Johnny Cash Tribute Truck

[bundeber]

not sure which year... earlier because of the external slave cylinder, I didn't look closely at the tag, and I believe it is a 241. I'm headed down to my dad's shop to work on them today. Apparently my dad just about finished the tcase for me yesterday, and I'll need to get the transmission apart today to order bearings and seals for it. Then on to the engine.

[68 TT]

Originally Posted by bundeber

not sure which year... earlier because of the external slave cylinder, I didn't look closely at the tag, and I believe it is a 241. I'm headed down to my dad's shop to work on them today. Apparently my dad just about finished the tcase for me yesterday, and I'll need to get the transmission apart today to order bearings and seals for it. Then on to the engine.

If I remember right the 241's were electronic speedo but they may have made a year or two with mechanical speedo.

I know for sure their identical looking brother the 208's have the mechanical speedo only and this may be what you have. You can upgrade the 208 with the better & stronger chain out of the 241 case if desired.

[bundeber]

They do make two years only of mechanical speedo for the 241. Putting one together today at my dad's shop we decided to just make a 208 with stronger input shaft. The 208 chain is plenty beefy, no need to swap it out for the 241. I'd only do that if it were going behind a diesel. The junkyard one we got had a bad case half, so we just slapped a 208 together instead. I could have gone the electronic route instead, but didn't want to update the gauge cluster. He's got about 15 of those done and on the shelf.

I did pick up my wood for the bed today. I have a contact through my dad for wood. Got some really nice white oak, they guy even straight lined the boards for me down to width. Unfortunately his planer went down last week and isn't fixed yet so I'll have to have my uncle do that for me. Long story short, got all my wood for 70 bucks. I'm happy to save 400 bucks over buying a kit. Here's a picture of one of the boards being trued up on the edge.

[litew8]

Good to see another wood bed being redone. Great price

[VA72C10]

great project and great work on the trim?

[PAWS 72]

Love the color.Good looking truck and quick

[duallyjams]

The 241 have a better oiling system in it the 208 have a problem with oiling that causes them to burn up.
Would like to see the rebuild on your set up.

[67c10rustbuket]

Cool ! you are knocking that truck out in record time. I like Orange too !

[bundeber]

Thanks guys! I've got 6 weeks to get it done and drive it back to wyoming! Transmission is done tonight too. My dad figures I have too much to do and too little time, and it's a bit slow at the shop so he's pounding out the transmission for me. He said third gear and the third gear syncro were hammered from someone abusing it, but he had good used ones upstairs so it should be done tonight. We're really trying to decide mechanical linkage v.s. hydraulic. I think we could put a pivot ball in the bellhousing and down into one of the ears on the transmission and thread the ball through the bell and into the case and then cut a hole in the side for the fork... basically I think we're going to have to mock it up and see where all the linkage comes into play. Basically it's 200 bucks to run hydraulic and 200 bucks for the aftermarket bellhousing with manual clutch... so it's gonna cost me extra money either way unless we can come up with something creative.

As to the 208 having oiling problems, each tcase has it's own quirks. I think he 208 is tougher than the 241, any oiling issues I've seen are a direct result of too much crap stuck in the little filter to the pump. As I see it, regular maintenance goes a long way toward keeping things on the road. I could have used either of them, I'm more than happy with the 208. And I can knock one of these out in a day if I have to.

When I finally get some time down on the hoist and we put this setup in, I'll get some good photos. Right now I'm just trying to get all the parts and pieces picked up and put together. I rebuilt the vent windows today and put the doors back together. All new seals, felts and rubbers. Those vent windows are a pain, glad I'm not doing them again any time soon. Also slapping some trim on, I should be able to get the doors all buttoned up tomorrow and all the trim on. Then Friday probably hit the glass shop for a windshield and get the truck down to my dad's shop where we can put the hammer down on the rear end and front diff. Still gotta figure out what gears, but I'm really leaning toward 355 gears. That should put me in the neighborhood of 2200 rpm at 65 mph. I'll just have to see what I can find for parts and pieces laying around. I have a feeling this will hit the wallet a bit as I'll need a new center section for swapping to that ratio.

Also have to figure out tires, was really leaning toward 285 or 295 75 16's but I have a decent set of eight bolt, chrome 15 inch rims here... I am going to either use them or sell them... too many decisions. Another of my dad's buddies is a manager at a huge tire shop, last quote I got was 65.00 a tire for 285 75 16 tires. It's nice having connections for all this stuff I couldn't do it on my limited budget otherwise.

[bundeber]

I havent done a very good job of updating this build. I have been working from 6 in the morning until around 11-12 every night. Followed up by a phone call to my wife, it has been a really long and short project. Got my first test drive in today. No box. No lights. Runs great. Nv4500 is really .loud with no hump bolted on the floor. Definitely going to need sound deadener on that sometime soon.

Because of the daily time commitment on this beast... I am going to try to write a daily journal after the fact and update it a couple of days at a time so you guys who have questions on things can ask. Nv4500 and 208 tcase went it very smoothly aside from some expected issues. I didn't get near the photos that I wanted so bear with me, most of the photos will be of completed portions of the truck... Much like Drew I am going to try to hide the finished product til the end. I will be all finished with it tuesdaySometime. We r going to set final pinion angle with the box on. Probably start the journaling sometime this weekend.
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[bundeber]

By the way dully jams 2 things. Did u ever find a drivers cab corner trim piece and I found out that later 208 tcases have a higher fill plug and require more fluid. Downside to this is an occasional drip out of the rear seal because fluid levels fill the tail housing. I also have some detail photos of the bellhousing that we adapted to use factory clutch linkage. If I had it to do over. I would make one more modification, but I will explain that when I get there in my journaling.
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[duallyjams]

Originally Posted by bundeber

By the way dully jams 2 things. Did u ever find a drivers cab corner trim piece and I found out that later 208 tcases have a higher fill plug and require more fluid. Downside to this is an occasional drip out of the rear seal because fluid levels fill the tail housing. I also have some detail photos of the bellhousing that we adapted to use factory clutch linkage. If I had it to do over. I would make one more modification, but I will explain that when I get there in my journaling.
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All I need is the passenger rear wheel house.
I have a NV4500 / np205 combo that I need to work out a bell housing & clutch so I am always very interested to see the pro's and con's

[bundeber]

well, maybe I'm a bit crazy, but I put about 25 miles on the truck tuesday evening after finally getting it all back together. I had a temp gauge fail so ordered another one and put it in wednesday morning, that one too failed on the drive from the shop to my parent's house. So I dug through our race car shed and pulled a 15 year old gauge out of the shed and installed that on a hot engine. That's a lot of fun, I highly recommend everyone try it at least once, OR MAYBE NOT. However, there was a reason for my madness. My wife's pregnant, and what can I say, she's amazing to let me go back to MN for 6 weeks and build this truck. However she had a doctor appointment that I wanted to be back for on Thursday. SO I needed to leave Wednesday with enough time to drive 1000 miles with a couple stops to check leaf springs, lugnuts and just give the truck a good once over after 100 miles or so. The plan was to be on the road by noon.... we all know how that works, final fluid checks, welding the spring perches on after checking final degree setting with the box on, finding a wiring gremlin, which I still don't understand.... I think someone's been playing with the spaghetti under the dash and now I need to figure it out.

Long story short, I left MN at 5 pm, drove through the night with one stop in SD for a half hour nap, and another stop in wyoming for another 1/2 hour nap, I made it back home after my 1000 mile shake down cruise with absolutely no issues.

Now I can't say the truck is done... because who's truck is really ever done... But I do have a few minor things to address. Which I will in due time. The stock cracked seat cover and 40 year old seat foam is hammered, but surprisingly comfortable for my 1000 miles. All I can say is Thank GOD for a flawless shake down cruise. Happy to be back home with my beautiful wife, my adorable 3 year old, and the munchkin living in my wife's belly.

Tomorrow I'll begin telling the rest of the story.... stay tuned for details of the build!

[Hart_Rod]

In...

[GuyO]

Bunderber, that's a great story and proof that God loves us and wants us drive Chevy/GMC trucks. I can't begin to tell you how right your are when you state, "but who's truck is ever really done?". No kidding - you are a prophet. I know the road you were on, it's I80. Beautiful wild flowers, Mt. Rushmore an Cody Wyoming!! Dude, with wife, baby and munckin, prairie with a broken seat - you are in heaven.

[68 TT]

Glad you and the truck made it home safely.

Everybody needs a trip or two like that in their lifetime. I have had my fair share.

Great job with the truck to make the trip without any major issues.
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[duallyjams]

I know your happy to be home now you just need to fill in the blanks with some pics.

[bundeber]

Thanks guys! Picts coming.... Should have foreseen the honey do list coming! Getting to play painter, plumber, and electrician on the bathroom right now. I have a laundry list of Picts and stuff to post. For those of you looking to runthe nv4500 my recommendation is not to use 373 gears with 31 inch tires.... Just not the right combination. It's not off by much, but if I had it to do again I would have done 410 gears. Of course we just used what was in the differentials that we rebuilt.... But I would have searched for some different ones. Seems like I am just tickling the secondaries on the carb and getting less mileage than I thought I should. We even used a really good low end cam in the motor and in4 th gear I can pull the mtn. passes at around 55 to 65 mph. With no tach in the truck... I think that I am running around 3200 rpm in 4 th gear at 60 mph. Not overly bad but I don't have enough umph to pull it into 5 th over the pass. I may be able to tune the carba bit more, but I will have to play with that at a later date.

The rest of the story coming soon. Thanks for the patience guys.
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[bundeber]

OK, Here we go.

We got the transmission and tcase all done, now the real question was to use hydraulic clutch or manual. Personally I prefer manual. Less issue to deal with. Unfortunately the mounting points for the NV and the sm465 are different which means pay 200 plus for an aftermarket bellhousing, run hydraulic, or call in a favor with a guy who really knows how to weld aluminum...

We went with option 3.

We started with an old school bell from a 70's truck. Fortunately the snout for the throwout bearing is identical in size for the 465 and 4500. We decided to sacrifice an old school bell to make the one of the nv 4500 work. I started by firing up the bridgeport and cutting out the pivot ball port location on the new bell, and cut out the ball port from the old bell. This gave me an absolutely 90 degree cut for my piece to graft in. Then I started slowly removing material from my new pivot ball port piece until it fit very snug.

Basically, the hole for the snout will automatically align the graft material that I placed in. I aligned the pivot ball location so that from the center of the hole in the bell to the pivot ball lined up with aproximately the stock location of the clutch fork on the old school bell. We didn't cut that hole in the side of the bell until later. Measure twice cut once approach.

[bundeber]

above is the nv4500 bell being cut to receive it's new pivot ball port.

[NewType72]

Man I'd love to slap my truck together electrically and power train wise and just take that drive I'm extremely envious that you were able to do so but I must say congrats to you man and always be sure to complete the honey do list first I know that already even at my age hahaha

[bundeber]

Once I had these all cut to fit we sent it off for welding, along with a snout we turned down to sit flush on his welding bench. It came back looking pretty good.

[bundeber]

pictures help!

[bundeber]

With this dilemma solved... it was onto replacing front and rear differentials. I wanted a newer style rear diff and front diff on the truck. I prefer the rear diff that is a corporation with the removable pinion. This makes it handy to set up, so if I do need to go to a different gear ratio later It won't be a big deal on the rear, and the front will have a smaller crush sleeve, and won't be as big of a pain in the truck. However, this involves cutting off the spring perches because the 1977 model I used has a 2.5 inch, or so wider setting on the perches. The overall rear differential is also just a touch wider, I believe it came to around an inch from backing plate flange to backing plate flange. Which is fine by me because the rear tires usually sit inward a bit on these anyway.

I found that the best way to remove these is with a thin cut off wheel on my 4.5 inch grinder. A torch just takes too long and is messy.

Unfortunately I didn't get a single picture of rebuilding the diffs... I can snap some of the finished product, but really, this is kind of old news, nothing exciting other than the spring perches themselves.

I will also say that it's a pain to go from 3 inch width to 3.5 inch width on the ubolts because the old style went down from over the springs into a plate that curved around the bottom of the axle tube and the new style goes up and around the axle and through a flat plate on top. Those plates are kind of a pain to find with scrap iron prices being so high. OH, and this also required moving shock brackets too. I managed to find a set of those at the same time as I found my spring bracket. I will definately get pictures of all this stuff for tomorrow.

I ended up going through 3 rear ends to get enough pieces to make one work. Luckily, my dad has a stockpile of parts! The first one had absolutely junk gears, but a decent center section. The second one had a destroyed center section. There's 4 little spider gears inside these ones and a special + shaped pin that is hard to find. It was really junk in the first two I pulled apart. Third times a charm, found a decent ring and pinion and all the other little parts I was missing, including fairly decent backing plates and almost new brake shoes. This rear end just happened to be out of the 79 chevy truck that I used to own that my dad swapped onto the 79 frame that my brother had, because his was a 4x4 and mine was just a 2 wheel drive. Long story short, I'm now re-united with parts from my old hawaiian blue 3/4 ton.

Finally making progress and murphy shows up... Turns out someone spun a bearing at some point and it almost ruined an axle tube. Little tip here, Grease these bearings up like you do front wheel bearings so this doesn't happen. Then overfill the rear end and do a couple of doughnuts in both directions to fill the axle tubes and bearings with 90 weights. Hopefully this saves someones rear end. Ready sleeves are ok, but not a nice as GOOD oem parts.

More on this saga later....

[bundeber]

Thanks Newtype! It's been a wild month and a half. Way more time spent on this that I thought, and still plenty to do.