Project: Daily driver to drive through the weeds

[jays68yak]

So Ive been building this: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=449547
For the last year. In my horse trading and parts buying I ended up with a beat up short bed, just the bed. Then a few weeks later I ended up with this:

The story I got from the seller was that it had been sitting for several years, 5-8. He installed a target master motor and one day while driving down the freeway it puked all its oil out. He filled it up and drove it home, parking it for it to rust. Literally....rust away. It was parked maybe 2 miles as the crow flies from the ocean. Every morning the ocean salt water due would hit the truck and slowly rust it away. He decided to sell it has he couldnt do anything with it. I think he cried a bit as I pulled away with it.
At first I was just going to part it out....mostly cuz the only good sheetmetal on it was the hood, cowl cover, and grill. The roof was so rusted I thought it was going to fly off on the way home.....then I started thinking....I have a short bed...hmmm...So I pulled the front clip, cab, and bed off. Cut the frame down.


Glued it all back together

Early in the day that I cut the frame down, I took a 5 hour round trip and picked up another truck for its cab. It was a 2wd flat bed that had this on the glove box

The only pic I got of the donor truck was once I cut it in half and got it on the trailer with the rest of the scrap.

So after a long weekend filled with some driving, some cutting, some welding, a lot of bolt removal, and some bolt installing I ended up with this

[jays68yak]

I slowly worked on it when I could. Started by painting stuff and fixing the bent core support.

Then I pulled the engine to see what was going on with it. I got it running once I got the truck, drove it off the trailer before I cut it up. It was making some sweet noise. Revved up fine but just wasnt right. I knew I wasnt going to put any money into that motor so I pulled it. Found the head gasket blown in between 2 cylinders. Which expanded those 2 pistons and messed up the bores. Pretty much trash to me at that point. Err scrap. Expect for a few parts.
I used the flywheel, crank, cam, and timing chain to make a stand for a bench grinder I found at a yard sale.

So now I needed a motor....Well what should I run...Well duh I need a 6.0L. Picked one up from pacific fabrication. A 6.0L next to a 6.0L for another daily driver build. Yeah I have 2 daily driver builds going on at that same time. Both 6.0Ls. I dunno how Im going to drive 2 truck daily, still working that out.

in between welding in patch panels for the rockers and floor to the new cab...yeah it wasnt rust free. Oh well. But I didnt get any pictures of the cutting and welding of the floors and rockers. It was a lot of work. Oh yeah while doing that I dropped the new engine in.

To get the engine in I used one of pacific fabrications x-members

A keen eye might also notice that I converted to a hydraulic bell housing while I had it all apart. Since I cant leave well enough alone I decided to build a set of custom headers.

Never did get a picture of them done, but they are installed already.

Next thing to tackle was how the rear sat and where the axle was in the wheel well. I dont know why it was so off after doing the frame chop, but I dont know what the springs where and since everything was bolted on to the frame someone before me had messed with stuff. Not to mention the other bed was on there.

I drew up some parts in CAD and wanting to do all this at home laid it out to cut on the bandsaw.

After some cutting, bending, and welding I had my own set of shackle flip brackets.

All installed with some 63" springs from a newer chevy truck

That looks a lot better

fish plate on the frame Z

Modded a newer hydroboost unit to fit the truck

During down time and rainy days and nights I stripped the grill

And got some color on it. not bad for a rattle can eh?

One of the other things I wanted to do was run a newer gauge cluster in the truck. Since Ive parted several trucks out recently, I had some spare clusters.
Rough in

How it sits after some sanding and bondo.

And in the truck, minus gauges

And that pretty much bring this thing current. Even with the fisheye lense I bought.