66 4x4 my sons new project

[Raider Rudy]

Here is pops truck! Maybe we should swap bodies! I'm loving my sons project & I cant wait to take it for a test drive

[RANDY COX]

Originally Posted by Raider Rudy

Attachment 1032473
Here is pops truck! Maybe we should swap bodies! I'm loving my sons project & I cant wait to take it for a test drive

KOOL I love those body styles too,I had a 70 Burb 4x4 a few yrs back with 250 3 spd,less than 1,000 made with 4x4 six,had to sell it,But know I have my truck,was thinkin bout swapping axles for 6 lug,with better hi-way gears,it has 456's in it now that's kinda low,but maybe down the road or who know's may just leavem in there.I'm kinda wanting to drive mine too but it would be kinda hard to drive and fix up at same time.Waiting on warm weather.

[ChevyFreak60]

Awesome build man!! I have a 65 4x4 i'd love to swap out the suspension kinda like yours......

[argonaut]

Ordered the steel today; 3/16" plate to box the frame, 2" and 4" square tube to make weld-in crossmembers. I guess I've committed to boxing the frame in this weekend. Wish me luck! Yikes!

[duallyjams]

you know the drill , lots of pics

[argonaut]

Dang, 2'x10' pieces of 3/16" sheet are heavy. I got a good workout.

[argonaut]

Got sidetracked this week when the rear wheel bearing in my Bronco decided to crack its case, drop metal chips into the rollers and eat into the axle shaft far enough to develop a pretty healthy leak. I woke up to a big puddle of gear oil underneath my tire. What a pain in the butt.

I've only managed to get a few things done on the truck. Tore all the old bed wood and fifty thousand rusty bolts out of the bed, and got the framework bolted back together with the 63-66 rails and 3/4" spacers. I pulled the bed, cab, front sheet metal and powertrain back off the frame to get ready for the frame boxing.
All I've managed to get done on the frame are the rear frame extensions for the bumper and hitch mount. I cut the center sections out from a donor frame to make the extensions.

I wanted to get these welded on, and get several nuts welded to the inside of the frame so that I can get the plates cut.

[argonaut]

The forecast for today was rain, but it stopped early in the morning. It felt good to make some significant progress today.

I finished welding on the rear frame extensions.



Then I put some bracing bars on the frame at the back and the middle, and pulled out the crosmembers.



Then I lifted one of these heavy a** sheets of 3/16" plate up into the frame.



And clamped it to the right frame rail to scribe the outline of the shape.



Then I flipped it over to the left frame rail to scribe that side.



Then I painstakingly cut one of the sides. I must have used a half dozen, 6" cut-off wheels, took about an hour to cut the one 10' length. Does someone want to loan me their plasma cutter??? Please!





It needs to be ground down slightly in a few spots but it almost fits right in. It is actually nice doing these long lengths. I'll only have one splice in the middle of each rail. I positioned the seam so that the new transmission-transfer case crossmember will straddle the seam.

The front sections will be about 5' each, but will be more tricky because of the contour of the rails up front. However it seems that the rails have four distint bends in them. Still working on the plan of how I'm going to get those scribed and bent precisely.

[duallyjams]

are you planning to stitch weld the boxing

[argonaut]

The plan is to tack the plate in, on top and bottom, all along the frame. Then I'll weld medium-length beads, skipping around so as not to generate excessive heat in any one area. In the end the plate will be fully welded along the top and bottom joints with the frame rail.

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[C/10 King]

Really impressive Jason!!! Keep up the good work!

[argonaut]

Well it turns out I will be moving in a couple of weeks and won't be able to work on my truck at the new location. Soooooo I'm going to try to get the truck together as completely and quickly as possible in the next two weeks and hopefully make it driveable.

As a result I'm abandoning the boxing of the frame for now . I put all the crossmembers back in, re-torqued the frame and put the engine, transmission and transfer case back into the frame. I also swapped out my old cut up bellhousing with the factory GM hydraulic clutch bellhousing that I picked up from DirtyLarry.

Then today I welded on brake hose mount tabs, installed the custom brake hoses I had made over at G&J, then bent and flared all my new stainless lines. I put my fuel line in too. I pulled everything back out to paint the new tabs I had welded onto the frame.



The front and rear circuits end at this bracket, where they convert to flex hose, and will connect to a similar type of bracket on the bottom of the cab, then hardlines will run up the firewall to the master cylinder. Same for the clutch hydraulic line. Sorry for the bad pics, it gets dark too early these days.



At this point I'm just about done with the frame. Left to do is fabricate a crossmember for the rear shock mounts, mount the bumpstops, and cut the rear frame extensions to mount the rear bumper.

The original painted bumper I picked up from my uncle (C/10 King) is very clean but was bent and twisted on one side. Last weekend I welded the bumper to some steel beams and bent and twisted it back straight, or at least pretty darn close. So it is ready to go back on once the frame is ready.

I'll spend the next few nights this week doing some minor fab in the garage after work to make the firewall adapter plates for the hydroboost unit and the hydraulic clutch master cylinder. And I need to stop into the Truck Shop over in Orange to pick up a whole list of minor things I need for the cab.

[MTCK]

Nice work, Jason! That is what I call progress...
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[duallyjams]

I'm sure you'll get it done.

[Raider Rudy]

You are awesome son!

[birdistheword]

Very impressive work. Wish I can learn to weld like that one day.

['63GENIII]

All I can say is wow! Sorry to hear that you can't work on the truck at the new place, but you can come work on mine up here anytime! LOL. Awesome progress and cool project!

[argonaut]

Did a little work this afternoon. Put the cab and bed back on. Made a plan for my firewall brake line bracket location, and a tentative plan for my exhaust routing. I also modified the firewall, finished the brackets to mount my clutch master cylinder and flipped hydroboost unit.

Here is an excessive amount of photos showing what I did / how it turned out:



















I located the wilwood clutch master cylinder in the same location as a stock 62 clutch master cylinder. The firewall has little divots in the location where the through holes go, so i drilled those out appropriately for the bolts and the master cylinder. Made a backing plate to spread the load. I also swapped in the brake pedal, pivot and pushrod from a 62. This should give me good alignment for the pushrod.

For the hydroboost I made a simple plate for the hydroboost to attach to using the big nut. Then I can mount the plate to firewall. This makes it easy to remove and replace or service later on if I ever have to. I had to open up the through hole in the firewall so that it cleared the large mounting nut. Everything pretty much turned out just like I planned it.

This isn't the brake master cylinder I'm planning to use. I'd love to put a nice aluminum wilwood unit right there to match the clutch master cylinder. We'll see if I can convince myself to spend the money. Otherwise a stock late 70s or early 80s corvette brake master cylinder will do.

[RANDY COX]

Hey Jason again,Awesome,I believe that's the same color green on your firewall that's the original color on my truck.....

[RANDY COX]

Any updates,The weather here has been well winter,so I haven't got to do very much other than take the lockouts from the 3/4 front and put them in the 1/2 ton front.they went right in.so that saved me from lookin and some cash....once I get them switched out then I can start on the body.

[argonaut]

Whew! Been spending some long days working on the truck, but it seems like when I stand back and look at the thing I can't even tell what I've done! Actually thought I have made a lot of progress.

Brakes

I got all the mounting clips for the lines and hoses hooked up so things are looking tidy. I also finished my hydroboost mount plate, and mated up the new hydrobost unit and (from a 79 K30) with a new brake master cylinder (from a 79 Corvette). The master bore diameter is 1.25" which goes well with the ~3" bore diameter "1/2-ton" sized front calipers that I have.





I still need to cut and shape a new hydroboost-to-master cylinder rod as the Corvette MC requires a shorter pushrod. I resealed my power steering pump and picked up fittings and some dual braided hose from G&J to make the hydraulic lines for the power steering system.



I also picked up a set of these little guys, because I finally ran the numbers and realized there was now way to get the correct front to rear brake bias i wanted while utilizing same size calipers front and rear. The Wilwood B52s are the small bore for the rear. I'd like to use the large bores for the front, and also use a Wilwood aluminum MC to lighten the load on the firewall. but thise will be little upgrade projects for later down the road.



I also have this arrangement of hoses and brackets to connect my firewall hardlines to the chassis hardlines for brake and hydro clutch. I still have to plumb the hardlines from the masters to these hoses.





Suspension

I spent half a day fabricating this stupid little crossmember for the upper damper mounts, and putting the tabs on the axle. I don't know why it took so long but now I have all the Bilstein 5125 dampers mounted, so suspension is basically done. Just need to paint the crossmember and torque down all my u-bolts once I decide I'm happy with the ride height. I also may cange the damper mounting later. This setup has about 8.5" compression travel and about 5.5" extension travel. I think that should be enough? I probably need to look into limit strap and bump stops if I think the leafs will even let it flex that much.





Chassis

Not much going on here. Really, really, really wished I had been able to box the frame. Oh well. Here are a few shots of the frame extensions for the rear bumper once they were done.











Body

I drilled out the spot welds on the two little feet that mount the rear bed sill to the frame and moved them inward. My bed came off of a 62 so the mounts were such to accommodate the wider early 2wd frames.



I actually have a new repop rear sill, but I can't install it because I found out my bed took a nasty hit to the back right corner. When you pull the taillight you can see that the inner tub below the stake pocket, where the tailight housing mounts to, is smashed in. Consequently the rear sill is tweaked and the bottom where they bolt together. There needs to be some serious body work done in this area to make it right, but for now you can't really see it from the outside unless you're looking for it.

I trimmed the transmission opening in the cab to accept the manual trans and the new high hump cover. Just waiting for the new, unmolested high hump to arrive in the mail, then i can cut it a fresh opening for the NP205 shifter.

I also had the joy of getting out a half dozen seat bolts that were sheared off. Ended up welding new bolts to the sheared ends, then pulling them out. The heat of the weld helps loosen them up a bit too. I tried welding on the bottom at first, but upside down with barely any threads exposed was a main in the ass. There is one I just couldn't get out, so I said forget it and called it good.

Heater

I cleaned out the recirculating heater from a 62 that I plan to use on the truck. I swapped the hose outlet section with one from a later year deluxe heater so that the hose outlets match up. I also plan on using the deluxe heater controls and just leaving an extra dummy lever for the one I don't need to adjust airflow from the cowl. DO they just put the speed adjustment resistors in here so that the air flow will cool them down? I can't see any other reason for it.



Then I got to thinking though, that perhaps the wimpy little fan blower wonm't be adequate for defrosting and heating the cab when it is really cold out. With the later model deluxe and thrift heaters, once you get up to speed the air pressure form the cowl pushes through the heater core so that the blower isn't really doing much. So I'm going to save the deluxe heater box and parts that I have to that I can convert later if I thin it is necessary. I was just really hoping to get away from the huge box hanging in the engine compartment. Oh well.

Does anyone know if there is supposed to be a cover or a louver that mounts on to the deluxe heater tube right here?



Cooling

Picked up a new griffin radiator and worked a little last night on mounting it to the radiator support. Six 5/16" mount bolts with standoffs and rubber gasketing should do the trick.



I had some new helpers this weekend too.





Some little snails that mush have moved into my inner fenders while they were on the ground in the rain.

Plus my usual furry friend, Abby. She couldn't wait to ride in the pickup, so the other day when the door was off she tried to jump in. Well, I think she underestimated either the height of the cab or her vertical reach, because she didn't quite make it, got the "Oh ****!" look on her face and I tried to catch her as she fell backwards and rolled onto the ground. Silly pooch!

[MTCK]

Looks real good Jason. Excellent craftsmanship. When I was measuring for my front shock mounts, I think I actually had more droop in the front end then compression. Is that up and down travel measurement at the shock? 14" is quite a bit. I think I have the 10" version.
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[argonaut]

Marcus, you are right, 14" is a lot of travel. I should have been more specific. The rear has the capability to cycle 14" based on the geometry of the shock. Whether the leafs will actually flex that much is another question. Plus, having my dampers at such a shallow angle reduces the effective damping when the suspension cycles linearly up and down. All my dampers have 10" of axial travel.

[argonaut]

Made some progress on the brake, clutch and fuel lines tonight.

A few pics:













I still have some ends to flare on the brake lines.

I hope to be able to make all the power steering and hydroboost hoses tomorrow night.

[quadzero]

Very impressive updates. The brakeline work is very professional. Even the snails are too cool.