Direction for a Project

[58chevy3600]

Afternoon all,

My son and I have really enjoyed looking at every ones projects. Amazing what some are doing!

Now it's time for us to start up our project. Three weeks ago we purchased a 1958 Apache 3600. It had been advertised as a short bed, but was a long bed when we got there. Decided to get it anyway. Wasn't running, but seemed a reasonable price.

In talking with some individuals who follow the old trucks, they are telling us it is a rare truck, but I am a bit uncertain as to its rarity. So we need some help.

My son wants to lower it 3" and put newer running gear under it (rear air suspension, 308 10 bolt rear posi disk brakes, 350 crate, vette front suspension members and air bags, move the tank outside the cab).

But some say built it just as it was.

OK.... here is what it is. 58 Chevy 3600 3/4 ton, small window, 6 cylinder, 3 speed on the column, no radio, long bed, step side, no spare tire dip in the left fender, 60% rust.

What do you think about bring it back stock vs street rod?

Either way it will be a fun driver, not a show truck. We have found a good short bed, step side, no spare fenders, we can trade parts off our truck to make it a short bed.

Share your opinions and observations please. We will post pictures shortly.

[PDW HOTRODS]

Not rare at all. Maybe one of the most common even. Small back window was standard, big was delux. 6 cyl was base, V8 was option. Build it how you want and have fun.

[58chevy3600]

Thanks for the comments! .... Figured if it was good to take it to the hot rod side of things, having a 3/4 ton frame under it would be helpful.

[solidaxel]

Welcome to the board !

Make it a short bed and make it a drive with all the up to date drive train, or "raise" your budget !!

[dwcsr]

Originally Posted by PDW HOTRODS

Not rare at all. Maybe one of the most common even. Small back window was standard, big was delux. 6 cyl was base, V8 was option. Build it how you want and have fun.

Actually the Deluxe cab was the standard cab, Custom cab was a trim option, Big windows could be optioned for both models cabs. You coulsd have a custom cab with a small window and a deluxe cab with a big window.

Yo may have 9 ft bed which is rarer than the 8ft but still not an unusualy rare truck. 3600 has a heavier frame by about a 1/16 inch. If your going to restore it then you reduce the hiway driving to 50 mph and about 8 mpg. It most likely has 456 gears possibly lower. update with someting modern then you get some drivability out of it. You may also have the 261 6 cylinder and not a 235. I have seen guy run a late model 2500 chassis under the sheet metal. So you still have a 58 look with a 90's chassis.

[58chevy3600]

Thanks for the information.

[58chevy3600]

Dave,

Another question... About the 6 cylinder we have. Is there a serial number there that can tell what size it is?
Or is there a Chevy file listing trucks from the Kansas plant?

[bajabob]

58
While I totally dig the custom deal with indepentant everything and some day I will build one that is slammed all the way around, right now I am into the ol skool builds. Not many people build out a long bed as it does not have the same looks as the more popular short bed step side. Which is not a bad thing just not as common to see a tricked out long bed...

My 3200 came with the same issues. I looked into the 4wheel drive stuff and found a NAPCO Powerpack driveline which will bolt up to your frame with little or no modifications. Just my suggestion to make a tough truck even tougher !!!

bb

check out this guys very detailed build of a 3600.....
http://www.daveladue.com/56chevy4x4.htm

[bajabob]

[dwcsr]

Originally Posted by 58chevy3600

Dave,

Another question... About the 6 cylinder we have. Is there a serial number there that can tell what size it is?
Or is there a Chevy file listing trucks from the Kansas plant?

There should be a casting number on the right side of the motor ahead of the starter and below the distributor. Also on the distributor pad there should be a stamped number. Look around the block on the left side near the head for two casting marks that look like captains bars. If they are there it may be a 261. The casting number on the right side should tell us what it is.

[58chevy3600]

Question about Drive train options.

As stated earlier, we are heading this project towards a street rod configuration. We will be selling the original engine, transmission, and differential. The bed is pretty rough, so we have found a good short bed, tailgate, fenders and steps, so we will probably make it a short bed, as commented before.

We plan on a C10 Frame clip to get new front suspension. We found Dave Chapman's 75 C10 IFS conversion for a 58 3100, and that looks like a very good direction to follow.

How year specific do we need to get or does the 75-83 C10 group work equally well?

I'm a hands-on ME, so the cutting and welding doesn't bother me at all.

We plan on air suspension, so we can adjust the ride height. With 4 air bags and triangulated 4 link rear suspension.

Now begs a couple more questions:

We are heading towards getting a 350 motor to rebuild. Is there a reasonable year group for the 350? (4 bolt mains?)

We haven't selected a transmission (manual or auto) nor have we selected a differential to use. So if go manual or automatic, Is there a better candidate for each? Also year group here too.

Same question on the differential. I expect a Chevy 10 bolt is the package to start with, but look for posi and about 3.08, 3.36 or 3.55 ratios. Any vehicle to look for, and year group? We may be able to find a car or truck with the right combination of engine, tranny, and rear end.

We have a lot of "Pick N pull" style yards around the Dallas Metroplex, so we were going to try and pick good parts to start with.

I have been around Mopars and small sports cars most of my life (yes I know the dark side), but with this restoration, we will obviously be in the Bowtie world and I want to built this truck right. With a little forth thought we can get a neat build, without a lot of backtracking.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[58chevy3600]

Thanks we'll go thru the drive train to see what's there.

Also please look at my drive train questions on my thread.

Thanks in advance.

Jim

[nikwho]

Originally Posted by 58chevy3600

Question about Drive train options.

I'm a hands-on ME, so the cutting and welding doesn't bother me at all.

Now begs a couple more questions:

We are heading towards getting a 350 motor to rebuild. Is there a reasonable year group for the 350? (4 bolt mains?)

We haven't selected a transmission (manual or auto) nor have we selected a differential to use. So if go manual or automatic, Is there a better candidate for each? Also year group here too.

Same question on the differential. I expect a Chevy 10 bolt is the package to start with, but look for posi and about 3.08, 3.36 or 3.55 ratios. Any vehicle to look for, and year group? We may be able to find a car or truck with the right combination of engine, tranny, and rear end.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

If cutting and welding are no problem, you may want to use a 70-81 camaro or firebird subframe, particularly since you want to lower it! You can lower the camaro front sub's easily while maintain a very high ride quality! Plus, you can use the 10 bolt from the very same parts car! I used the dvd that NoLimit sells and while it is a poor quality video that was copied from a VHS, it still has good information on it and walks you through each step.
http://www.nolimit.net/prodinfo.asp?number=D%2D101

Another way to do it that gets the truck even lower is this one:
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...ht=camaro+clip

As many machinists and engine builders have told me, I would not worry about tracking down a 4 bolt main block. For a reasonable street engine, the 2 bolt main blocks are plenty strong.

As for the rear end, like I said above, the 10 bolt out of my '79 camaro donor car worked great! here is a chart that has a list of different cars' rear end widths.
http://www.carnut.com/specs/rear.html

[nikwho]

Also, my truck had the 9' bed on it as well. I was doing the camaro swap and wanted to cut the frame in only one place so I took an additional 9+" out of the wheel base in the front and maved the cab mounts back. I dont know that I would do it the same way if I got a do-over, but it worked out well. Good luck on your project wheichever way you choose to go! But since your wanting to lower it, I would seriously consider the camaro swap as oppossed to the c10 swap.

[58chevy3600]

Thanks for the good direction. That give us more to work with. I will check the links out.

[58chevy3600]

Well .... we have spent about 6 months after Nov 2010 collecting parts and disassembling the truck and seeing what was usable.

Here are a few pictures, and I will post more later. Here is what we started with.... OBTY the red is rust!

The second pic shows a 1977 C10 clip. Also the original bed was a long bed (for the 3600), and we wanted a short bed. The white bed was a craigslist purchase, as a bed trailer, that had good fenders and bed side walls. The white was original paint. We ended up using the back of the frame from the bed trailer to get the trailing links, and bed rails. More on the frame later.

The third pic is things being taken apart. The third picture also shows the bed trailer frame.

The fourth pic shows some of the salvaged parts after media blast and epoxy primer. In the background is the assembled frame. There will be pics of just the frame.

[dmack91]

Nice comeback - only 2.5 years between posts!

Keep us updated with your progress.

[58chevy3600]

Yes I know...... Things have been busy with the family, while trying to acquire parts, so there is more to that story. We will do better in the coming weeks, with more postings. (58-65 hours a week at my regular job didn't help either...LOL)

[58chevy3600]

Evening, to continue with the build, we spent about 6 months collecting most of the desired parts. The original truck was a 3600 (3/4 ton long bed). Since there wasn't anything to the original truck that would make it appropriate to restore it to its original state, we decided to do a "resto mod", so we went for the desirable short bed, air suspension, Chevy 350 motor, 350 Tranny, Posi-traction, hidden sound, new AC, new wood floor, and really good body work, and good paint. That's the plan! But we will see how it goes. We will see how it goes.

We had looked at the various threads about swapping the front suspension for something independent. We had access to a 1977 C10 partial frame,so it looked like a good candidate. My son is good on Craigslist, so he found a 58 "bed trailer" the we got for $250. If you look back at the second pic, the white on the bed was original paint. As we got into taking things apart, we found the original bed crossmembers were shot, and the ones fro the bed trailer were in good condition. In working on the Bed trailer parts, we found that the frame was a 1965 frame, with trailing links. The bed sides are the same for all the stepsides from 55 thru 66 (if I remember right), the steel was fine for the 58.

We were going to buy four bar links for the air suspension, and if we used the frame under the bed with the trailing links, we didn't have to pay for it again. So we decided to marry the front front from the 77 C10, the back of the 65 C10, and the middle from the 58. We got the front of the 77 frame before we got the bed, so we ended up with about 2' of original frame to make the frame the proper length. OBTY, the pieces of the original frame actually have the original VIN number of them, which was good.

So we left the front end assembled, and the rear frame assembled, and set all the pieces on jack stands, strung the centerline. We measured many times, and then welded the whole thing together. Here are a few pictures of the frame.

[Kim57]

This should be a nice build. Keep the pics coming.
Kim

[58chevy3600]

Here are a few more pics of the frame. You can see the 65 frame was a bit of a tangle, so we found a center cross member that would get rid the the "X" bracing, while keeping the trailing links. If we bend the trailing links along the way, there are stronger replacement links we can put on the frame.

The first pic show the 65 tangle, pic two, shows the center of the frame, the third pic is the clean and painted front end of the frame. the fourth pic shows the center crossmember going into place. The fifth pic shows the frame painted. Notice the the exhaust can now go thru the frame rather than under... We can go lower ...

[Kim57]

Looking good.
Kim

[58chevy3600]

Along with collecting the large bits, we got the small ones we needed. We got an Airbagit system. That included 2 1/2" drop spindles, Pic one are the bits, pic two is the front suspension assembled, pic three is the mounting of the air system, pic four shows the the motor set, Hooker headers in place, "X" pipe in place, the electric cutouts in place, and the magnaflows in place in the frame.

[pgf545]

Nice!!! Looks great so far, keep up the good work.

Bernie

[58chevy3600]

We worked the frame over the summer at home, and during school, my son worked the sheetmetal at school. He learned how to do the old style metal work. Here are the pics that show that progress. Pic one shows the bed metal after many hours of straightening. The stake holes are all plugged, the tail of the upper ridge is closed. A pan is welded to cover most of the Stainless Steel air tank. We are using the stock stop lights, and license plate mount, so we didn't use a pan with the plate mount recess. Pic two shows the typical repair on the left front fender. Pic three and four show the final prime on the bed and one of the rear fenders. Pic five shows final paint, and clear on the bed parts. The paint is PPG paint, 57' Chevy Belair Tropical Turquoise. That's three coats of color and three coats of clear.... before any color sanding. Looks good as it is, but the son wants it real nice.