Not Another Rebuild Thread....

[C@rnut001]

It is great that it is up to 52 up where you are. It is cold and snowed two inches last night, but it melted off today. We are just watching the river breakup and hopefully it doesn't overflow the banks (Kuskokwim River). Anyway, good luck on getting more of your build complete, I love what you did with the dash and your mudding and sanding work on it looks pretty good...

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by C@rnut001

It is great that it is up to 52 up where you are. It is cold and snowed two inches last night, but it melted off today. We are just watching the river breakup and hopefully it doesn't overflow the banks (Kuskokwim River). Anyway, good luck on getting more of your build complete, I love what you did with the dash and your mudding and sanding work on it looks pretty good...

Thanks Carnut, it isnt as good yet as I want it to be, needs a tad more work. I tend to wait until I have a couple of bondo tasks to do before I mix some up.

This weekend I started on my dash extension.
Got a section of fleetside body as a donor for this project because initially I was going to do a one piece, but then I smartend up some and decided that a 3 piece would be wiser.

So my donor sheet metal, yea it is that color green!!


Of course I had a pattern I made from cardboard and used that as a basis for my parts.... This is the d-side section.


The d-side all fabbed up, with the original center piece. As I was test fitting them up under the dash I got to looking at the area around the steering column and thought to myself.... self, we can do better than that!


My p-side section, with what is going to be my stereo console. I have to weld in a small section on the bottom right side. I got a tad too generous with cutting my donor sheet for my first part, which left me not so much room.


And the p-side in for a test fitting. I went ahead and gave myself the double thumbs up for this one, and started stripping paint.


Then I got going on my second attempt on the center section.

[McMurphy]

So with a new and improved template, I was at it again...


I dont have a circle cutter, so I cut this down to strips for the rounded end. The idea was to bend them up, and cut them flush with a grinder. but then I saw how they made a nice, non-sharp rounded edge and beat them down instead.


My finished piece.


checking the fit....


And that gentlemen, with a few other odds and ends done was my major accomplishment this weekend.

I took a couple pics of what I am going to need to do to adapt my Bronco seat after fiddling with getting it aligned and centered how I want it.
The wife cleanen up the engine more for me, she made some awesome progress with that.
Thank you wife !!

Hope you all got some stuff done too, gotta go read your threads now!

[chad64chevy]

that looks awesome!! great job with the fab. skills

[chevy_man5]

That will look great in there! Good Job!!

[66ChevyMax]

That is sweet, summer is on the way my brother....

[flips72]

looking good, you come up with some pretty neat ideas, keep it up

[GMC1965]

Seems were just unlucky, My truck has all the same rust! Yours seems a little worse but I still have to replace what you are. That template for the cab corners seems nice!Im going to PM you bout that. Reading this helped me out some, seeing all the replacement done. Once im ready for panels, im going to rent a welder mid summer. I can get a gas for 120$ month. Good luck with your build!

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by chad64chevy

that looks awesome!! great job with the fab. skills

Thanks Chad, it seems to get easier and easier the more of it I do. I certainly enjoy it, that is for sure!

Originally Posted by chevy_man5

That will look great in there! Good Job!!

Thank you... I have high hopes that it comes out at least half as good as some of the others I have seen on this board!

Originally Posted by 66ChevyMax

That is sweet, summer is on the way my brother....

Yes sir it is!
I had the garage door open all day today and only had to fight off a half dozen blood sucker bugs, but the sun shine made it worth it!

Originally Posted by flips72

looking good, you come up with some pretty neat ideas, keep it up

Thank you Flips, I dont have the skills to keep up with the rest of you so I have to have some mad-crazy ideas, otherwise my rig would not be worth watching to build... I think. LOL

Originally Posted by GMC1965

Seems were just unlucky, My truck has all the same rust! Yours seems a little worse but I still have to replace what you are. That template for the cab corners seems nice!Im going to PM you bout that. Reading this helped me out some, seeing all the replacement done. Once im ready for panels, im going to rent a welder mid summer. I can get a gas for 120$ month. Good luck with your build!

I Xeroxed off that template I made of those cab corner floor fill plates I just have to get the wife to scan them into digits so I can email them out to you all! I am really pleased with the result too.


Yesterday got ate up with work related stuff and a car show in North Pole, so I did not touch my rig at all until today. Then it was just a bunch of little stuff like making a demo and pattern of the adapter for my seat, staring at my original grille and the hideaway head lights idea, dinking around with my cable gas pedal, and finished stripping the green paint from that dash extension I made up.
Funny how one thing leads into another... I hesitate to mount my shoulder seat belts until I get the seat mounted, same with the side view mirrors.

I am currently looking for a 5.7 mechanical manual 5sp transmission for this build. From what I am hearing they are hard to come by up here in central Alaska. Tomorrow I have to call around to all the bone yards and confirm that. So far it is just the Tranny Shop guys I have spoken to about it.
The transmission the wife an I pulled last November turned out to be a 3 speed and though it will haul a trailered car behind it, it will not do it fast, and even with no load, the 3sp will eat up gas with the higher RPMs behind that 350 motor (I think).

Well enough blabbering, I am going to go read some builds and see what I can accumulate this week to work on over the 4 day weekend!!

[baggedbigblock]

liking the progress!!

[CRGRS 66]

Hey McMurphy, didn't realize that you had a build going on until tonight. I will take my time and go through it over the next day or two.
Cheers!
Craigerr

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by baggedbigblock

liking the progress!!

Thanks for taking a look man, I surely do dig your build!!

Originally Posted by CRGRS 66

Hey McMurphy, didn't realize that you had a build going on until tonight. I will take my time and go through it over the next day or two.
Cheers!
Craigerr

Thank you for stopping by.
I apologize for the disorganization of both the build and the photos... it was mainly to combat cabin fever over the winter so the approach to the build has been more of a tinkering dream come true than a planned resto-mod.

I am starting to post less, but show more completion on the specific projects, (I think) because I realized I was dinking around with stuff but not getting anything done.... if that makes sense.

Hope you enjoy it anyways!!

[CRGRS 66]

No need to apologize, nice to be able to see what you have been doing. We all learn, and get our inspiration from each other. Looking forward to seeing how your dash extension turns out!

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by CRGRS 66

Looking forward to seeing how your dash extension turns out!

Yeah ... Me Too !!

Off to the bone yard to see if I can get the early 70s front cross member with the disc brakes and 5.7 manual and mechanical transmission.
See you guys later this weekend here, and good luck on your builds.

[McMurphy]

Well on Friday I went to the bone yard, and my dear wife (bless her soul) and I poked around for 3 hours in a nice steady rainfall and got a bunch of stuff!
The major things we got were this front cross member with the disc brakes. I am going back tomorrow to get the year of the truck it came out of but I need to know all the names of all the bushings and ball joints I need to get to do a proper rebuild on it.

If someone can help me out with a "shopping list" I would sure appreciate it. I am getting into the learning end of the pond, and dont want to go into NAPA and sound like a totally clueless fart....
Thanks!

I thought about just sliding it under my rig and worrying about it some later day, but then good sense kicked in I think and I realized it would probably be far easier to it now while it is off the frame.


The junk yard just cut the frame and loaded the whole mess into my truck. This is after I unbolted everything I did not need for this stage, scrubbed the snot out of it, and 2 trips to the car wash!


Cleaned up Ok I guess.... very much surface rusted though.


Other than that rubber stop bumper, all the other bushings are dry rotted to oblivion.


You can really see the dry rot in these pics. I figure if I am going to tear it down to clean it up, I should just redo it all right the first time while I have it out and easily accessable.


More pics later of some of the other stuff I got the other day, like the hydroboost for the brakes....

[k1rodeoboater]

I can't wait to see that console done. I was thinking about doing the exact same thing you did with the cab corners, though I'll probably just screw mine in so they're removable. I'd like to be able to spray some used motor oil down in there to help keep the rust from coming back.

I wished I had just kept my 73 cross member together rather than breaking it apart and scrapping/selling off everything but the spindles. It would have been way easier to do what you're planning on doing.

[joe231]

Upper and lower balljoints (2 of each)
Upper and lower control arm bushings (4 of each)
Inner and outer tie rod ends (2 of each)
Pitman arm and idler arm (1 of each)
Rotors, inner and outer bearings and races (2 of each and you will need to know if you have 1 inch thick or 1.25 inch thick rotors)
Calipers (1 left and 1 right)
Brake pads and hardware
Front brake hoses (left and right)
Sway bar bushings (4 of each and you will need to know the bar diameter)
Coil springs (2 of each)

I think that's all you need

Also, you probably know this already...
You don't have to swap the crossmember.
You can use everything on your current crossmember.
Posted via Mobile Device

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by joe231

Upper and lower balljoints (2 of each)
Upper and lower control arm bushings (4 of each)
Inner and outer tie rod ends (2 of each)
Pitman arm and idler arm (1 of each)
Rotors, inner and outer bearings and races (2 of each and you will need to know if you have 1 inch thick or 1.25 inch thick rotors)
Calipers (1 left and 1 right)
Brake pads and hardware
Front brake hoses (left and right)
Sway bar bushings (4 of each and you will need to know the bar diameter)
Coil springs (2 of each)

I think that's all you need

Also, you probably know this already...
You don't have to swap the crossmember.
You can use everything on your current crossmember.
Posted via Mobile Device

If I just use the original cross member do I just swap out the spindles for the disc brakes set up?
I would have to check to see if my 6 lug rotors would fit too, or else order the ones you linked me a few days ago.

When you come up, I should video you looking at my set up so I dont miss anything. I suck at taking notes.... LOL

Originally Posted by k1rodeoboater

I can't wait to see that console done. I was thinking about doing the exact same thing you did with the cab corners, though I'll probably just screw mine in so they're removable. I'd like to be able to spray some used motor oil down in there to help keep the rust from coming back.

I wished I had just kept my 73 cross member together rather than breaking it apart and scrapping/selling off everything but the spindles. It would have been way easier to do what you're planning on doing.

K1 I have those cab corners scanned to digits if you want me to shoot it to you in email. You can print it off and go from there. Would be easy to add a tab for mounting screws.

I just could not get too motivated today to work on the truck, I really only putzed around on it for 4 hours.
I did look at my hydroboost, and am trying to figure how to make the plunger longer. It is about 3" too short to reach the resting position of my brake pedal.

I painted some stuff.

I thought about making a bracket for my porportioning valve to mount to.

I answered what seemed like a bazillion texts from people that did not know I was trying to be busy....

Then I decided to dink around with the dash extension. It started with blocking the 3 parts together and drilling a guide hole for the center piece to bolt to the other two.

[joe231]

Originally Posted by McMurphy

If I just use the original cross member do I just swap out the spindles for the disc brakes set up?
I would have to check to see if my 6 lug rotors would fit too, or else order the ones you linked me a few days ago.

When you come up, I should video you looking at my set up so I dont miss anything. I suck at taking notes.... LOL

Lol!

You would use everything except the crossmember.
From the arms out and all the newer steering stuff.
You will need the aftermarket 6 lug rotors or convert to 5 lug.
To convert the rear, you can redrill your rear axles, buy 5 lug axles to fit your diff, or swap in a newer diff...
I can understand wanting to keep it 6 lug though.
Posted via Mobile Device

[McMurphy]

Then after the primer dried, I decided it was time to clamp it into place and start the molding it fit the cab. So far I am very pleased with the product. I left it all bolted together and as you can see it binds a bit on the center piece. This will go away as I form the long vertical edges to the cab wall and weld it in.
I also welded in that patch corner where it meets the floor.




Just for giggles, I decided to work in a matching body line from the dash. You can barely see it in this photo.





I am almost impressed with myself at how straight that bottom edge turned out, especially when mounted up like this in the truck.



Sometimes a photo will show you errors or mis-alignments more clearly than my eye will. So here I am checking to ensure that the concept of extending the area of the orginal dash that is the width between the two panels would "look right".... Next I should shoot a photo thru the back glass from above and farther away.


Well not much of a progress weekend for photos, just a ton of behind the curtain stuff like cleaning and painting of parts to go on later. Kind of a good idea to do it like this because when I start reassembly I will probably be too impatient to clean and paint stuff....
LOL

Hope you all had a good weekend, sadly back to work tomorrow!!

[McMurphy]

Another weekend of doing behind the scenes unglamorous stuff....
worked a template for the console sides, and another for my dome light. More to follow on those.

I cut the push rod/plunger for my hydroboost at approximately center then with a 7/16 -14 die I threaded both ends.


Then I got a 1 3/4" extension nut some lock washers and end nuts. If this turns out to be not long enough, I got a 2 1/2" long bolt and another extension nut. I will cut the head off the bolt and use it as a center join between the two extension nuts.


I also whipped out this mounting bracket for my porportiong valve, though I may fab up another that will include something to hold the power steering hoses as well.


Other than that, I got the feet made and got the anchoring hardware for my seat, so I think next weekend I will work on mounting my seat up. and finishing my cab floor.
I am itching to get something completed and have been trying to focus on the inside of the cab, but frankly I am at an impasse until I get my transmission.
I want to be 100% certain that the console idea I have isnt going to interfere with shifting before I commit to welding it all up in place.

[Modges'66]

Originally Posted by McMurphy

Another weekend of doing behind the scenes unglamorous stuff....
worked a template for the console sides, and another for my dome light. More to follow on those.

I cut the push rod/plunger for my hydroboost at approximately center then with a 7/16 -14 die I threaded both ends.
Attachment 937317

Then I got a 1 3/4" extension nut some lock washers and end nuts. If this turns out to be not long enough, I got a 2 1/2" long bolt and another extension nut. I will cut the head off the bolt and use it as a center join between the two extension nuts.
Attachment 937318

I also whipped out this mounting bracket for my porportiong valve, though I may fab up another that will include something to hold the power steering hoses as well.
Attachment 937319

Other than that, I got the feet made and got the anchoring hardware for my seat, so I think next weekend I will work on mounting my seat up. and finishing my cab floor.
I am itching to get something completed and have been trying to focus on the inside of the cab, but frankly I am at an impasse until I get my transmission.
I want to be 100% certain that the console idea I have isnt going to interfere with shifting before I commit to welding it all up in place.

Even though I have a nice chrome booster & master cylinder, I was thinking about goin with hydro-boost....It will work better once I add the twin turbo's...JK!

[flips72]

[quote=McMurphy;5419230]Another weekend of doing behind the scenes unglamorous stuff....
worked a template for the console sides, and another for my dome light. More to follow on those.

I cut the push rod/plunger for my hydroboost at approximately center then with a 7/16 -14 die I threaded both ends.
Attachment 937317

Then I got a 1 3/4" extension nut some lock washers and end nuts. If this turns out to be not long enough, I got a 2 1/2" long bolt and another extension nut. I will cut the head off the bolt and use it as a center join between the two extension nuts.
Attachment 937318

I also whipped out this mounting bracket for my porportiong valve, though I may fab up another that will include something to hold the power steering hoses as well.
Attachment 937319

Other than that, I got the feet made and got the anchoring hardware for my seat, so I think next weekend I will work on mounting my seat up. and finishing my cab floor.
I am itching to get something completed and have been trying to focus on the inside of the cab, but frankly I am at an impasse until I get my transmission.
I want to be 100% certain that the console idea I have isnt going to interfere with shifting before I commit to welding it all up in place.[/QUOTE hydroboost looks good, great job on the brake adjusting rod as well

Originally Posted by Modges'66

Even though I have a nice chrome booster & master cylinder, I was thinking about goin with hydro-boost....It will work better once I add the twin turbo's...JK!

twin turbo, now theres a idea

[chad64chevy]

twin turbo's would be awesome! i like tom nelson racing engines! heres a link: http://www.nelsonracingengines.com/engines/chevy.html, if you look at you tube videos they are bad a$$$!! i would love to have a 355 or 406 twin turbo daily driver!!

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by Modges'66

Even though I have a nice chrome booster & master cylinder, I was thinking about goin with hydro-boost....It will work better once I add the twin turbo's...JK!

If I could afford twin turbos, I could have a proper garage to work in!

Originally Posted by flips72

hydroboost looks good, great job on the brake adjusting rod as well
twin turbo, now theres a idea

Heck of an idea...

Originally Posted by chad64chevy

twin turbo's would be awesome! i like tom nelson racing engines! heres a link: http://www.nelsonracingengines.com/engines/chevy.html, if you look at you tube videos they are bad a$$$!! i would love to have a 355 or 406 twin turbo daily driver!!

I would like to afford to drive something like that daily LOL.

So a little of the behind the curtains stuff I been doing lately..
With the hydroboost and the front crossmember I got a couple weeks ago, I also snagged this collapsible steering column. I cut my original just below the bearing retainer and drilled a hole for the retainer bolt. I punched out the plastic that held the two parts together, and mounted it up. When I get to mounting my powersteering gear box back up, I will slide the steering column down to marry them up, mark the new holes, and probably use roll pins to secure it, however physics would not allow them to slide apart, so I am not sure if it would really be needed....



This is the two halves reunited.


In my original Tempest Custom I had mounted one of these Eldorado dome lights with the map reading spot lights. I really liked it then, so when I happened to spot a wrecked caddy at the bone yard I pulled this one too. (the paper is covering where the lens will go, I just have to order a new one)


As I was fiddling with aiming the map lights so they would approximately land in the laps of the cabin occupants, I thought, "hey, how cool would it be to make a mount that will take my 1" spot tweeters too?"


It isnt quite finished yet, but I suppose you get the general idea....