to use on stainless.. but I've used it to make about 10 flares so far and it does fine. I'm guessing the stainless might wear down the tool so it won't work but hey, I now have hardline stainless tube rather than aluminum.

I also redid the intake manifold seal as I had a small coolant leak and it wasn't making me happy.. so I pulled it all apart and redid it. I still have to time the motor.

I got an HID kit from Dapper Lighting and installed that just this past weekend and it's really nice. It took me a while as I wanted to make sure the wires laid out nice and clean but I got it done.

Last things to do (hopefully)..

- reinstall doors and guts for windows and latches
- Time the motor
- Do an oil change
- paint front rims red
- Turn brake rotors
- test HID's and new tac / water temp gauge
- secure the bed and re attach rear fenders
- 3M trizact the whole truck and buff
- wax the truck
- Bring it home at what I'm guessing to be 8 mpg. Ok ok.. maybe 12 with the TKO-500

Alex

[Arekusu]

The front now with the old hood and grill.

[Arekusu]

Things left for this weekend.

Working on narrowing the tubs.
Getting the HID's to work on high and low beam
Front end alignment
Exhaust
Clean up loose ends.

Fill with gas.

Exhaust might be in a week or two.. I may try for an alignment this weekend.. really hoping to get the tubs cut and up to primer this weekend.

I'm still waiting on a hood latch that fits a 63-66 hood.

It's always the small stuff that holds you up.

Alex

[Arekusu]

We decided to cut down the lip of the passengers side fender.. it was a reproduction fender. We couldn't get the door gap right on the passenger side without it hitting the door. SO we cut it, re tacked the seam, skim coated it, primed and then painted it again.

[Arekusu]

Here are the tubs how they came for a fleet side bed .. and then how we cut them down to house the wider tires. I think they look more stock and go well with the bed. They were a lot of work for just welding. The body work was even more work.

[Arekusu]

Exhaust and alignment done. I reused the Classic Chambered "Powerstick" exhaust. It's 2.5" again but I added a resonator behind the powerstick. So it's more like their "Vette Pack" muffler they make. The overall sound is nice. It's quieter at idle and still opens up nice and roars when I put my foot in it but wont kill my ears. I wanted to run the exhaust all the way out the back and hide it but with the bigger FAB 9 differential housing, lowered coil-over ride height, and pan hard bar I didn't have clearance to run the tubes all the way out the back of the truck. So I'm glad the truck idles a little quieter now as I'd like to keep my hearing. I made sure to get 2 O2 bungs installed so I could tune my Air to Fuel with a wide band.

I got the alignment done at a shop after I guesstimated a bit when I put it back together.. I was actually pretty close! The alignment system was pretty cool and used cameras and paddles on the wheels to detect what the position was. I left the alignment shop with a straight tracking truck.

[Arekusu]

The truck was driving around a little hot. 210 -215 degrees in town with small romps on it to see what it'd do. I decided I better call my friend Mike Cz. He's pretty knowledgeable about tuning 4150's for racing and just overall car stuff. He's a Mustang guy but a bad ass Car Guy. I had pulled the intake manifold off it a few months back to fix a coolant leak that was piss*** me off. SO I lost my last timing job I did on it and lost my notes on what I had it set to. When I put it all back together I timed the motor and gave it a 10 degree advance. While at Mikes house we decided to turn it up to about 15 degrees advanced. We had the mix screws preset to about a 1.5 turn out and the truck seemed to like it. But I had the O2 bungs installed and he had an Air to Fuel meter so we hooked it up.

After hooking up the wide band we discovered that I was very lean. Like an air to fuel ratio of 22. After a little more idle mix screw adjustment we got it to about 15. We test drove it and when I hit it it drops to about 12 then comes up to about 14. The water temp also dropped down to 200 degrees. So as of now I'm still happy with it. I'll do a bit more tuning next weekend before I take it up to Alabama on the long drive but as of now it's just about all in line.

I still have to figure out my HID situation and get my turn signals working again.

Till next week!

Alex

[likaroc13]

Sounds like you're getting all the kinks & little details worked out.

[ImpalaJim]

Awesome truck. I want a 60 62 hood for my 66 as well cant find 1 in Hellinois. Loosing that rear bumper was a 110% improvement by itself!

[Arekusu]

Kind of An old vs. new thing I'm going for here. The old video I edited as I was shooting it and driving... so I got the good part. The new one I tried to replicate the whole original movie... just with the finished truck. Hope you enjoy.



Old, 350 ci, headers, small truck cam, 2.5" power sticks, less sound deadening, ran a 9.8 second 1/8 mile

1964 Chevrolet C10 (350 ci, TKO-500, 3.73's,...

New, 454 ci headers, custom roller cam, 2.5" power sticks with an added resonator (gotta kinda keep my hearing), loads more cab sound deadening,
we'll see what it runs next spring/summer

1964 C10 Video Remake - YouTube

[frmula505]

Looks and sound good.

[likaroc13]

Cool video comparison. Definitely looks like it gets down the road a little better now.

[Arekusu]

Thanks Guys!

[Arekusu]

Time for an epic road trip today I'm the truck.. I guess I'm doing my own "power tour"? Today I'm on my way from Kansas to Florida to put the truck into storage for a bit. Curently on I64 soon to be on I 57. If you see me, honk or wave!

Alex

[Arekusu]

A couple pics.

Starting in Kansas, the fog was so thick we couldn't see further than a few hundred feet!

So far my average fuel economy is 12 mpg at 75 mph.
I had to slow down through St.Louis to about 65-70 mph and my mpg jumped to 14.2 . Lol

Alex

[jchav62]

Nothing like seeing the country over that style of hood.

[likaroc13]

Hope you made it to Florida safely & turned some heads along the way.

[The Rocknrod]

Originally Posted by likaroc13

Hope you made it to Florida safely & turned some heads along the way.

And if you do - Post some pics of the truck. I can't find any in this thread. All small sections of the truck. Sup with that?

[Arekusu]

It made it to Florida just fine! Best MPG was 15.2 when I was doing 60-65 mph. I guess that's not to bad for a big block. Fan controller went out (I have horrible luck with these things) but luckily I didn't encounter any traffic and didn't drive in town for too long. It's a Dakota Digital which I've been very happy with, but the micro switches to adjust your settings are messed up and wont set or are stuck pushed "in". 24 Month waranty so maybe I'm still good?

I didn't take any pics of the truck when I got there.. super dirty at that point. But I had taken some overall pics of the truck last year. I just didn't post them because I figured I was old news at that point. Let me search for them really quick.

Alex

[Arekusu]

Some old photos. The engine bay has changed a bit and I don't have any updated pics. I don't want to post the old ones as they may lead someone to believe that you can do certain things the way I did them in different versions.. most importantly the PCV system that took me a solid year to work out. Here are some pics.

Alex

[Arekusu]

A little more. I have a friend that has wanted to take pro pics of this truck for a few years now, I just have to make a trip to Texas once I get back.

Alex

[canadian_diesel1964]

Man you've done a fantastic job!