My Drive-way Build - '65 short pants

[62 Barnfind]

Floors are looking good!

[rickoner]

A few small updates on my truck. I got to the point of replacing the floors that's in the last pictures. It was taking a long time and I was getting pretty frustrated about a few things. I decided to just pay a coworker of mine that used to be a body guy but still does it on the side, to finish up the floors for me. They seemed to have came out really good. Money well spent! Here's a few pics just because everybody loves pictures.






I also have to give AcampoDave another BIG thank you for giving me a roof cut. He went way out of his way to hook me up. He cut the top off, boxed it up, and dropped it off at a greyhound station for me. What a hell of a guy. He even threw some rustoleom on it to keep it from surface rusting!

Check out the difference. Here's what a rust belt roof looks like if you can't remember from earlier.


Now here's a Cali roof. Kinda hard to tell but it's barely surface rust.


Here she is crammed into my barely one car garage. At least she's out of the weather where I can still work on it.

[dougf]

Awesome, your buddy did a great job and yes, definitely money well spent! It has taken me 40+ hours just on my right side and im still not done!

[aggie91]

Can't believe I missed this one when you first started it. Nice work on your own and the work your co-worker did looks good too.

What is next on the list?

Happy New Year!

[rickoner]

Happy New Year to everybody.

The next steps are that I'm going to work on the roof replacement and figuring out the steering set up. I have it laid out in my head. I just need to see if it will actually work now.

[AcampoDave]

Cool bro' so glad the roof turned out to be a good thing. I was glad to help. The floor looks great and you really have some serious dedication to the cause. I'll be watching your progress and I wish you were closer so we could cruise.

[rusty76]

Happy New Year!

[NevEno]

wow looks awesome!! I hope my repairs turn out that nice.

[rickoner]

Worked on a P/S adapter plate today. It moves the box forward 1" and up 2" to match the new position of the crossmember. That way everything is in exactly the stock geometry. Since everything is moved up 2" it's going to require a pretty big notch for pitman and tie-rod clearance. I'm talking the notch is going to be half the height of the frame and about 10" long. I'm kinda nervous with how thin the frame will be in that section, but the R&P notches look like they take out the same amount. I plan to reinforce and box over that section. While I know it's going to be safe, it just doesn't look right. The frame is laid out to be cut, but I didn't have the nerve to take such a big cut... yet.
The only other thing that I'll have to work around is the drag link. It and the crank pulley are going to fight for the same real estate. I'm hoping there's going to be enough room in the trans tunnel to space the engine and trans up. We'll just have to see when we get to that point.

[NevEno]

What p/s setup you going with?

[rickoner]

My whole steering and suspension was out of an 86 c10

[pimpston65]

hope to see it layin frame this summer and scrapin a storm!!! nice to meet you, if you need a part or to pick my brain let me know...

[rickoner]

Originally Posted by pimpston65

hope to see it layin frame this summer and scrapin a storm!!! nice to meet you, if you need a part or to pick my brain let me know...

It was nice to meet you guys too. Glad that you made it back home safe. I don't know about layin frame this year. I'll settle for moving under it's own power. Haha. Once both of our trucks are on the road, we'll have to hit up a cruise or road trip or something.

[Palf70Step]

Good work on the metal so far. She is coming along nicely, probably to slowly...but ain't that always the case with our projects.

[rickoner]

Well I built up the nerve to cut into the frame. This is how I started. A plate that moved the box forward and up.


Then I started making room for the pitman arm and the rest of the steering linkage. Pretty big chuck of the frame missing, huh?






I left off starting to fit the notch. I used a chunk of 1/4 channel. I'm thinking with that heavy of a notch and then boxing it in, It should be plenty strong enough.

[pimpston65]

Originally Posted by rickoner

It was nice to meet you guys too. Glad that you made it back home safe. I don't know about layin frame this year. I'll settle for moving under it's own power. Haha. Once both of our trucks are on the road, we'll have to hit up a cruise or road trip or something.

you pick the place and i'll bring the diet pepsi!!!

[pimpston65]

[QUOTE=rickoner;6985339]Well I built up the never to cut into the frame. This is how I started. A plate that moved the box forward and up.


Then I started making room for the pitman arm and the rest of the steering linkage. Pretty big chuck of the frame missing, huh?






I left off starting to fit the notch. I used a chunk of 1/4 channel. I'm thinking with that heavy of a notch and then boxing it in, It should be plenty strong enough.
i can buy parts, rehab parts and install parts all day, but that cutting and welding. my hat goes off to you sir!!!

[rickoner]

Originally Posted by pimpston65

i can buy parts, rehab parts and install parts all day, but that cutting and welding. my hat goes off to you sir!!!

Dude, if we lived closer it would be bad news for c10's! I can tell your enthusiasm for these trucks is contagious. Your 4x4 could tow my low-low to shows!

[rickoner]

Damn near finished the steering set-up tonight. Both notches are tacked in and clearance it great. All I have to do is do a bit of grinding so the idler arm sits flush on the frame and drill the holes for it. I'm going to hold off on burning everything in until I can take it to my buddy's shop. I only have a 110 welder at my house and I don't think it has enough umphhhh for the job. One thing that I don't really like is that since the steering box is spaced off of the frame, it holds the drag link off-center in the frame. The only way to fix this is to recess the frame like on the later frames. I'm assuming that even though I don't care for this, it's not going to be an issue because all of the other adapters do the same thing? Here's the pics...







I'm also going to brace the top part of the adapter plate. Still debating which way I want to go about it. I could use some of the 1/4" plate that I have or I was thinking about scabbing the piece of the newer frame on top. I'm going to kick that around for a bit.

Thinking ahead a bit to the steering shaft and intermediate shaft, will the steering shaft from a 67-72 fit into my '65 column? I like how that shaft is splined on the end. If they fit, anybody have an extra they'd like to sell? I'm thinking this would make fitting an intermediate shaft with universals a piece of cake.

[AcampoDave]

I've noticed that too about the offset. It seems to cause my truck to turn sharper to the left than to the right but they say one needs to center the steering box and set the tie rods accordingly.mI'm sure my alignment guy did that, but it still is sharper to the left than right.

[rickoner]

Small update. Steering is all finished up although the notches aren't completely burned in. That's going to wait until I take it down to my buddy's shop to do the rest of the frame mods. Hopefully that happens in a couple weeks. I just ordered a bunch of parts today. So, I'm gonna play the wait game.

I picked up a complete 292 swap locally that I planned on flipping. After putting it on here and waiting only 2 days, nobody seemed interested (I probably priced it too high). I decided to just use it. I tore it down to a naked long block and cleaned the 40+ years of grime off of it.

Here's a pic of it when I picked it up.



After cleaning it up, it was in and out of the chassis a few times to figure out how high I had to raise the engine mounts. These are what I came up with. They're raised up 1.75".



Oh yeah, I had to do this too.



All and all, she's sitting in there pretty nice. Everything fits and the pan clears the drag link by probably a bit over 3/8". I'm happy with that.

Here's my artsy pic I did on my phone. Haha.



Until next time gentlemen...

[hotrod66]

Welcome to the 6 banger cult glad you joined us

[rickoner]

Update. A lot of parts came in and I've started the cutting. I decided that since I got a cheap drivetrain that I'd go ahead and do the suspension this year. I spent the last few days building these.



Threw them on with the airlift 2600.



Of course I had to try 'em out. This is aired up to the bump stops...



And aired out...



That's it for now. Hopefully I can start on the rear soon.

Thanks for lookin'

[pimpston65]

do you need a radiator? a have a couple, one was hot tanked and painted. the other came off my burban. i found a harrison and will use that one, let me know i can bring it when we hookup...

[rickoner]

That would be awesome! I have one that came with the truck but don't know it's condition. I do know it's not originally for the truck though. Somebody trimmed the frame rails for it to fit. I patched that up so it won't be going back in. Eventually, I'll need to find the upper and lower mounts too.