Projects 1950 3100 Truck Project

Alright, so its been a while and I seem to have gotten most of the bugs worked out, finally got rid of the lifter noise, just had to adjust them a little more. The knock in the front end was loose wheel bearings, I guess I didnt tighten then enough before I put in the cotter pin. I have driven it quite a bit and it runs cool, but still hasnt gotten above 85 or so here so we'll see what it does in the summer. I am short on time these days, got another kid due in a month, but it is
so nice that I can just jump in and fire it up and take it for a cruise, the other odds and ends can wait.

So I am planning something else....while cleaning up out at our ranch I found an old door glass..

My grandpa owned a Chevrolet dealer in the Bandera Tx where I live in back in the early sixties. This glass, according to a guy who ended up with it in his barn, was in the door going from the showroom into the service dept. I dont know how he ended up with it but at somepoint he gave it to my aunt who put it up at the ranch. Anyway, I found it and am in the process of getting it framed. Going to hang it in my garage or up at the ranch if the family protests.

I had the idea to paint my truck doors with the dealer name (as it is my last name) and I even found out the old phone number SW 6-3961. To top it off I also have an old license plate frame from the dealer that I will put on and an old jacket patch that I thought I might sew into the sunvisor or somewhere in the interior. So when its all said and done it'll be a recreation of a possible shop truck they might have used at my grandpa's dealer back in the day.......I know people do this stuff all the time, but rarely is it based on an actual business, let alone an old family business....I think it will be a cool tribute to my grandfather.....

The only thing I worry about is if there are any oldtimers around that my grandpa might have pissed off, I wouldnt want get chased down and bitched out, haha!!

Anyone good at photoshop or whatever wanna give me some ideas that would be awesome!

 

Very cool! That worked out awesome. Not many can tie their classic rides to their family name so well.

I think I saw your truck, and possibly you and your daughter, at the Bandera Swap last Saturday. Truck looks really good, well done.
I bet you were jealous of that '57 Chevy Camaro also in the lot, LOL. Just kidding.
Congrats on the next Adams-in-progress!
Take care.

 

Yep that was me, and no my shirt wasnt wet, it was all drool from looking through that guys photo album of fiberglass atrocities he called "easyrods" or something like that. I was trying to be nice cause the dudes just trying to make a buck but DAMN that thing was ugly as hell....

Anyway, thanks! Hey hot rod night Apr 25....

 

I cannot see any images in the beginning of your build thread , I even made a account at image shack thinking it woul allow me to see pictures, Is there a way for me to see the images? I am looking into upgrading my front suspention on my F-100 that has a chevy 350/350 and I think a clip like you have on your truck my be a good way to go, I am trying to decide weather to go with El Polako's Dakota set up or a camaro or nova subframe, I have to make a decision and get it started soon. I am over the stk straight axle and the bumpsteer issues involved once lowered. Your images would be a help in making up my mind....

 

Yea ever since the switch I lost them all, dont know if it had anything to do with the switch or if they expired or whatever on imageshack....started loading them back up but got lazy, I'll work on it....

 

Nice that you can include some of the family history into your truck. Good way to remember and also pass it on down the line. Glad to see you are out enjoying your truck.

 

Went to Round-up Sat but couldn't take the truck. Got a cool good ornament though.. Then went for a drive Sunday...first time I have driven it in temps above seventy..was 88 and it still hung around 200...however it was miserable with all that hot air coming in from the shifter hole so had to fab up a cover...now just need to put a nice mat down..no carpet for this truck...

 

Got lucky this weekend...was going to hot rod night Saturday and had a wheel bearing try and lock up going about 80 on the highway..damn near yanked me off the road....Got so hot the rotor is permanently part of the spindle.... kept hearing noise prior to shit hitting the fan but there was a rowdy challenger on drag slicks 2 cars in front of me for 20 miles all the way to the highway and I thought that's what I was hearing...

Funny thing is I had recently tightend them up to get rid of the knocking created by them being loose...guess sometimes we learn about our screwups the hard way...coulda been worse...it happend about 2 miles from the dealership I work at..limped it in and got parts coming...dang hard to find a 74 camaro spindle...

 

Tuff break, glad everyone was OK...Jim

 

That sucks, but sounds like it could have been a lot worse. Glad nobody got hurt!

 

BTW, the broken chunk of rotor is from trying to get it off with a puller. Then torched it and beat on it some more and still wouldnt budge. Found a salvage yard that is going to ship me a spindle and got new bearings/seals for both sides and 1 rotor for the pass side.

 

Man that sucks, glad it didn't turn out worse though. By the way, it was great getting to meet you at the Round Up!

 

Yea, we talked about all the ways that could have gone down and on the way to the shop in the middle of a nice day by myself with no other cars on the highway was the best case scenario for sure.

And yea, you too man. We only stayed a couple hours, but it'll be cool when we can make a weekend out of it and hang out a bit as opposed to just rushing through everything. Maybe next year....

 

Dang! Glad that wasn't worse.
I guess this is a wake-up call for me. My '65 vette has the outer race welded to the spindle on the passenger's side. After trying all of the tricks you have (save for breaking the rotor), I was just going to pack as much grease as I could and reset the nut. I guess that's out now. And you thought Camaro spindles were hard to find (for a good price that is).

This also worries me as the No Limit Engineering IFS I put in my '56 uses Camaro spindles, and I thought those were super common.

 

I had just assumed you could pick those up new, but Napa, oriellys and rock auto had nothing so I had to go used..found a couple on eBay but too pricey..called a couple salvage yards and got hooked up with SouthSide autoparts. They didn't have it but found one in their network...should have it tomorrow...I imagine a vette spindle would be less common...

 

I am surprised that it wasn't available as a remanufactured unit. I was kind of counting on these parts to be readily available when I decided to use that IFS.
There is a puller that's arms secure under the lug nuts on the studs. It's for 4 x 4s, so I'm going to try to rent one from an Off Road place as they cost over $200.
We didn't make it to Soda Pops as we had celebrated Mother's Day early due to my wife having a back surgery on Monday. Hopefully we'll catch you there next time.

 

Man what a clusterfuck. So cant get the rotor off the spindle as stated above. Found a spindle used, but about 35 miles from me. Send my parts driver to get it, she gets it back to me and get it cleaned up and painted. Order new rotor and bearings for both sides. Get dr side done, get pass spindle installed and put on the rotor. Find the outer bearing is too small for the spindle. Find out that the spindle is the same from 70 to 81, but from 77 up the diameter of the outer bearing is bigger. So I call up napa and get the right bearing. Bearing wont fit into the outer race on the rotor. Call up napa and get the later model rotor. Get it all assembled, go to put the caliper on and find the caliper mount bracket on the spindle is bent. Tried to straighten it out, got it straight but did the ol' "needs just a little more" and broke it off the spindle. Drive all the way back to the junk yard, they dont have another one so I leave and 1 hr later they call me and said they find one. So I drove all the way back down the and get another used spindle and find it is the smaller diameter. I had already cleaned all the grease out of the first one and repacked it and exchanged it with napa, so I now had to clean this one out and exchange it back for the first one I had.

It still isnt back together yet almost 2 weeks later, but hopefully tonight or tommorow.....old cars are fun huh?...

 

Dang man... that's freakin' rough. Sorry to hear about the bad luck.


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Yeah, wow. That's a lot of running around. Hope it comes together soon.

 

Sorry, didnt see this when I was whining yesterday....There were dropped spindles all over the place, and I found some stock height spindles for other models but the pics were different. I would have just bought the dropped spindles for both sides but with the camarp clip its already wide and rubs on hard turns on the edge off the tire if I hit a bump at the same time so I knew another 2 inches would be a problem..(thats what she said).....I could have sworn I saw stock spindles new in places when I first bought my front end stuff but when I went back to those sites there was nothing.
Anyway should be back on the road today....Next Soda's is the 5/16 but my wife is due with #2 around that time so I wont get out for a while...

 

I guess that's a decent excuse not to show up.
Just kidding, I hope all goes well, and easy labor for her for sure.

You can see in my avatar that lowering spindles could be an issue for me as well.
Take care and be well.

 

Actually in the hospital right now...baby is a week early...

 

Good luck with the new baby, hope everything goes well!!!!!!!

 

How's the new little monster?

 

congrats man!

 

Got Back home Sunday...so far so good...having some trouble getting his sleep schedule right. I feel kinda worthless right now as there not really much I can do but me and Lily have spent a lot of time together so that's cool.

Anyway have all week off so hope to get seatbelts installed. Finally got the front end thing done but haven't been back to work to get the truck since I left in a hurry Thursday mid day...hope to get it tomorrow if the weather co-ops.

 

Congrats! Hoping the a normal routine comes quickly for you all.

 

...you could've re-clipped it by now,..jus kiddin, hope you get it back together for lots of trouble-free miles.

 

Got seat belts installed. Actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Of course I had to have a problem though, the lap belts are too short to come through the seat far enough to use them. Found some 6" extension brackets online so hopefully that will fix my issue.




Also got my cowl vent all set up and working, that is cool as hell. Really makes driving it more comfortable as it brings in a ton of air...

 

Good to hear the seatbelt installation wasn't too bad. I'm looking to do this before I get my gas tank back in, and I'm hoping the gas filler tube doesn't interfere with the seatbelt retracting, etc. My belts were taken from a 70s Ford pickup years ago, and I'm hoping to finally put them to use.