1936 chevy low cab build 1.5T

For such a heavy frame and suspension I think you can never have enough re-enforcement. Overbuilding it to some degree with extra crossmembers would be a good thing here. In your case, having more support than you need is better than not having enough. At least in my opinion.

T1

does this build have juice brakes? if not do you have a way to change them over im considering a similar build, you have inspired me,,,i have some ideas about converting the mech brakes to hyd on a 35 ford dualy,,,, your thoughts?

old skool ray said:

does this build have juice brakes? if not do you have a way to change them over im considering a similar build, you have inspired me,,,i have some ideas about converting the mech brakes to hyd on a 35 ford dualy,,,, your thoughts?

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My truck does have juice brakes, however I am cooking up a way to convert the front to disk. As far as the rear goes, its really no good if you want to be able to do any sort of decent speed, even with a v8 hooked up to these old rear ends people can only do about 50 because of the low gearing. Not to mention it is ungodly heavy..

Glad i inspired you, good luck its a big undertaking. After diving in I definitely have had many moments where i say to myself... Hummm i see why people only use the cabs off these big trucks.. but it can definitely be done.. (i think) haha

if it were easy everyone would do it right? I do still have some major concerns but hopefully i will get them worked out...

CORPO said:

My truck does have juice brakes, however I am cooking up a way to convert the front to disk. As far as the rear goes, its really no good if you want to be able to do any sort of decent speed, even with a v8 hooked up to these old rear ends people can only do about 50 because of the low gearing. Not to mention it is ungodly heavy..

Glad i inspired you, good luck its a big undertaking. After diving in I definitely have had many moments where i say to myself... Hummm i see why people only use the cabs off these big trucks.. but it can definitely be done.. (i think) haha

if it were easy everyone would do it right? I do still have some major concerns but hopefully i will get them worked out...

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Have you considered building an overdrive unit out of a manual transmission turned backwards? Use it like a divorced transfer case on some old 4x4s.

Fourth would be normal gearing. Shifting to third would be overdrive.

I am going to have to do this for my tank motor.

Corpo, ive noticed the grid in your shop floor. wery cool and usefull...is it a plate with painted lines??? Please tell me more about it,,,, and again,,,great work , craftmanship and inspiration..
Old Skool Ray

Yeah ray, i got a couple of 4x6 sheets for free, stainless actually i felt kinda bad throwing them on the floor and making a mess of them but i can polish them back up when i need the material. But basically what i did was measure every 6 inches and made a grid with a sharpie.. then i hit it with some clear coat so it wouldn't rub off..... they have been very useful since no section of my frame is actually parallel... every thing has tapers....so the center line of the sheets has been very important..


so heres where i started


i centered the cab section and tacked it down to the sheets... using the grid and lots of measurements and angle gauges was the best method i could come up with short of building a frame table...

and from all of the measurements i have taken my frame is square within 1/4" which i think is pretty good for a rook, but i dont know maybe not?

so its been mostly a week of back tracking unfortunately, i did a mock up and decided i needed more clearance on my four link in the front.... so as depressing as it was i cut it back apart and tapered it more...

before


after

after back tracking I spent a couple late nights trying to get back on track and got my four link actually mounted....


Ignore the sweet temporary braces





felt good to have the frame holding itself up for a bit... this should be ride height

look at all those holes i still have to fill... arg

Man this thing is looking sweet. I might be tempted to leave the holes... but I'm lazy.

Keep up the good work!!

I was thinking the same thing Corpo I'm not so sure I wouldn't leave them. Looks Great!

plan is to fill them, and put some nice big holes in there after its boxed...

thanks guys

The Duallys Rock !

Lovin the rear wheels as is!

That sounds good, lot of work tho.

Well here she is ...went against some advice and sectioned 2" out of the center area of the frame... leaving a full 5" of frame height there still, this turned out to be way more difficult/time consuming then i had anticipated... but i think i will be worth it in the long run with the frame rails looking like they are coming out of the cab while maintaining as much leg room as possible... i wanted to set the cab back on to get the full effect but my father was tired and didn't want to.. cant really blame him.. its a little awkward to lift as im sure many of you know...



Still have to add some nice thick plates to span the joints in the back... I also might put a piece of 1.5 square tubing on a diagonal across the joint.. dont know yet..it took forever to weld up cause i only have a TIG welder and i had to keep flipping the frame back and fourth to spread the heat...... ohh well.. im committed at this point...



Also my first permanent cross member went in, some nice 3" 11 gauge tubing, i put it on top of the plates spanning the joint for additional strength... the start of the front cross member has begun too, u can see it in the first pic ( the front edge), i made a cross member out of the truck a few weeks ago planing a head but then i narrowed it more.. so it doesnt work anymore.. oh well

oh you can also see in the first pic that most of the holes are filled in the front area of the frame... lots of holes still left...

Everything looks great keep us posted. Those holes are starting to dissappear.

Still looking great Corpo. I really like the look you have going on with it.

T1

Thanks guys, Its been a lot of work mostly enjoyable some frustrating (what the hell have i gotten myself in to kinda moments)

I just really cant wait till its boxed....

I have been doing alot of searching im still looking for more of the narrow rims like the one on the front, the truck should have 6 of them, of course the guy i bought truck off of neglected to tell me that only 2 rims on the truck matched at that they are rims from the late 40s and much wider.... Boltbreaker was generous enough to hook me up with a rim, but it has a different hole cut out pattern, but if i can find a match for that one i will run those to the inside on the rear...

Anyway i can find them, just not very close and shipping is killer( like 50 for a rim and 68 to ship a rim).. if anyone knows of a place in The IL,WI,IN area .. maybe MI too.. that might have them please let me know...

I need to determine how much to narrow my rear end, so i need to find these things soon...

Thanks again guys...

Just an ideal, but what about swapping out your old centers into newer wheels?

nutajunka said:

Just an ideal, but what about swapping out your old centers into newer wheels?

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The rims i have will work, just not the width/offset i want... and they are much heavier than the fronts, there are modern wheels that will bolt right up, but that just wouldnt look right in my opinion...