Project Fargolet

[Father&son56project]

Thanks guys, and LT7A you have hit the nail on the head. I didn’t want another project that goes on for years before it hits the road (like my last build-7 years), so I am making use of anything that I have that works and is safe. It's also a major joy just leaving it old and rusty looking, as nothing is worse than trying to make changes while not scratching paint or denting things. As for my comment about being “onto the easy stuff”, I may have spoken too soon. Case in point, the mounting of the radiator, electric fan and tranny cooler:

Here’s what I ended up trying to finangle together. The front sheet metal all bolts together as one unit, and then the entire assembly can be bolted to the rad cradle. These trucks have a sharply tapered front end, so space is at a premium, and the rad assembly all sits in that narrow grill. To make matters worse, this particular truck has seen some hard use on the farm, and sliding that sheet metal onto the cradle is a 2 man job that requires compressing the cradle while you fit the sheet metal. I needed to come up with something that bolts onto the cradle, rather than welds on, so here’s what I did:

This is the narrow front end sheet metal clip that everything has to fit into:








And this is the cradle being modified. The bottom of the rad will simply sit in these 2 wide hooks, with rubber pads to protect it from shocks. The rad is offset slightly to the passenger side to buy some much needed room (rad outlet and serpentine belt tensioner conflict):










The top of the rad will be held in place by a plate with a grooved channel. The design of this is not mine, I got the idea from Tempest67’s “Dale” build (Thanks Tempest67, that idea was clever!). The aluminum strip on the top of the rad is encased in a piece of rubber tube with a slit cut into it, and that rubber tube is then encased by a U-channel. Here is the rad with the slit tube in place:







And here is the grooved plate. The 2 little hooks sticking out front will be for the fan bracket:






The top plate has slightly oblonged holes give minor back & forth adjustment. Up & down adjustment of the rad can be done (if needed) by varying the thickness of the rubber pads or the slit tube, or adding other spacers. Of course that top plate has to bolt onto something, so here’s what I came up with:







This assembly bolts to the remains of the factory cradle, and looks simple, but it took some serious fiddly work. The bolts that attach this new piece to the factory cradle posts are nestled into the corner and they JUST fit ( a few thousandths clearance between the points of the bolt head and the angle iron as you turn them in). The big notches in the angle iron allow enough room to put a ⅝ socket onto the bolts that hold the front sheet metal to the factory cradle posts. The upper corners of the new assembly hit the sheet metal during a fitment check, so they had to be sliced at an angle and strengthened/rewelded. The height of the new assembly was based on the “sweet spot” I found that lets me juggle installation and clearance issues. The rad cap sits partially under the sheet metal, and can be accessed for maintenance, and the lower rad outlet will be able to clear the serpentine belt tensioner pulley. It was a 3D jigsaw puzzle! Here is the top plate that secures the rad, bolted to the new cradle extension:







Wherever possible, I welded in studs so that I can instal/remove parts using just a socket or wrench (rather than using nuts and bolts which require you to somehow weasel 2 hands into an already tight space). Here is the fan (Hayden 16 inch reversible model 3700), bolted onto the studs of the fan support:







And here is the flipside, where the tranny cooler (Hayden model 678) is installed on the studs. It looks kinda funny mounted up high like that, but my fan is also mounted tight to the top so the tranny cooler is right in the path of the air drawn by the fan.







Sometimes you may notice a small “X” lightly scored into metal pieces I have fabbed. I do this where its easy to accidentally mix up where a part goes. I use a small cutoff wheel to mark the passenger side piece with an “X” so that I don’t accidentally install it on the driver side.

I’d have liked to have posted a pic of the whole mess in place with the front end sheet metal installed, but I have to wait till I have a helper to do this. My fingers are crossed that there are no hidden clearance issues lurking in wait. Confidence level is about 80 percent………After a test fit, I'll take it all apart and do full welds.


More to come!

[joedoh]

thrilling stuff! outstanding fab!

[oldman3]

Very cleaver, nice job...Jim

[Tempest67]

Nice work on the design.

Glad you were able to use something from my build, and it looks like you improved on it too.

Can't wait to see the front end of this Fargo in place.


Great work

[Father&son56project]

I recently took a good look at where I am on the build, and realized that I am not far off from reassembling the body. A test fire of the engine would be good, as I can get at problem areas easily as I simply have a drivetrain sitting on a frame. It will never get easier than it is right now. As well, that wiring harness needs to be tested, and again debugging it is way easier now. This is also a very good time to thin that harness out a bit, which will make sticking under the dash a lot easier. So I got to work, and here is where she sits:







This is the original harness (which is in excellent shape) layed out and attached to all the buttons and switches that control it. My plan is to first test to ensure all electrical devices still work properly, and then to test run the engine to ensure that everything is good and no codes are being thrown. I’ll repair any problems, and when it’s all in order I will look at thinning the harness out. There are some wires that just aren’t needed (like trailer harness, rear parking lights, under dash lights, etc), and some that I don’t want (radio, speakers, etc), and there are entire systems I will be deleting (if possible) such as the ABS brakes, the airbag system, etc. If I can pull this off, this harness should be way smaller. I will be posting questions in the S10 Swap How To thread to ensure that I don’t delete any items or wires that affect the PCM as this is my only big worry when it comes to thinning that harness out.

More to follow!

[Father&son56project]

The electrical testing went extremely well. Everything functioned and the motor fired right up and no codes were thrown. I’m waiting for my son Brian to come up and give me a hand with thinning out that wiring harness, so in the meantime I have been fooling around with some little things. The Fargo came with this Mopar heater box. I’m not sure if it’s original, but the heater box is super cool so I decided to see if it could be worth saving.








There’s really not a lot to these old heat/vent systems:








During disassembly I found a half dozen dark little discs inside the box, and after setting them in a mix of vinegar and salt I was rewarded with this:








They turned out to be in wonderful condition and were all from 1933 to 1946. A quick internet check revealed that the 6 coins are now worth $1.20, and that’s exactly $1.20 more than I have made selling leftover S10 parts! I may try to incorporate them into something inside the cab.

After some testing it appears that the core is leak free, but that motor was 100% seized up solid. I ran into a bit of luck where the motor was concerned. I had been putting off cleaning up my parts storage area, which is mostly leftover parts from our ‘56 Chevy wagon build. I finally got to it, and lo and behold what do I find? A trifive blower motor in excellent condition. It had clearly been indoors for a long time (no rust at all). I hooked it up to a battery and it sprang to life. Because of how long it had sat, I did an old trick for blower motors. By drilling a tiny hole in the bottom, you can get oil into the bottom bushing:







Sure enough, a bit of oil and the motor sped up and ran like a top. Fixing the rest of the heater box was straight forward. The original fan blade was affixed to the motor shaft collar by some sort of crimped on flange that had to be ground off during disassembly so I ordered a flange collar off of Amazon. Three weeks and 8 dollars later the collar arrived. I purposely ordered a collar with a bore size under 5/16 inch as I’d rather drill it out to proper size, than discover the bore was a bit too big for the 5/16 blower shaft and end up with a wobbly mess. Here’s the old motor with the chewed up press-on fitting (upper left), the “new” motor and the fan blade with the flange collar.







The smooth sailing came to an end during reassembly when I realized the new motor was just a bit longer than the old one, and wouldn’t quite fit inside the box. To further slow me down I discovered that access to the fan blade is only from one side during reassembly so I couldn’t just use nuts and bolts to fasten it to the flange collar. The longer motor required some slicing and welding of the top of the box:








And the lack of access to the underside of the fan was resolved by making a little flange to screw the fan bolts into without the need for underside access. I did this instead of just tapping the flange collar, as it was not very thick and I wasn’t sure how good the metal was:






Here’s the final product:







I did some testing and discovered that it’s fairly quiet, however those old motors don’t seem to push air like the new ones. I may just wire it up as a 1 speed fan and only use full speed on the fairly rare occasions that I need a heater or defroster.

More to follow!

[joedoh]

nice work, I have a mopar heater I cant bear to throw away. make sure to pressure test the core, some older heaters cant take a modern cooling system pressure.

[Father&son56project]

My son Brian came over a while back and we spent a day thinning out that huge S10 wiring harness. We got pretty much all of the stuff out of it that we planned, except for the ABS brakes. I did however test it a few days later by simply unplugging the unit completely and that seemed to have no impact at all on the PCM, so for now I have removed the ABS module (which is enormous) and I will get rid of those wires in the future after some test driving. Here’s a pile of stuff we eliminated from the harness:









I was hoping to remove a lot more, but every little bit helps when cramming stuff under a dash. I will do a test routing soon, and when I am happy with the harness routing I will clean things up and add a protective layer to the various bundles of wire.


Before reinstalling the cab, I finished off a couple of things that would be far easier to do while access was good. The first item was the windshield. I fabbed up a hand crank system to open and shut the windshield, but I still need to find a decent handle and then install the works (pics to follow once I have it all buttoned up).

Next came the floor. The entire central floor section was missing when I bought the truck and I have no idea what they looked like (or even what they were made of), so I just took a guess and fabbed up a new one, then hit it with a coat of black paint and tossed it in:














The new header panels that I made earlier this year were welded in place:







I took advantage of the easy access to the engine in order to install a temperature controller for the electric fan. Skymangs had suggested the type that screws into the water jacket in the cylinder head, rather than the types that you stick into the fins of the rad, or down into a rad hose. The GM 4.3 has an unused threaded hole in the passenger side cylinder head, so that’s what I used. It's sealed from the factory with a 5/16 female square pipe plug, which is quite clever. If they had used a ¼, ⅜ ths or ½ inch plug then everybody in the world with a ratchet would be able to take that plug out! Luckily I had an old ½ inch square plug wrench, and with the help of a grinder I whittled the end down to 5/16ths. Here’s a pic of the new sender, the old plug, and the new tool:







The plug itself is hidden by the oil pan dipstick, so the dipstick had to be shifted away and a bit of heat was required to break the old plug free. The new sender needs to be able to accept a wire connection, so the dipstick had to be modified to move it over a bit. The quickest way to do this was to slice the bracket that holds the dipstick in place, and add a bit of metal to move the dipstick out of the way of the sender. A few minutes later it was done. Here’s a “before & after”:












I drilled and tapped holes in the rad cradle to securely route the rubber transmission lines, and did the same for the electric rad fan wires (boring stuff so no pics taken).

My rad cradle sits on some thick tube steel that’s welded to the frame, and I have since read a few posts that suggested some sort of cushion in order to minimize the transmission of vibrations into the cab, so I made and installed a pair of rubber spacers:







Hopefully these will help with noise and vibration (while the cab sits on rubber cushions, the front end sheet metal bolts to the cab).

There are a number of things on my “to do” list that are far easier to visualize with the body panels installed, rather than taking tricky measurements. My brother was available to help, so we got the main body panels in place. I then spent some time aligning panels and adjusting heights to get things straight and square. My brother and I had used some wooden supports to set the running boards to height, and I could now install the running board mounts. Simple design, nothing fancy, but nice & thick! They are temporarily bolted in while I verify their final height and how I am going to deal with the wooden spacers that sit between the boards and the mounts.







The running boards are currently about ¾ inch above their mounting brackets, and these trucks originally came with wooden spacers that filled this gap. I’m not worried about weight, and I want strong running boards, so I will cut some ¾ inch wood planks that run the length of the boards. This will fill the ¾ gap, and provide support everywhere when people get in & out of the truck.

Once my running boards were in place, I noticed some very slight interference with the rear parking brake cable mount and I also saw that one of the parking brake cables would be rubbing on a body mount. To address this I simply extended the rear cable support downwards about an inch by welding on a piece of metal and drilling 2 holes:







I then tried to figure out how & where to mount the pedal assembly. I found this to be a bit of a juggling act to do alone, and some of it hinged on exactly where I would mount the front cable bracket support on the frame. Remember that EVERYTHING has been moved around. The new cab is back 8 ½ inches and is raised up, the rear cable mount has been lowered and the rear axle has been slid forward 1 ½ inches. After a few frustrating tries, I opted to do this:

First I affixed a stud to a small plate, which I then tacked to the legs of the front cab mount:







Then I made a sliding bracket to snap the front parking brake cable into:







Then the bracket was installed on the frame. It’s adjustable, and it allowed me to find that exact spot where that front cable mount should sit in order to allow the parking brakes to work properly. It’s temporary, and once everything is set in place for the final time I will weld a permanent cable bracket in place:







This now gave me the chance to play with different orientations of the S10 pedal assembly. To get this right I first fabbed up a kick panel which (for now) is bolted in place. Depending on how I finish the interior, I may later remove the bolts and weld it in:







After playing around with different heights and angles, I eventually came up with an orientation for the S10 parking brake pedal assembly that would work for me. I used a fairly sturdy gauge of metal for the kick panel, so installing the parking brake assembly was just a matter of marking 3 holes and then welding nuts into the kick panel.







I still have to come up with a decent floor pass-thru for the parking brake cable. The S10 grommet is meant to come straight up from a horizontal floor, but in my application the floor is on a sharp angle and the S10 grommet will be a very poor fit.

More to follow!

[olcarguy]

Nice fab work and inovation, should on the road soon.....

[8man]

Nice work! I like the ingenuity and problem solving.

[joedoh]

great fab, problem solving is my favorite thing to watch!

[Father&son56project]

Thanks guys! Today I fooled around with the wiring harness inside the cab. I’m lucky as the Fargo dash is far narrower than the S10, so I have plenty of wire length to work with (actually I have too much, but that’s far better than being an inch short). The biggest problem I often have is trying to visualize how stuff will fit. I used to take a million precise measurements and plan things out to fit perfectly, only to be disappointed when I tried putting it all together. I’ve since switched to simpler methods.

It’s Arts & Crafts time!:








To figure out where best to put the driver side harness pass-through, I simply traced the outline onto some craft board, allowing me to play with various orientations to ensure that it fit well without interference on both sides of the firewall. MUCH easier than trying to take measurements (especially up under the dash):







That cardboard box is just a replica of the battery (and much easier to lift!). I was at a loss as to where to put the battery, as under hood space is very limited and the usual spot on the passenger firewall will be taken up by the ECU. My first thought was to centre it high up like this:








I wasn’t too pleased with this though. In addition to being tremendously ugly, it's hard to reach for any sort of routine maintenance, and putting it in place would require a straight arm lift that my shoulders are no longer up to. I tried a few other spots (with that delightfully light weight cardboard battery) and nothing else worked. The Fargo battery was originally under the floor beneath the bench seat (which just lifted up) but my S10 bench will be firmly bolted down and there’s no way I’m ripping out a seat every time I need to deal with the battery.



There was however a nice spot behind the cab, under the bed:







This spot seems to solve all of my problems. I plan on using checker plate steel for the bed floor, so I will have to build a box to support the battery and some sort of hinged cover to access it through the bed floor. I will also need to put in a heat shield between the battery and the muffler. Assuming nobody points out a serious error in my thinking, I believe I will be going this route. More to follow!

[Tempest67]

looking good.

I am not familiar with the inner fender of a Fargo, but is there room to carve out a battery to fit there? like I did with my Chev?

it might not be pretty under the hood, but it is functional

[G&R's57GMC]

Under bed Battery ... did you leave room for the driveshaft to travel up ?

[dsraven]

yes, for sure check the driveshaft clearance at full jounce of the suspension.
I have used a length of abs plumbing pipe or a piece of 1x4 board on edge to simulate the o/d of the driveshaft as a quick reference to connect the dots between the trans and the diff. depending on the o/d of the pinion and the trans output housing a large piece of abs could slip over those parts. a piece of fence board can be cut to capture both ends and be held in place with tape for all the time it takes. not so much work as finding and bolting on the d/shaft.
haven't seen a good pic of the rad area but maybe, for the battery, out in front of the rad, down low so as not to restrict air flow? move muffler forward/back to allow a little more room in that area, with a heat shield or 2? moving back further would require larger supply cables but. really, lots of big trucks and heavy equipment have their batteries located quite a distance from the engine bay/alt/starter. their load draw would be considerably more. battery at the rear would mean lots more space, probably, and easier access. maybe a battery tray on a leverage system, like those old fashioned lamps have, could work to take the load off the shoulders in a service environment. if you make the tray the right size a lid from something else, like big rig, farm tractor, small equipment etc, could work to cover it up. or possibly a marine battery box (with a vent) or if you have the room a sliding tray like an rv would have. I assume the truck box will have a raised floor so there could be room under that behind the axle (more chance of the battery getting shook around back there though)? depending on the look you are going for possibly an old cooler or tool box in the bed could be used to hide the battery, provide some security (lockable) and also look cool.
here is a few links. some have pics/ideas from this site.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=215890

https://www.amazon.com/EZ-GLIDE-BT07...DQ9VGV3MRQ0NNS

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/a...BoCtpMQAvD_BwE

https://www.boatownersworld.ca/DUAL-...rs_p_2959.html

[dsraven]

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=571674

https://www.google.ca/search?q=bed+m...8Rm5XT3uprvSEM

[edgeleycanuck]

If there is room behind the seat, you could use an AGM battery such as an optima. I believe they are supposed to be safe when placed in the passenger compartment. More expensive than lead acid however.
If I'm incorrect about this I welcome being corrected as this is the route I'm planning for my ADtruck.

[dsraven]

just curious on your rad install. did you incorporate some foam weather-stripping on the brackets that fit tight against the core? I figured you would after the fit/paint process is completed.
looks like you have a well equipped shop to work in. nice and bright as well. nice.

[Father&son56project]

Wow! First off, a big thanks to all the members who have given input on this build thread, as well as in the S10 swap thread. It's great to have extra eyes (and brains) assisting me. I have continued playing around with different battery locations, and can honestly admit it has been kinda fun. Here’s where I’m at:

Tempest67: I tried that spot where the fender, inner fender and firewall meet, but the Fargo cab is so sharply tapered that there is just not enough room there (I had planned on doing exactly what you did with the battery. It looks great and provides easy access there on the AD trucks). My heater hoses are also in that area, and the old Mopar heater I have is actually affixed to the firewall by threaded tubes that come out those 2 heater hose holes. I posted about this in the S10 swap thread, and I received a couple of great photos from MiraclePieCo and some good info about relocation from Joedoh.

G&R’s57GMC: I’m glad you mentioned possible driveshaft interference. I thought I had plenty of clearance but after reading your comment I went back and double checked. Guess who forgot that an S10 drive shaft has a 4 inch diameter? After some more careful measurements, I determined that there is room, but not much. The battery will clear the shaft when the rear axle first contacts the bump stop, but only by about an inch. The position I showed in the photo may not be the best. While it will just clear the axle, it’s not by much and it limits me to that particular size of battery. If I move it further back (behind the axle) I have all the room in the world to play with. The advantages of this spot are an easy to build battery box, and bags of space. The disadvantages are expensive cables and the need to build an access hatch. Here’s the better spot:





Dsraven: Thanks for those ideas and links. There are some great pics there, and I will use them to inspire me to cobble something up (see below!). As for your question about my fan mounting brackets, the pics don't show it well, but there is actually a gap between those brackets and the rad fins. The brackets are made from fairly sturdy material, but only a test will reveal whether or not they flex and allow contact with the fins. Once that big electric fan kicks in, so will Newton’s third law of motion, and the brackets will want to move towards the rad. If they do, a layer of foam or rubber will come. And thanks for the comments about the shop. It’s a treat to work in a decent sized shop for a change. My last 3 builds were done in my attached garage in suburbia, and that was challenging.


Edgeleycanuck: There is insufficient room behind the seat for a battery. Also, I am trying to use everything possible from the S10 and buy only what I can’t scrounge or fab myself, so the Optimas are a no-go for me. I can see why people like them though, as they can be mounted sideways, upside down, etc. This opens up a world of spots to stick them into!


Speaking of places to stick a battery, when I was looking at the spot suggested by Tempest67, I looked down and realized that there is an enormous, empty space at the trailing end of those giant front fenders. I grabbed my cardboard “battery”, and started to play around:















I realized that even a giant battery would easily fit, and could face any direction I wanted, so I grabbed a fender and tossed it on (these trucks are so simple to assemble!):














This location is interesting. Access is good. I could easily reach in to get a wrench where those side terminal bolts would be, and I would be able to use the stock battery cables (they reach!). I would just need a mounting plate (super easy as the frame is right there), as well as a shield to protect the battery from gravel and water (mostly from gravel, as this thing won’t see water unless I get caught in an unexpected rainstorm). Now I’m scratching my head, wondering “in the fender or under the bed?”

As always, feel free to point out stuff that I’ve overlooked!

[olcarguy]

perfect spot for your battery, water won't hurt your battery, but gravel most definatly will....keep up the good work

[Tempest67]

That looks like a great spot for the battery.

On another topic, your drive shaft. When I took my S10 apart I had never seen such a big driveshaft on such a small vehicle, and made from some kind of carbon fibre??

When it was time to join my trans. with the rear, I measured the distance I needed (I think it was 57 inches) went to kijiji/craigslist, and found the exact length driveshaft for $60. The seller told me it came from a 1969 Buick Skylark.

I simply cleaned it up, added new u joints and I was good to go, and it was narrower so gave me a little more space between the gas tank and the muffler. (sorry I don't have pics)

This was one of those rare occasions when I actually spent less money than I was expecting, and to top it all off, some guy purchased my S10 driveshaft for $80.

Keep up the good work, and thanks for the updates.

[paintman]

I struggled with battery placement as well. When you get old and you can't bend over, or don't want to lay on a concrete floors anymore, you put the battery in an old coke cooler.

[olcarguy]

Your doing a good job mate keep it going.....

[6DoF]

i vote battery under the bed, that's my plan. can always jump-start or charge from the alternator lead.

[dsraven]

You could put a boost connection under the hood if worried about access for that.