1967 No Frills LWB Fleet

[kitsbeach]

I got a set of dog dish caps off of ebay. They are not correct for the truck but they are easy to find and I think come from late 60's Novas and Camaros. Shawno72 had a set on his super cool patina'd 68.

[kitsbeach]

I haven't done much to the truck lately but I mounted the one 6-lug wheel I have on the front and took some pictures.

I've done the 5-lug axle conversion on the back and plan on doing the front disk brake conversion soon. Once it is a little lower I will buy some new tires for my steelies, but I want to get an idea of the size after I've dropped it down.

I did clean up my front bumper with a spray bomb. I liked the bit of "character" it had with the rusty scratches but it does look a lot cleaner painted.

[kitsbeach]

Also painted my air cleaner black as I assume that was the original colour.

[Orange67]

Really digging this truck, Ken. Very nice.

[68Gold/white]

Job, well done!!!
I'm a fan of the rubber floor mat, also.
Glad to see you going 5 lug/disc brakes, both my 67 and 68 will not move again until converted.

[kitsbeach]

Originally Posted by Orange67

Really digging this truck, Ken. Very nice.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by 68Gold/white

Job, well done!!!
I'm a fan of the rubber floor mat, also.
Glad to see you going 5 lug/disc brakes, both my 67 and 68 will not move again until converted.

Yeah the manual drums are a bit of work and tend to eventually lock up in wet sudden stops. Hopefully disks and nice new low suspension will help. But I gotta say it is a pretty sweet truck to drive. Not sloppy at all.

[SierraMtns]

You have any pictures of the No-Limit goodies?

[kitsbeach]

Originally Posted by SierraMtns

You have any pictures of the No-Limit goodies?

I haven't got any installed pictures yet. I've been in and out of town and have just finally got the rear suspension disassembled.

I will say that the NoLimit people are a pleasure to deal with. They had my parts in stock and I received them in 5 days.

One of the women on the phone always called me "Honey" which I thought was a great southern thing that I don't hear up in Canada. My gf wasn't as happy about it and said "give me the number and let's see if she honeys me!"

I also had to call Rob back about the pan hard bracket because I have a LWB frame and it is missing the 5/8" hole the bracket uses as a guide. Again I got a response right away from the man himself.

The parts themselves are beautiful to look at and are powder coated nicely.

Anyway, what I am saying is I'm happy and would recommend them to anyone.

Here is a partial shot of some of my parts pile waiting to be installed:

[kitsbeach]

One more shot of the goodies to be installed:



For the rear I have the NoLimit pan hard bar, sway bar and shock relocator. Also 6" drop springs from POL, and 2" blocks from CPP. Shocks are KYB Gas-a-just. And new trailing arm bushings.

For the front I have CPP modular 2" drop spindles, 3" drop coils from POL, CPP heavy duty sway bar, Porterbuilt control arms (1" forward lowers), CPP 12" disk brakes (to fit behind my 15" steelies), and booster and whatnot from pirate jacks. Also a Wilwood proportioning valve and KYB Gas-a-just shocks to fit Porterbuilt front shock relocators.

[kitsbeach]

It would have been nice to have a cutting torch and a lift to remove the old rear suspension parts, but i don't have one. My neighbours are pretty close and were complaining about all the banging and grinding.

My air chisel was also not a good one so I ended up smashing rivets off with a cold chisel after either grinding them or drilling them first depending on access and angle.

Not one bolt came off in the normal way, every one had to be cut with a cutting wheel, which also meant I had to cut the coil springs to be able to reach the bolts.

I looked around on this forum for the easiest way to cut the rivets but there is no easy way. Each rivet took a long time. The best was drilling with a small drill then a 3/8 drill and pounding it out.

Here is the panhard bracket before:



Here it is half way off:



Even with the bracket off the darn rivets are still hanging in:

[kitsbeach]

Some more cutting and grinding to get the trailing arms off.

The coil springs:



The U-bolts:




The trailing arm brackets (since I want to replace the bushings and also probably turn the brackets upside down to adjust for the drop):






I kind of mutilated the trailing arm brackets but took a good look at them and will be able to file them smooth and use them (they are plenty strong)

[kitsbeach]

My truck is not that rusty and the trailing arms are okay but they looked pretty rough when I pulled them out, especially with all the broken bolts seized in them.

[kitsbeach]

Believe it or not, they cleaned up pretty good. You can see the one in this picture starting to look better.



I drilled out the old trailing arm bushings. Instructions said to burn them out but burning didn't do much. I drilled them then plucked them out with a screwdriver.

I've got some pictures of them cleaned and painted but they must be on another computer. I'll post them up later.

[kitsbeach]

One other dirty job that needs to be done before the C-notch install is to grind down the coil mounts to make them flush with the frame. Also needed to remove the bump stop brackets.

Before - you can see on the left that the coil bracket sticks out over the edge of the frame and the bump stop is still there in the centre (driver's side):



Bump stop gone and coil bracket ground flush (passenger side):




Closer shot of coil bracket ground down (drivers side):



By the way the coil bracket is part of a crossmember so it can't just be removed. The CPP C-notch installs over it.

[kitsbeach]

I'll be away from my truck for a little while but when I get home I'll be cleaning up a bit and cutting the C-notch.

[slowcpe]

I was having horrible flashbacks looking at those rivets Nice collection of parts you have there.

Interested in the seeing the finished product of the rear sway bar. Pretty sure I'm going to run the NoLimit front and rears on my truck.

[kitsbeach]

Originally Posted by slowcpe

I was having horrible flashbacks looking at those rivets Nice collection of parts you have there.

Interested in the seeing the finished product of the rear sway bar. Pretty sure I'm going to run the NoLimit front and rears on my truck.

Yeah the NoLimit sway bar looks pretty cool and I like how it is tucked up high so no one can see it and I can keep the old "found it in a field" truck vibe.

I haven't tried installing it yet but looks like I will have to lift the bed. Will post up pics when I do.

[made2drag]

nice build so far! im loving all the detailed pictures and info. ive learned a lot just by reading all your info so far. thanks!

[kitsbeach]

Just realized I got distracted and haven't posted a pic in over a year.

Been driving my truck with its new lower stance since about June 2016 and everything is working great.

I'll try to post up all the details of the c-notch and nolimit stuff I installed in the rear and porterbuilt and CPP stuff up front. But for now here's some pics of when I first just got it back on the ground.

[kitsbeach]

By the way this is a 5.5/8 static drop on 15" steelies and its great for running around town and even speed bumps are no problem at all. Just the right height for driving as far as I am concerned.

I did manage to break my exhaust hangers one day on a speed bump at speed but that is because my unmodified stock exhaust has to snake over my rear end and through my portebuilt panhard bar and its all pretty exact. One of the hangers I broke was made of hardware store strapping so now that it has two new good rubber mounts there is no problem.

[kitsbeach]

Here's a look at the template I made to cut my C-notch. I don't know how other guys go about it but I wanted to be careful. I cut the opening small and ground and trimmed the cut to fit.

[kitsbeach]

[kitsbeach]

I held up the back of the frame with some wood while I was cutting the notch

[kitsbeach]

Also you can see in this pic that there is not enough room for one of the nolimit panhard brackets in between my CPP C-notch and the nolimit outboard rear shock mounts (there is supposed to be a flat piece on outside of frame that bolts to piece hanging straight down).

I had a new bracket fabbed up by a local welding shop but will have to find a pic and post it later.




Edit: added a photo in post #80 to show bracket I had made because No Limit panhard bracket wouldn’t fit next to my CPP frame notch.

[kitsbeach]

And here are some shots of how nicely my old stock exhaust fit in and around the nolimit panhard bar