Powerslave's 66 SWB LS1 laid out with PB

[powerslave]

I finally decided to start a build thread now that I'm actually getting some progress done. I've gone 10 different directions with my truck, but it's finally all coming together. It started as a longbed but I cut the frame down and found a short box on craigslist. The truck was poorly bagged when I bought it, so I ended up re-doing most of that as well. I figured that since it was already bagged, that I'd save myself some time, but I ended up spending twice as long fixing everything. The truck had a 350/350 setup that I pulled out and replaced with an LQ4 6.0 and 4L60e. Afterward, I put an LS1 intake on it.

I've been a tourist in here for the last year, but decided to start a build thread. Anyway, this has been my project for the last 8 months, so here's the pics.

[powerslave]

More pics of the truck when I bought it

[NEWFISHER]

I like the seat!

Looks like a few areas to spend some time redoing. Tuned in.

[powerslave]

The first thing I did was shorten the frame. I jacked it up and welded 4 legs on the rear section of the frame that I was going to cut off so that it stayed straight with the rest of the frame. After I cut it, all I had to do was slide that section of the frame forward. I beveled the edges, welded it, made a fish mouth plate for the outside and boxed the inside.

[powerslave]

more pics of the frame

[powerslave]

Inside pic

[powerslave]

If I would've known how far I'd end up going with the truck, I would've pulled the cab off by now, but my dumbass kept working around it. Anyway, I started with a Porterbuilt trailing arm cross member. Who would've known that I would've ended up buying every single part he makes for my truck, lol.

I had to take a pic of the crossmember because it's like taking a pic of artwork or great scenery. Tree huggers take pics of squirrels and waterfalls, and car guys take pics of nice welds and clean rides.

[powerslave]

Originally Posted by NEWFISHER

I like the seat!

Looks like a few areas to spend some time redoing. Tuned in.

It's funny you say that because the seat was one of the big sellers for me, lol.

[powerslave]

I was about to cut my long bed sides down, dreading the amount of work that was ahead of me, when this swb trailer conversion came up on craigslist for $300. I dont think I could've been luckier on this one.

[powerslave]

There's nothing worse that trying to get a couple of your buddies over at 11pm when you're ready to lift the bed onto the truck, so a friend of mine came up with this cool idea. He built this one-man-bed-lifter-upper weldment that is adjustable and fits right underneath the lip of the bed. Then you just use a cherry picker to lift it and move it around. Pretty slick.

[powerslave]

It's always cool to see how many lugnuts you're actually tucking up into the fender

[powerslave]

I found these like new 18" Centerline smoothies on craigs also. 20's or 22's would've been nice, but I'm still trying to stay on a budget.

[powerslave]

new wheels

[powerslave]

At this point, I decided to re locate the bags that were over the axle and move them to the trailing arms. This gives me more travel when lifting/lowering. I wire wheeled the frame and gave it a nice coat of paint too.

[powerslave]

I wanted to do something cool with the shocks, so I built these cantilevered arms with bronze pivots. I get over 8" of travel with a 4.5" shock.

[powerslave]

I found a 65 suburban fuel tank that I mounted back there also.

[powerslave]

I was finally able to drive it out of the garage after quite a few works of working on the rear section of the truck, and was actually kind of disappointed at the front end. The rear was awesome, I loved how low it sat, but the factory front cross member hangs ridiculously low. This pic show the framerails on the ground with the front crossmember about an inch off the ground and look how high the front sticks up! Unacceptable.

[powerslave]

About this time, I started seeing Dino's trucks around town at shows and cruises and knew what had to be done. I wasn't ready to take the dropmember plunge yet, but I started with dropped spindles and disc brakes

[powerslave]

I had already pocketed the front lower control arms.

[powerslave]

Again, another deal came along on craigslist for a 2005 LQ4 6.0 out of a Silverado that was complete with trans, computer, harness and all accessories for $500, so I decided to pull the motor at this point.

[powerslave]

pics of the bullet

[powerslave]

But at this point I was still unhappy with the height in the front. The front crossmember was on the ground now, but the frame rails were still up in the air and the rockers were about 2 inches off the ground. It looked like a 4x4, lol. So I knew there was only one thing to do and that was to call Nate at Porterbuilt and order the extreme dropmember, steering rack and control arms

[powerslave]

I wire wheeled the firewall and frame and put down some paint while I was waiting for the parts to come in. And of course when i got everything I had to take some pics of the beautiful welds and all of the grade 8 hardware separated in nice sealed bags.

[powerslave]

Next step was to notch the front framerails for the steering rack. I supported the frame before and after the notch, marked the notches, cut, ground, welded

[powerslave]

I took all of my PB components to Gorilla Powdercoating for a nice coat of silver.