My Project 36' Ford Pickup

[Flipper_1938]

Nice work! I especially like the way you fabbed the trans tunnel. I think you need to body work it and paint it. It would be a shame to hide it under carpet.

 

[agdeuce]

Carpet?

Hey Flipper. Carpet? I don't need no stinking carpet. All kidding aside I appreciate your point of view and I have been considering going through all the steps for paint. I am taking the chassis out for paint next week if the rain ever stops. For now because I have a commitment to drive the truck to my family picnic in July, no paint. I am going to drive it and that will help to work out any bugs or changes needed. I will paint all the components (rattle can) but will not paint the cab, grill shell or box yet. The bed sides are really screwed up and will take a lot of good old fashioned metal work to square away. I can always take it apart later and go through the steps for paint. By the way I really never planned to use carpet. I want to use a nice rubber mat both inside the cab and on the bed floor. Easier to clean. Anyway thanks for looking and keep on building. Later Steve

 

[jfg455]

Am I missing something or do you not have any upper link on your rear end set up? looks like you have 2 lower bars and a watts link but no upper bars. [S

 

[Dirtyrat]

Am I missing something or do you not have any upper link on your rear end set up? looks like you have 2 lower bars and a watts link but no upper bars. [S

I was thinking the same thing...

 

[Flipper_1938]

Am I missing something or do you not have any upper link on your rear end set up? looks like you have 2 lower bars and a watts link but no upper bars. [S

Are the top links between the bed and the tire?

EDIT: I FOUND THEM!!! They angle outwards from the crossmember in the bed and go to the axle out near the tire.

 

[Paul_J]

Maybe it's setup like a Truck Arm suspension like the '67 to '72 Chevy.

I wish our project was moving this fast.

 

[jfg455]

Lol! Flipper PI has found the 'missing links'! I looked all over the pics and didn't see them. Problem solved, carry on!


Oh and it is looking good too[cl

 

[agdeuce]

The missing links

Hey Guys! I am glad you found them 'cause I had to go to a Pick-n-Pull to get them. I sure would have had a hard time making the rearend stay in place. Now that the mystery has been solved I will explain. I used a 9" from a Torino wagon that I had stashed. These rearends are four link kind of like an "A" body GM. The angle of the control arms is a lot different and the arms I used as uppers are forged and sort of funny shaped. With all the crossmembers, brackets and stuff they are hard to see. I cut the lower control arms and angled them straight ahead. Ford never used a track-bar (panhard) or a watts set-up because they believed that the extreme angles of the arms would suffice. I don't know if any of you have ever driven an old Torino wagon or Ranchero but they wiggled in the butt a bunch. With the worn out control arm bushings and the coil springs I figured the watts was necessary. Thanks youall' for looking. Steve

 

[agdeuce]

Going out for paint

Hey all I have made more progress. My chassis is going out for blasting and paint tomorrow. Thanks to friends it will be very cost effective. Traded our time and labor. I thought I would add some more pictures of the finished chassis and some of the parts I used. You can see the goofy looking upper control arms (a.k.a. missing links) and the modified lower ones. I thought the engine crossmember would be of interest because it started out life as a trans crossmember from a 79' Chev pickup with a "Granny" 4-speed. The front spring, as you can see, is arched upside down. Since I am using a clutch/brake master cylinder for a early to mid 60's GM pickup the natural thing to do was to use the matching clutch slave cylinder. I sent along some pics of the mounting assembly. I will also mention because my pickup bed is just the sheetmetal hung on the chassis I installed 1/4-20 nutserts to fasten the all pieces on with. These little buggers can save a lot of fussing around. We got them from Fastenal for very a reasonable price. the tools is pretty expensive but with a little of good old ingenuity they can be squeezed into place with out it. Sorry about some of the pictures being from a weird angle but my shop is to narrow to get back far enough. Thanks for looking and just keep on building so we can all see what is happening out there. Later Steve

 

[agdeuce]

More done!

Greetings everyone. I finally have a painted frame and some other components. The rear brakes are done and the front will be soon (Need to turn the drums, hope there is enough left). Next will be the plumbing, exhaust (nothing special here until the 292 goes in) and mounting the cab. It feels good to be putting parts on for the last time. I also fixed, straightened, beat the "H" out of the back of the cab. Just so it would at least look kinda right. Welding really screws stuff up.
One of the things I noticed about taking so long to do a build is I lose stuff. Admittedly my "shop" is very small so I have to keep shuffling stuff around (most tools are on wheels). Between lack of funds and trying to remember/find where stuff is, these projects take more time than they should. Having said that, we believe it is all worth it.[dr Don't you all agree?

 

[agdeuce]

A major safety error

I want to let you guys know about an engineering error I made. I feel foolish about it and thanks goodness one of the guys helping me found the error before the truck went on the road. While tightening it it broke.
I will explain. In order to make the spring perch mounting stud long enough to be bolted across the wishbone I, not so cleverly, lengthened the stud. I felt as though the process I took was safe. Believing the perch was a forged piece I drilled the center of the stud and the extension so I could put a pin in to align and strengthen the longer stud. I welded (MIG) the stud, ground down the weld, slid a sleeve over the stud and plug welded through the sides of the sleeve and ground them down carefully for a nice finished piece. Now I had an extended stud that was strengthened by the sleeve. This was done mostly to make things fit together, save money (not having to have new perches made) and time savings. WRONG! I should have never assumed the perches were forged and even then not MIG welded them but TIG welded them. Please folks don't be unsafe for the sake of saving anything. Which of the perches would you rather use. The old welded mess or the new DOM/grade 8 TIG welded units. Thanks for listening Later Steve

 

[Paul_J]

I'm with you on this one Steve!

 

[Paul_J]

I just got caught up on the build and went through all the pages again. Man you are making some great progress.

We hope to be somewhat caught up with you soon as we are getting close to completing all the fab work on our chassis and will be breaking it all down for cleanup and paint.

I'm going to mount my clutch slave similar to yours and I read on another board that you need to use a flexable line to the slave so you can unbolt it and turn it over to bleed it. The original GMC truck had the slave on the passenger side so it was flipped over with the bleed screw on top. I don't know if that is necessary but it makes sense. I've seen other folks build the mount so the slave can be flipped over with the inlet and bleed screw on top.

 

[agdeuce]

Bleeding slave

Hey Paul
I wondered about that and decided to just try and bleed it upside down. I can not figure out where air could get trapped in such a simple set-up. Brakes are different because of the caliper passages etc. If you take the cylinder loose then where do you get resistance to force the piston back when you open the bleeder or am I thinking wrong. I hope I don't have to take it loose. Thanks for the heads-up. Steve

 

[Paul_J]

I'm thinking that if that piston in the cylinder travels all the way back when you open the bleeder then there would be very little area for air to be trapped. I'm going with your idea and just try it.

 

[agdeuce]

Bleeding

Paul, so am I and my thinking is the same as yours. I guess time will tell. By the way thanks for the encouragement. I will have more pictures of this weeks progress on the weekend. Keep on working your builds. School should be over get Trey out there and have him do the arms and legs part. It helps me that my buddy comes over once a week to help. Later Steve

 

[agdeuce]

More stuff on and never to coming off again

Hello to those interested I have gotten much further along with the build. It looks like I might[dr get the thing driving by the 4th of July. That is if I don't have any more problems like maybe the leaking pinion seal etc. Most everything has come along pretty well I only had to do them twice instead of multiple times. "Best laid plans of mice and men". You guys know how that goes I bet. The cab and bed panels are permanently in place. We made a tailpan for the tail lights to mount too. I finished the brake/clutch systems, pedals and lines all around. We made an exhaust system with the proverbial glass pack muffler (it was free). The generator, regulator, instrument cluster ('61 Corvair), wiring harness and fuse panel ('61 Corvair), headlights, tail lights (repro '41 Chev) are all mounted. Fuel system (tank, lines etc.) are done. It seems so weird that for years things just dragged on and now all of a sudden it is coming to fruition. So much has been accomplished in the last couple of weeks I could go on forever but I know this gets hard to follow so I will stop the narrative and lets you just look at the pictures. Thanks all for looking and your encouragement. We can use it now and then. Later Steve

P.S. Paul I haven't bled the clutch yet.

 

[old man dave]

Great looking truck, you should have no problem driving it on the 4th.

 

[Paul_J]

You knew I was going to ask didn't ya! Man, this truck is looking great and I hope you make your July 4th date!

 

[Dirtyrat]

Looking like you are just about there, nice work!