Great Grandpa's Legacy reborn

[NewType72]

Finally finished with the prep work for the rear section of the frame we can officially mate it back to the front half where it belongs just a little shorter and stouter this time around. Having our frame rack really helped in this process getting all our our measurements dead on helped a ton knowing we'd be way within factory specs and laser straight again. Yes we did a vertical cut, yes we fully back this method. Fish plate is properly made and plenty thick. We will add more bracing once all R&D is finished and exhaust is planned. Mounted the bed because we're too excited at this point and had to check out how exact our bed mount holes lined up and they were excellent dropping right in

[NewType72]

Papa-San (father and owner of this 73) was a bit too anxious and decided he needed to see some 20x12's underneath the rear one night after work. Guess this is motivation for the next time we tear it apart and shorten the rear end up.

[aggie91]

OOOO, that is going to look good!

[NewType72]

Alright, gotta keep in this as you guys are too far behind us now, there's pictures I want to reveal but we're not quite there yet in HOW we made it this far lol. So to continue we set upon the task of making one off shorter than stock 67-72 trailing arms, but these would be a bit different as we used 2" 1/4 wall (insane we know) tubing, our first attempt literally sheared every grade 8 mounting bolt on our tubing bender.. So serious stuff for sure. So we went a little redneck and went about heating up the pipe and bending it from our floor mounted vice with a support lift. We think we turned out fairly well for the task we had to handle with a little ingenuity. Seen in the pictures are tacking the flat plate to the round tube so that our pan hard bar mount can lay flush and perches have a nice wide area to sit upon. Dad did an excellent job getting all this fabbed and ready for our finish welder to knock out of the park with some tig work.

[LT7A]

I'm enjoying this one and I really like the colors. Incidentally, I heard that the 1973 pickup was the last Chevy that DeLorean was involved with. Not that it matters one way or another but interesting to know, based on his history and notoriety.

[NewType72]

Originally Posted by LT7A

I'm enjoying this one and I really like the colors. Incidentally, I heard that the 1973 pickup was the last Chevy that DeLorean was involved with. Not that it matters one way or another but interesting to know, based on his history and notoriety.

Interesting note, haven't heard that myself but I should look up the history a bit more in these years, there's so much to learn with the year-to-year gap it's insane

I will be starting back up as I know I've been slacking. Definitely more to come we've just been taking a rest on the pocketbook haha

[aggie91]

Nice work! Nice Chevelle too!

[NewType72]

Finally time to come off the rack, we busted our knuckles all weekend and had her finally setting on her own weight. Course the rush for this came as we were getting kicked out of the building. Back to back sick weekends had delayed the project long enough that the building owner didn't want it taking up space anymore.. Who needs his building anyway. We lowered the donor bed down onto the frame and made her trailer worthy and hotfooted outta there to the new digs.

[Low Elco]

Glad I found this, I've been seeing it on IG and was wondering if it was here! Great work!

[NewType72]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Glad I found this, I've been seeing it on IG and was wondering if it was here! Great work!

Phil is that you? Lol we're getting closer as you've seen on IG so hopefully in a month or so we can get her back on the road

[Low Elco]

Nope, Chip_Chandler_ on IG

[NewType72]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Nope, Chip_Chandler_ on IG

oh man I asked because I have a good buddy with low elco as his IG name how crazy

[rusty76]

Cool truck. Man when I saw those baby moons on this truck it brought back memories of another '73-'74. Carolina Blue and white owned by an older gentleman. He drove the truck daily. He didn't like his new truck all that much. I've got to follow on this one for sure.

[NewType72]

Originally Posted by rusty76

Cool truck. Man when I saw those baby moons on this truck it brought back memories of another '73-'74. Carolina Blue and white owned by an older gentleman. He drove the truck daily. He didn't like his new truck all that much. I've got to follow on this one for sure.

Definitely a neat style but we won't be returning to the baby moons, just won't fit the build for us, thank you for joining us in the journey and hopefully we stay interesting enough to keep ya around

[NewType72]

Alright!! Too long of a hiatus that's for sure, but fear not! Lots has been happening behind the scenes while I've been away. So let's dive right into all of that I have tons to catch you all up on for great grandpas legacy build.

So here we are in the new digs gratefully presented by a very dear friend of the family to finish the revamp stages of the 73. I wanted to showcase a bit of the fantastic welding we had finished by our hired on man for the odds and ends to make our fab work look pretty so here these are.






Followed up is our completion of the upper shock bar with eared mounts for the new KYB's to go in place to help us ride as smooth as possible down these horrendous California roadways.








And finally pops wanted a shot of the truck at its new shortness next to 6ft me

[NewType72]

Feeling satisfied with most of the work in the back we decide to dive full steam ahead into getting the functionality portions corrected such as the driveshaft. Needing a SWB length and only having a th400 applicable driveline in stock we decided to simply chop up the old LWB driveline and stick to fit (obviously just for fitment R&D purposes of course unless we felt like twisting up those tacs one day ) we'll be looking into having a smaller diameter tube made up as well since there isn't much room side to side through the new trailing arm crossmember. We think this worked out fairly well vs. having one made and being unsure of fitment.



[URL=http://s1111.photobucket.com/user/DylanWhite72/media/Great%20Grandpas%20Legacy%20Build/1E26B0F5-3011-417D-A328-6A78E43E3759.jpg.html]

[NewType72]

Well I'm sure as some of you may have noticed that the pictures on the thread are currently missing soon to be fixed by our wonderful admin Liz (thank you!) I made a boo boo and deleted the folder containing all of the build photos for the Great Grandpas Legacy DOH! Folder is fixed now and they should be in their respective places soon enough so I'm gonna go ahead into the next story of the build we had earlier this year.

We found a very cheap, drive home, complete SWB pickup on Craigslist to which my father will probably argue as one of his sons greatest negotiations of "getting bottom dollar and making the poor guy tuck his tail" all I say is we wanted the truck and had cash in hand so we got it anyway truck had to make three or four pit stops driving home with water spewing from the radiator on multiple occasions, she just couldn't hold a cold temp at all the port thing. But finally with much perseverance we got her home a 79 Heavy Half true swb find. Our big plan from the beginning was to find a frame and knock all of the old gear from above and below and build our air ride from the collected parts BUT! As well all know nothing seems to go as planned in the hot rod business and we found some very well hidden permanent issues with the front clip on this poor truck. She was just too far gone from what we felt was worth our trouble. We could make it right but why bother if we have the capabilities to make a true straight LWB frame a SWB and be that much more confident with it? No brainer for sure but we did at least manage to get a bed in the process so she's not a complete loss. Here's some progress photos of this whole ordeal.

If anyone's lookin for a cab/front clip, and rolling frame she needs to go! Turbo 400 may need to go as well for the right price

[NewType72]

So here comes probably the most infuriating task of this entire build. Constructing the entire rear trailing arms was a damn breeze compared to making this Porterbuilt crap fit together properly. Before everyone rags in on how great they are trust us we tried civilly for months fighting fitment issues and location problems with their entire drop member kit for the front. We didn't go extreme we didn't have anything fancy to make it all not fit we just simply purchased their mild drop member with arms and rack and pinion setup and have had the most aggravating time making it all work for us. We were extremely disappointed with the entire ordeal but thankfully we aren't quitters and we damn sure are capable of fabrication. So let's get this party started. Here's a breakdown and showing of all the new parts powdercoated and ready to install.




So up she goes on the rack to remove the entire front crossmember and get ready for new tech in this old war pig. As you can see the factory parts were well past used up on the Legacy. (Can't see them here but the upper ball joints were still riveted from the assembly line. We pushed through and pulled the whole crossmember except for the motor mount clamshells as those and a couple ratchet straps held the motor from falling through the middle of the rack for about three weeks. (Very impressed with the strength of the thread on those woven straps I must say..

[NewType72]

Continuing on with the install of the new mild porterbuilt dropmember we install the main unit itself as well as the upper and lower control arms with the new Mcgaughys 2 1/2" drop spindles. This process goes fairly smooth but once we start moving in all the inner units and motor mount pieces we begin finding major issues. With holes actually lining up for the motor mounts to the inner braces as well as the mounts being over an inch ahead of where the engine sits from factory. We read over the instructions endlessly looking to where we may have had user install errors but found none and seeked Nates help via email and phone call to which we were put up **** creek with no paddle. Moving on from that it was time to fabricate and make everything work, having to oblong holes, machine surfaces, fabricate new motor mount brackets, and drill new holes to get the engine to finally after weekends upon weekends sit flat and proper on our new stands and revised porterbuilt crap... We're not bitter we swear.. Anyway here are some of the shots from all that action.








Dad ended up having his own upper bag mounts made for this since our upper were for coilover style. Few modifications and a fresh coat of powder made these turn out pretty darn well.

[tinydb84]

Bummer that you had difficulties with the PB stuff. Everything looks great though.

[Low Elco]

Wow. Dig this truck!

[Low Elco]

How's this coming along? It's inspiring my next one!

[NewType72]

Sorry for the huge delay everyone! I'll be working on the next update tonight to bring everyone up to speed hopefully

[NewType72]

Alright while we dealt with getting all the engine mounting issues resembled we took the time to properly install all of the control arm components with fresh spindles, ball joints, disc brakes, sway bar system and newly located upper shock mounts and shocks themselves. Bags were also installed with dummy proof air line for checking our geometry.

[NewType72]

With the new front end all bolted together it was time to upgrade the steering as well with a full Rack and Pinion and multi angled steering shaft that fought us nearly all of the way and had our exhaust in pieces trying to persuade it through the tight mess that it now had is in. Here's some early shots and final adjustments that went into the whole process. Would like to announce that she steers wonderfully now with no binding however I'm still use to the old power steering boxes with that 1/4 turn of play so she reacts a bit more than I'm familiar with haha.