My Stylish Parts Hauler project

Trying to nail down a wheelbase. If I have two feet of bed in front of the rear fender, my wheelbase will be 149". Is that too long?

The gray truck looks like it has one foot ahead of the rear fender....137" with my cab dimensions.

Based on my guess, this is a six foot bed. Would a 8 ft bed be too much?

 

I think I would have been in trouble if I had built big ass step notches. Putting bags under the frame with this deeper drop axle, is a significant drop over stock seagrave. Aired up, it should sit pretty good.

 

I don't know. If I go to a shorter front tire and do notches, I could set this thing on down. This is frame sitting on the axle. Fender is sitting on a 37" tire.

 

That could do with a bit more rear overhang.

 

Cancel that. The motor is too tall to fit in a "stupid low" chassis. Part of it has to hang below the framerails if I run a hood.

 

The though of building a truck height truck just feels wrong. This is a 32" tire and a seagrave firetruck fender at ride height and aired out. It almost looks like skinny wheels on a hot rod.

 

Nope. This won't work this would require a huge step. This is just gonna have to be a big ole truck.

 

How about using a 19.5 truck wheel? They should be somewhere in between

I have 16" dually wheels on my COE and the fronts look kinda small in the wheel opening

 

I understand why you don't see cummins 8.3 motors in anything but dump trucks and motor homes. They are too damn tall. From bottom of oil pan to the air intake tube it looks around 43" tall (kinda hard to measure cause it slopes downward). The Allison 3060 trans sump hangs down several more inches more. 4 feet tall overall?

Kinda hard to fit that in something sleek and sexy.

Looks like I'm stuck building something dump truck size. I could slice and dice the body to sit lower, but it might mean a foot of ugly motor poking through the hood and a monstrous trans tunnel in the cab.

 

I think I'm just not going to be able to make it sit like a hot rod no mater what. The free big diesel is just too big. I'm gonna have to build it with a work truck stance to let some of the motor hang down. Trying to stuff the axle higher is the exact wrong thing to do.

 

That is a monster! Are you firm on that engine choice?

 

I think so. I inherited the donor RV from my uncle. If I can get it sorted out, I think it will be cool. ....even if it is way taller than what the cool kids drive.