It was a Chevy truck rearend. Not sure what you mean by "what it was"..... They used the same rear from 55-62 in half ton pickups, it was not used in anything else. The earlier trucks used one that was similar but had a closed torque tube driveline instead of a U joint.
Not trying to high jack this thread, but does anyone know if the passenger car center section will fit the pickup housing?
I think they look kind of nice, with the round cover, etc. A friend likes them so much he put one in his early Chevy roadster, it works nice. One problem is the limited availability of gears....most were equipped with 3.90 which is a bit much even if you have overdrive no, it will not.
Hey, Squirrel... My truck has the original 4-speed (first gear is a 'granny'), and I want to replace it with an actual 4-speed from say, musclecar-era chevrolet. Do you have any idea what type would be the easiest swap? I just have about 350 horsepower coming out of the 350, so it doesnt have to be anything wild.
They're all about the same as far as the swap goes. The Saginaw and Muncie 20 and 21 and early T10 should work with the clutch you have, the M22 and later Super T10 will require a different clutch disk (26 spline instead of 10). YOu'll need to get a driveshaft made for any of them, find the right shifter, and figure out how to get it to clear the seat. There's a truck shifter handle for the Hurst shifters, kind of U shaped to fit around the bench seat if you still have it. You'll need to use longer bolts and nuts on the bottom two bolts that hold the trans to the bellhousing, as the trucks have these bolts thread in from the front.
Thank you! Ill get to looking. Not very impressed with the original...at all. I threw some 4 inch drop-springs on the front...aaaand it looks like I am gonna have to cut those bump stops down. Ill try to get some pictures up this weekend, it has a great stance. I've screwed around with a few things over the years, but this will be my first attempt at actually doing an entire vehicle the way I want. I appreciate your help!
Yes I do have the original bench...but it's completely rusted through on the drivers side so Im looking for another one. I really want to go retro on this and keep a bench seat, straight axle, standard-shift an all that good stuff. Just ordered 15/8 steel wheels from wheel vintiques, hoping to wrap them in some whitewall radials soon.
A different OPTION would be to swap to a 700R4 overdrive ( automatic ) transmission. The 4th gear ( OD ) has over a 30 per cent reduction built in. Your 3.90 would effectively be around 2.75. With the 3.06 1st gear ... and the 3.90 out back ... you would still have LOTS of low end power
Yep, 3.90 or 4.11, I have seen higher gear sets for that axle (3.38) but at those prices rear end swap is way more practical. I just did a 4" drop axle in front and flipped the rear. You must have a hell of a rake on that thing now.
So much awesome info, guys. Yes the rake is sick as all get-out. How does yours drive with the drop on the front? Ok or pain in the...?
Still feels like a straight axle truck but since I updated all the tie rod end and links to late model style stuff it works real good and handles nice for what it is, runs real straight for bias plys. I'm happy, I'm sure theres a lot of people who love their M2's and clips but that wasn't what I was wanting.
Yeah, I had to order new. This was a working farm truck...grandad's brothers had a few too back in the day, and we inherited all of the rims off them apparently. Theyre all beat to hell. Im thinking about going with a 225-75 front with a 235-75 rear.
This was last winter, the day before we installed the 350. It brought the front down considerably more, and what a rake! I managed to scrounge this picture up way back in my old emails. The paint (repaint) was about a 200 dollar jobber in 1978, faded pink. The original underneath was the orange-ish red from the factory. Thinking of wetsanding down a little here and there and try to go "patina" till I can afford an excellent paint job.
Those are just my stock factory wheels, with some L78-15 cokers. I'll sort all that out later, needed some rollers and didn't want to build the truck around a specific wheel/tire combo. At the ride height that's about the biggest tire that fits without issues
I have absolutely zero experience with bias-ply tires. I wouldnt even know where to begin. Those factory wheels look sharp!
The second series '55 Chevy pickup I used to have was originally a 6 cylinder 3 on the tree and came with a 4.11, previous owner swapped in a 283. It was geared too low, and when the rear end went bad I found a 3.90 and put in it which was only slightly better. I think the 3.38 gears came in trucks with automatics, and the majority of these trucks had 3 on the tree.
There are a lot of ways to deal with the gearing issue, if you plan on driving the truck on the highway much. If you're just going to drive around town, then it's not a big deal. Unless maybe you have a long freeway commute. You can swap in a later truck rear, or a car rear if you don't need to keep it 6 lug, or go with some type of overdrive, either an original 3 speed type or a T5 or an automatic or an A833 Mopar, or whatever you want or can find.
I dont imagine Ill be doing a lot of freeway driving...but who knows? Once the ol' girl is up and going I might get the itch to drive it all over the place!
Squirrel is right, make the wheel bolt pattern decision and go from there to decide what to swap, these rearends are tolerable but will leave you wanting more. Get it rollin see what you think. Bias ply tires same thing, I don't road it a lot (long trips) so no issue here,
Thanks, fellows. I need to brush up on bias-ply sizes and how the relate to radial sizes. I have no clue. I really...really really like the look of bias ply tires though!
First there were inch numbered tires, like 7.50-15 then there were letter/number sizes like G78-15 then there were metric sizes like 215/75B15 these are all about the same size tire, more or less. Notice the metric size looks like a radial size, but B means bias, R (much more common) means Radial. You can look up tire size conversion charts on the internet. They are all approximate.
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