Chevy 3600 into a daily driver

Missed this thread until now. Neat truck!

 

what year

 

95

 

First step today was giving the rear end a bath. I loaded it up and headed to the carwash.



I then jockeyed into position.....which with the help of my hoist was shockingly easy.





I tacked a piece of flat strap (I did not have any square tubing on hand) at the new axle centerline. New axle centerline is 1" rearward to stock to center the wheel in the fender better.



I tacked the carrier to the flat strap and then used a floor jack to set the pinion angle.



Then as I was going to tack the carrier into place....I ran out of welding wire. 4 tacks from putting the tires on and checking ride height and I was dead in my tracks!!

 

This is why I keep a spare reel of wire sitting on my welder

 

cool truck, your original rearend is probably a 4:11, KEEP ON TRUCKIN

 

BAD ASS

 

I will next time.

 

Original 8 bolt rear end was 4.56.

The S-10 rear end was a 3.73.

 

First initial mockup last night. Have to go back to the drawing board.

I was hoping my notch would be sufficient, but it looks like I need a bit more room for the upper control arm to travel. The UCA is hitting the notch and the boards are 3-1/2" off the ground.









I have a little over 2" from the top of my frame hump to the bottom of the frame wood. I plan on having a local fab shop cut me some small step notch pieces out of 3/16" steel and I will weld it in place and cut out the center of my existing notch.

 

I spent last night trying to figure out a step notch.

Went through a couple variations by the time I felt comfortable I had enough metal to be strong enough.......and had enough clearance for the UCA and LCA as well as bag clearance.

Hope to take the templates to the fabricator in the next couple days.

 

Found this picture on Instagram. I think Henry needs blue wheels.

What do you think?

 

Not much forward progress lately.

The IRS is mocked up and tacked. I made some templates for a bigger notch and those are at the fab shop getting cut.

I spent about 6 hours in the car over the last couple days and most of it was spent thinking of where and how best to mount my compressors and air tanks. Spent a little time tonight mocking it up.

I plan on drilling some holes for my leader hoses to go through the cross member to the tank.

 

Not too much to report.....still waiting for my step notch parts from a local fab guy. Hopefully this week.

I did spend some time tonight mounting the torsion bar mounts. I cut them off the stock Thunderbird mounts and welding them to the frame.

 

Fab guy finally came though with my parts. I got a little bit of time last night and an hour this morning before work to get some stuff done.





I was able to get both outside pieces tacked in before having to go work.

 

My Grandpa had a 51 Chevy truck when I was a little kid, three on the tree. I remember him startin out in low gear, he would wind it up to about 6MPH and shift into high, never remember him using 2nd gear-ever. I did see him get it up to 40 one time, I guess it wasn't grandpa I got the need for speed from!

 

Made some great progress today. The step notch and top caps are installed. I was able to use a brake to bend the caps which I think look a lot better.





I actually bent both angles on the cap in one piece but screwed up the measurement so I was 1/2" long.





How I ended the day. I would say about 60% welded in. Hope to finish up the top side and get the bottom cut out on Friday!!

 

Coach,use epoxy primer then paint.Jimmie

 

Thanks Jimmie

 

Productive night in the garage.

I got the notches final welded (except for the bottom) and got the old portion of the frame cutout.





https://kustomcreations.smugmug.com/Other/Henry-20/i-WGQn5XG/0/M/_DSC5177-M.jpg

After that I did a test fit of the rear end. After some adjustments it slid right in.





Tomorrow I need to pick up some 2 x 2 x 3/16 tubing and I can final weld the rear end in.

 

I'm worried about the strength at the front of that c-notch. Will it get more reinforcement?

 

There will be a piece of 2 x 2 3/16 tubing spanning between the frame rails and tied to the front of the IRS crossmember. It will be plenty stoudt!!

 

Had another great afternoon in the garage. I picked up some 2" x 2" x 3/16 square tubing to span the frame rails on the front side of the cross member.

Installing that was the first order of business. After than it was final weld time, at least on the top side.

Took awhile, jumping around so as not to heat any area up to much, and paying attention to the duty cycle on the welder.

All said and done, this is what I got!!

















Goal tomorrow is to get my bag cup dimensions figured out for the back. Also want to flip the frame and final weld the bottom.

 

Not over done, packaged well, good symmetry. This is one of the nicest installs I have seen of these. Because of the inner framework, you have plenty of frame depth. I'm totally stealing your ideas down the road on my 54.

Keep up the good work coach!

 

Thanks. I looked at a ton of pictures of the installs leading up to this. That helped in execution.

If I was to do it again there's already a couple things I would change but mainly just to make it look a little more pleasing to the eye. Pretty normal I think seems like you always learn as you go.

 

Really busy weekend. Buttoned up most of the rear end install yesterday.

Today I assembled the front end enough to at least make the chassis a roller. It was nice to get it out of the shop and get a good cleaning done.



Rear end sits about perfect. Running boards are about 3/4" off the ground when laid out.



Front end still needs to go down about an inch. Set up right now is completely stock S-10 stuff. I was thinking I would need some drop spindles, but now I think I might be able to get by without.





Bumpers are just touching.....

 

I spent an hour in the garage tonight thinking about building air bag cups and mounts. Below is a picture of the suspension in full squish and at ride height.





The 7" bag really fills up the space. Looks like I will need to open up the notch a bit just to give me some room around the bag. Should have about 3/4" of clearance all around the bag after opening it up.





I am going to build some 3.5" cups, and hopefully give it a try in the next couple days.

 

Built some bag cups last night. Hope to spend some time tonight installing them with the bags......and possibly the first air up!!



The caps are not welded on yet. I may have to offset the cap to get the bags where I want them for clearance!!

 

This build is unbelievable great work!

 

Thank you