67 SWB 6 cyl cruiser

[Conroe trucker]

I bought this truck off Ebay around November 06.
A nice clean old truck.

It was offered by the original owners grandson, who I could tell was hated selling it.
Pretty clean over all, the bed had just a little rust from snow not melting, and the rockers were gone.

Came with new tires and chains which was nice since I drove it home in a snow storm, the only passenger car on the road, straight thru to Houston, 24 hours. We filled the bed with snow to give it traction. The snow lasted all the way to Dallas before it finally melted.

Plans are to keep the 6 cyl, add a 3 spd manual over drive, drop it 5.5" in the front and 5-6" in the rear. Power disc brakes all around, and power steering. Shave the firewall, one piece windows, but keep it clean.

I have the truck back from paint now, so this may seem kind of quick.

[Spray-Bomb]

Sweet truck

67's ONLY !!!

[67_C-30]

Clean old '67! One day I'm going to have a nice '67 SWB fleet!

[Conroe trucker]

The truck sat in storage for awhile until I finally got ready to work on it.

First was to strip it down.
I will spare you the details, but if you need pictures of just about how anything goes together, I probabley have them.

I bought another 67 4x4 off Ebay, and the seller threw in a 3 spd OD that was complete, giving me two. I had his rebuilt and we installed it. The 6 was rebuilt completely except for the carb and distributor.

[68 short step]

sweet, nothing like those inline 6

[Conroe trucker]

A local body shop that had painted a 55 for me opened up again 3-4 miles down the street. He had a sand blasting pit, and although his pricing was high for body work, his guys were good, and so we struck a deal, or I should say I agreed to his deal

So this group is the frame being blasted and all the parts.
If you go easy on it, with not too much preasure, and reuse the sand, you will have no problems.
We blasted every panel on the truck, and on these old trucks, there is alot of metal.

[Conroe trucker]

Since I was not a complete rebuild, which this shop was looking for, I had to wait until there was time to work on my stuff.

This was perfect, because he had no problem letting me do my own work, or helping his guys.

It also gave me 2 weeks to have the motor rebuilt and installed, trans rebuilt, install dropped spindles and springs, rebuild the front end, and redrill the rear axles, rebush the trailing arms, install the rear tank, and rerun new brake and fuel lines.

[Conroe trucker]

Around this pint they started replacing the rockers. We replaced both rockers, athe passenger cab corner, and the tips of the kick panel bottoms. We also welded up all the holes in the panels, gas neck, radio antenae, stake bed pockets, smoothed the firewall, and fabbed the gas cap location.

We also cut the dash for a new DIN style radio slide.

Once the body was roughed in thins started happening quick.

[Conroe trucker]

After everything was primed and ready for wet sanding, we quickly test fit the front end to check alignment. Since I had torn the truck apart before they had seen it, I wanted to make sure we had no problems.

The truck has a nice stance, and maybe could go 1" lower. Once we hang all the sheet metal on it we will look again.

[trx450duner]

wow your really getting after it, its looking really good cant wait to se it all back together

[Conroe trucker]

At this point,we have almost all of the truck's panels painted. We should have the hood and bed floor done by midweek.

I chose this color combination cause it matches another car I have.

[franky69c10]

Looks good,

[kyull67]

Awesome build, looking forward to the next pictures.

[IvelDesigns]

wow, all that work in a day??

great build man. looking forward to the updates

[98L150]

looks good can wait to see it in person. there area few of us in the houston, tomball, conroe area

jeff

[Conroe trucker]

Thanks for the kind words.

I hope to finish it by the end of summer.

Family vacations and heat are going to slow me down.

I hope to at least get the cab on, exhaust run, wired, and the steering column in and the shift linkage dialed in by the end of May.

If I get that far we will mount the radiator support and spin the motor. I would like to set the valves and timing without the worry of scratching a fender.

[72BlckButy]

Wow.... beautiful project! Can't wait to see the end result!

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Beautiful cant believe how good that sucka looks...

[NONHOG]

Love it ! I know I've seen those wheels before what are they ?
keep those pics coming !

[a1953mdl]

What are your plans fro heat or air, if any?
Really like the color. It started of as a decent truck, but will be GREAT when your done. I like sixes also. Hoe much HP or torque can the old OD units handle?
Lee

[blakeaz33]

Really turning out nice, truck looks great! I've got a similar 68 I'm working on. Can you tell me what disk brake kit you used? I would like something like you're using on mine. Thanks.

[Conroe trucker]

They are RT5s.
They were around $ 250@, 17x8 & 17x9

[Conroe trucker]

The ODs are pretty strong.

I have never heard of anyone mechanically breaking one, they usually can't figure out how to repair them electrically and junk them out.
If cuts the final drive speed by about 30%. So for 6 cylinders this is a big advantage, it is like you have one more gear, when in effect you have 3 more.
The truck had a 3 spd with non synchro first, with long tail shaft. This trans has a synchro first, and the OD unit, but a short tail shaft, which meant I had to cut the drive shaft about an inch and a half.

I snagged a set of 6 cyl A/C brackets off Ebay. Talk about hard to find. I will add a Vintage A/C unit sometime in the future.

For now it is just going to be a clean little cruiser.

[Conroe trucker]

I got the cab home early in the week.

We mounted it at the shop, to make things easier.

I will roll it out this weekend, clean it up and then add some more pictures.
All the panels need to be block wet sanded and buffed out.
Maybe we can get that done in the next two weeks.

Yesterday we painted the steering column, bed floor, and extra wood floor front panel, the two front inner fenders, and the hood. Today we sprayed the fender and hood undersides with a bed liner called Raptor. It is a hard urethane, not rubbery, that looks and feels like epoxy or fiberglass.

It will quiet the wheel wells down, while making them easy to clean, and stiffen the hood to keep it from "oil canning".

I picked up a 6 cyl power steering pump and brackets off Ebay, so they need to be taken apart and painted, then mounted also.

I have a local chrome plater plating the tin grill trim rings, tin headlight bezels, tin interior door strip, and the one piece aluminum window triangle. Price I was quoted was $ 300, which I felt was good.

[kyull67]

Looks great!