"Albert" -- 1949 AD, S10 Chassis

[99 to Life]

Glad it found a home. I personally like working with the OG frames much better. I think someday alot of guys are gonna kick themselves for thinking the OG frames are worthless. Rules could change in any state at any time and frame swapping could become a no no, yah just never know.

[HUSSEY]

I got around to getting some of my bed mounting pictures loaded up. There’s nothing to complicated going on here. It did take some time getting everything lined up the way I liked it and the bed sides at the right height.

For the bed cross sills I used 1.5 x 2.0 11 GA tubing cut to 49.75 in. long. I mounted them on two of the existing bed mounts on the frame.





On the bed sides I mounted 2 in. angle 1/8 in. thick. I bolted them down in five places. The two end bolts line up with the bed stake pockets. The other bolts are hidden behind the fenders.







If anyone happens to use the same cab mount height as I did, referencing the height I set the bed side angle strips at will save a bit of time fitting everything up. I’ll let the pictures below do the explaining.











I had to do a little trimming to make sure I had enough clearance for the rear calipers.







I cut six inches off the rear of the frame.





Below are a few more reference pics. I still plan to add a couple of more cross sills. Right now I just have two.











 

[Advanced Design]

Nice solution for bed mounting!

[99 to Life]

looking good, similar to how I go about it as well, just making framing inside the bed. I like to make the bed wood slide out for full access to everything. I'v used that feature many times.

[HUSSEY]

Originally Posted by 99 to Life

I like to make the bed wood slide out for full access to everything. I'v used that feature many times.

Yes...I was planning on doing the same thing. I'll have my battery, spare tire, jack, and tire tools mounted at the back. I'll have to check out your builds again and see how you did yours.

Given the bed is 50 in. wide a standard 4x8 ft sheet of plywood would be a little shy on the width. I found I can special order a 5x8 ft sheet at Menards for $38. I was planning on doing that and cutting it to fit. Then, add some 1/4 in. oak board to it and the bed strip for a single piece that I could pull out or hinge up. It may be a bit heavy with all that added though.

[99 to Life]

It will be very heavy if you add planks to your plywood, I did that on my 51' But it does help keep weight on the back tires for the one legged wanders like me! On my last build, I took planks and then tied them together with some cross boards. Makes it lighter but still heavy. I can easily slide the whole unit out. alot of guys get fancy with shocks and remote lifting beds, its just overkill and not as practical (unless you lift bed to fill gas). It much easier to just have all the bed wood out to access your stuff. But you'd want to find way to secure the bed down, unless you want to hear it moving up and down on a big bump, which happens to me.

[HUSSEY]

Initially when I was building my bed frame I had bought 1.5 in. x 1/8 in. thick angle but then decided to go with 2 in. So, this weekend I was able to make use of that material by building this handy dandy battery holder. I was going to mount the battery behind the seat but learned with the off-gassing from a battery that may not be the best place. I didn’t want it cluttering up the under hood so this was about the last place I could find that would be easily accessible. Plus, it adds a little more weight to the rear wheels. I plan on mounting a spare tire to the left of it.

[Cuttin up]

Looks good. I was planning to do something similar on my truck to mount the bed once I got that far. Its really nice to see the visual to know whether or not my plan will work. Keep up the great work.

[99 to Life]

nice job and yah one nice thing about the dime frame is all that real estate back there. I always wanted to put a tool box there, but... I'm redoing my whole truck and relocating the tank there, so won't be going that route. Heck those battery gasses aren't keeping the mice outta my truck!!!

[HUSSEY]

Originally Posted by 99 to Life

nice job and yah one nice thing about the dime frame is all that real estate back there. I always wanted to put a tool box there,

That's what I was initially wanting to do too. I have a compact spare that I could mount behind the seat. But, I couldn't find a tool box that maximized the space. I thought about making one to fit but I wanted to keep rolling on things I need to get done to get the truck on the road.

[99 to Life]

yup that is what happened to me, thought I could always "add" it later. I actually have a wooden box I keep in the bed, along with an old 5g gas can. (I'v used both trust me) So I just never did the toolbox under bed.

[HUSSEY]

It’s been a while since I’ve had time to work on the truck. I’ve been redoing some of my deck, poured a concrete pad for a hot tub, got all that installed, plus all the other spring time home owner responsibilities.

Recently I did manage to finalize my running boards and a get my rear bumper mounted. On the running boards I had not yet fully welded the support frame (see previous post) so I pulled them back off and got that finished up. This was a lesson learned in the past; only tack your stuff together until you know you’re done fitting.

The rear bumper mount was fairly simple. The brackets just happen to line up with the center of the frame. I cut a couple chunks of metal out, drilled some holes, mocked it in place, tacked it, checked it, and welded it up. I should round off the brackets to give them a cleaner look. My plans were to add a third bold to the front of the brackets but those rear bumper brackets are a ***** to drill through, kind of like trying to drill through a leaf spring, probably a similar material. For the bumper position, I decided to mount it higher and closer to the truck; it’s at a position more like a roll pan.

[HUSSEY]

After reaching the point where all the sheet metal and bumpers were completed I had to roll it out of the garage for the first time. Some pics below:

[mongocanfly]

looking good...me like..

[Coach529]

Looks great. That has to be an awesome feeling to roll it out of the garage!!

[lsjrl07]

I likey!!

[99 to Life]

nice welds and running board work. everything is looking good, stance fitment etc. great feeling getting it out of the garage.

[joedoh]

outstanding!


let me know when you want to swap that gmc tailgate for a chevy, I have a 49 gmc with a chevy bed!

[PurdueSD]

Awesome man! Hope my tbi fires up without a hitch like your's! I'm a little scared of the electronic voodoo.

[oldman3]

Looks great, nice job...Jim

[DeanTX]

Nice job, still love the stance

[HUSSEY]

I’ve been doing some misc. stuff on the truck this past week, things that don’t really get it on the road quicker but some items I’ve wanted to tackle. One of them was dealing with all the freak’n holes in the firewall. I wish I had taken the time to patch them up and at least shoot some primer over them when I had the truck apart but I didn’t so, here’s my solution for at least now, or permanently, not sure yet. Only time will tell if the vinyl holds up to the heat under the hood.

I made some patterns out of poster board, I always thought poster board was thicker but that’s what they called it at Hobby Lobby, it’s a thick paper kind of like a manila folder. I used hardboard from Home Depot as the backer. It’s held on the fire wall with some t-nuts from Westlake Ace Hardware, covered in vinyl I picked up at Jo-Ann’s fabric, with staples I had to go pick up on a separate trip to Home Depot. Oh, and the adhesive that I used to glue to the foam to the vinyl was DAP from Home Depot though I remembered to pick that up when I was getting the hard board. Did I mention that I f’d up on the second piece and stapled the material to the wrong side of the board. I was half way through it and already had most of it trimmed so I couldn’t flip it around, thus accounting for a second trip to Jo-Ann’s.

I’ll fill some of the remaining holes with plastic plugs or make use of them for wiring.

Some pics…

[dug224]

Bumpers and overall stance look perfect. Interesting/innovative temp solution on the firewall. dug

[II_Slow]

Just looking through this build thread, you make it look so easy. But I appreciate what goes on behind the scenes to get to what you post. Some really elegant solutions along the way. As others said, you've pretty much nailed it all. And oh that stance....

[HUSSEY]

I tackled my transmission tunnel over the past couple of weekends. Yes, you heard me right, couple of weekends. It's been HOT as hell in KC the past couple of weekends so my garage time has been a bit limited, plus, took me a bit of time to figure this one out.

I wanted to make a transmission tunnel that was easily removable so I could access the transmission bolts, cooler lines, etc. easily. I started by making a perimeter frame out of 16 GA metal. Once I got the perimeter frame made I simply laid a piece of poster board in it to get a template for the tunnel. I found the easiest way to mark the template was to use spray paint so as to no disturb its position in the frame.

I then cut out the poster board and taped it in the frame. I also located the hole for the transmission shifter and got everything test fitted and in place. I then used the poster board template to mark a piece of 20 GA sheet metal and cut it out.

I used a propane tank to get a curve in the tunnel along with tweaking it by hand. The nice thing about the frame was that I was able to work on the tunnel on a bench rather than in the car. The 16 GA frame was stiff enough not to get tweaked out of shape while fitting the tunnel.

Below are some pics I took along the way.