58 Apache short bed rebuild

[Scottish58chev]

Just a little background information for anyone interested.

I bought my truck around 2 years ago as a pretty much complete non runner. I decided then that it would be a full strip down and rebuild to my own liking. I've always wanted an american pick up for as long as a i can remember and this one came up for sale fairly local to me, which is a big bonus considering there aren't many options for classic American trucks in the middle of Scotland I decided to start a thread as I've now made some reasonable progress, still a long way to go but slowly getting there and have overcome a few obstacles already. This is a my first American truck so a pretty steep learning curve but thanks to the web and various forums and wealth of information out there it's been an enjoyable one, other than the cost but you can't take it with you

It's a 58 short bed Apache with an Impala sub frame, something that's not without it's own problems. Anyway i'll post up pictures and feel free to comment, good or bad. Calum

[Scottish58chev]

Overall the bodywork was in pretty good condition with solid doors and panels although the cab corners have succumbed to some rot. During the strip down i started to find some shall we say interesting modifications

[Scottish58chev]

Once the cab, front end and rear bed were removed I had it brought back to my own garage to start the chassis strip down. First thing was to power wash the whole thing to see what i was dealing with It had a standard 350 which turned out to be a 4 bolt mains which suited my plans to make a 383 out of it and also had a TH400 transmission so from that side of things i was happy. I eventually managed to find out through guys on here that the front end was from an impala and not a Camaro as I had been led to believe, not a standard swap but it was all i had to work with. I decided that i wanted to use ride tech air ride so while waiting on delivery of the parts started to modify the rear end.

[Scottish58chev]

I decided to make my own rear chassis legs, I used 4mm steel and cut them using a plasma cutter then finished the shaping by hand then welded them up on the bench prior to fitting to the chassis. Looking back probably not the quickest way of doing it but after plenty of measuring and re measuring I got it to work and all square

[Scottish58chev]

The welding on the front sub frame was functional but not very pretty and as it turns out not welded very squarely either so I decided to reinforce all the original welds and re weld after i had cut and re aligned the front end

[Scottish58chev]

Having taken delivery of the air ride I realised that the 4 link wouldn't fit as designed due to the axle having a cast diff casing, so to over come this I made up mounts and a cross member to enable me to fit the top arms in reverse. I could have built a frame over the axle but due to wanting to keep the profile as low as possible i decided to go with what you see in the pictures.

[Scottish58chev]

I had ultimately wanted the truck to lay flat when parked but due to using the Impala sub frame it won't be as low as had originally wanted but still pretty happy with it. You can see the height of the side step with the suspension fully compressed

[Scottish58chev]

With wanting to box the chassis i decided to go with making a new middle cross member as i think it better suits the overall look plus it's a lot stronger than the original

[Scottish58chev]

I put additional reinforcing on the rear x member just to be on the safe side, better to have it and not need it than the other way around

[Scottish58chev]

Currently working on building the engine back up with scatt forged crank and 6 inch I beam rods, wiseco pistons and arp fasteners. The block has been machined +30 and i have done all the clearancing on the bores for the 383 crank and it will have a small weiand 177 blower on top to help things along.

[Nut Case]

Scotty

Wow! Looking at your work and your shop, I can deduce that you are very seasoned, and not burdened with hesitation.

I say "overkill is underrated" Well done, I'll be following along.

Keep on keepin on

NC

[Katrina/10]

Excellent project! Good luck.

[Techie79]

Nice build. Good luck and keep the pics coming.

[Scottish58chev]

Thank's for the kind words. Not new to turning spanners or should i say wrenches but completely new to American trucks. I work at sea and get home in a few weeks so hoping to get some work done, hopefully finish off the chassis work and get the motor built, then i will do the first of many pre builds to make sure everything is where it should be. Nothing worse than having to do the same job twice.

[ChuckDriver]

Wow, you have done a lot of work! Frame looks good.

[Scottish58chev]

Thanks man, a long way still to go but getting there. Just finished reading your build, fantastic looking truck and really love the dash, would love to try something different on mine but options are limited this side of the pond. That new frame looks immense as well.

Calum

[Advanced Design]

Very nice chassis fab work! Your engine set up sounds pretty cool too. Tagging along for the rest of the build.

[Scottish58chev]

Hi Doug, hoping to get the chassis work finished once i get home, i still need to cc the heads after i change the valves to lower the compression for the blower i'm hoping the extra 4cc should be enough. Then i'll get the motor built up . I'll post as I go.

[Advanced Design]

Originally Posted by Scottish58chev

Hi Doug, hoping to get the chassis work finished once i get home, i still need to cc the heads after i change the valves to lower the compression for the blower i'm hoping the extra 4cc should be enough. Then i'll get the motor built up . I'll post as I go.

Engine machining always fascinated me and I haven't done any myself in 30 plus years...CC'ing the heads will be interesting and hopefully you will be able to show a bit of the process.

[murd969]

Your build is looking good.

[Kim57]

Very nice build.
Kim

[Scottish58chev]

Thanks, making my way home after 6 weeks at sea so hopefully get some work done once I get home. Hopefully before the chaos of Christmas kicks in 😄


Calum

[Scottish58chev]

Well not much happened last time home, certainly not as much as I would have liked but what can you do? First time home at Christmas for 5 years so made the most of it.

That said, I did manage to complete all the welding on the chassis bar any small brackets etc I will need along the way but structurally it is solid, I found a few cracks in the factory welds on one side of the front sub frame so they got repaired as well. Decided to beef up the mounts for the 4 bar link and definitely think it was the way to go. I also realised that I had cut off the original mounting on the frame for the brake pedal, thankfully i didn't throw it out and was able to modify it to enable me to use the underfloor power brake assembly that i bought. The 2nd last picture shows a gap in the chassis and a difference in height, this was cut and welded flush as you can see in the last pic.

[Scottish58chev]

Here are a few pictures of the cracked welds, nothing major but glad i found them at this stage in the build.

[Scottish58chev]

And the beefed up mounting point for the four link. I also managed to dress up all the welds on the axle casing ready to be blasted and painted