Chevy 3600 into a daily driver

I took some time this afternoon doing a pressure test on the cooling system. I cobbled together some pipe fittings and a pressure gauge.

Held pressure for well over and hour both with the motor hot and cold.

I changed the oil and filter 2 times and now it appears to be dried out......

 

Solid couple of days. My trailer fenders arrived to make rear wheel tubs. I cut them down with a skinny wheel with a guide. Would out great!





Installed



Patina'd





MC bench bled and bled the rest of the brakes.



List is getting shorter!!

 

Had a damn good productive weekend. Buttoned up a ton of little things that needed to be addressed.

Got the rear fenders hung. I had built some metal brackets on the frame for the box mounts. I have the box bolted down in a couple spots just top hold it in place. Looks like I got it mounted about an inch to far forward. That will need to be moved in order to get the fenders to match the old rust lines.

I still have an air leak out of the tank that needs to be addressed. From the bags to the manual switches is good though. It will hold for days without loosing PSI.

Snagged a PS pump last night out of a donor. Hopefully that gets mounted tonight. I was investigating my rack last night and found a kinked factory line on the rack and pinion. Not sure how the hell that happened. Bent to far to repair. I tried reshaping and re flaring it......but it is now to short.



Brakes are still a question. They work. Not really sure how to explain them. They seem spongy and week, but I know I do not have enough vacuum for the booster. I have a canister on the way. Hope that helps. Otherwise I will have to look in to an assist pump or go back to manual brakes.

Best part of the weekend.......back the bad boy out of the garage under his own power.

 

Let's see some action video

 

Click the bottom picture.

 

I can laugh about it now....but last night was a comedy of issues.

I set out to get the interior wiring finished. Get the gauges back in, column hung. I had some misc gauge wiring to do.

The truck fought me every step of the way. A lot of it was my errors. I put the gauges in first and then tried to hang the column. I could not get my hands up underneath to spin the nuts on the column bolts.



Finally I decided enough is enough and start the truck up to pull it back in the shop. I walk away and let it warm up for a minute and come back to oil all over the floor. Pulled the gauges back out. The oil pressure line looks good and is tight but leaks like crazy once the truck is started........another thing to add to the list!!

One positive is my 12 year old boy sealed up the bed wood with some boiled linseed oil. Turned out great!!

 

Bust week. Work is slow so I took most of the week off. Got the bed bolted down. Cab bolted down permanent.

Put the front clip on after we clearanced the inner fenders.



Fought with the brakes for a couple days before I discovered I had a bad prop valve. Contacted CPP and they said they would take care of me once I emailed them a receipt. Was hoping to get the truck down for a local car show tomorrow. No brakes means no pressure......hanging out in the shade......it is HOT.

 

Been tinkering on the truck as time allows. Got the under hood wiring all done and covered up. Hood is on and the front bumper as well.

Still have some gremlins to chase. Every once and awhile my fuel pressure drops to less than 3psi......last night it was at zero for an amount of time. Not long enough for the truck to shut off.....but I noticed it on the gauge. I am running a stock Mechanical Pump. Thinking either the pump is bad, or I have some junk plugging up the line in the stock tank.

I never got around to rebuilding my doors over the winter. The glass rattles like crazy.

Need to get some insulation and a rubber mat on the floor......this new exhaust is kind of loud.

Drove up the street last night, very slowly to at least snap a couple pictures. Nothing special, the lighting was horrible. I just wanted get a couple pictures out of the driveway. I did not even had time to give him a bath.........still bird **** on the hood from sitting up against the shed all winter......

Funny thing is I have never ridden in a truck with air bags. I think I had a notion in my head that it would ride like the truck was on clouds. No more rattles, just a nice smooth ride. Obviously it rides better than the old solid axle.......but the rattles and shakes are still there.

 

Finally got a chance to put some miles on yesterday.

Put about 20 miles on the old guy without any drama. Lots of thumbs up around town.









Like I said....no real drama. Still some punch list stuff to figure out.

Those of you who are following along on the 47-55 page on Facebook know all about this damn Danforth Crossmember. After spending some time chatting with Steve Szymanski, the owner of Industrial Chassis Inc it was pretty clear this may never work the way it is supposed to. With the current T Bird Rack I have a horrible turning radius, and no Ackerman Effect. Steve was amazing in the explanation of the theory behind the steering geometry and possible solutions. It was very clear he has a wealth of knowledge and was very willing to lend a hand with no monetary gain.

Possible solutions include finding a rack with more travel, but it is unlikely I will ever get the turning radius I am looking for. Ackerman will always be an issue. The best solution may be using an S-10 steering set up mated to a center steer rack and pinion set up. After some digging on the interweb I found the pictures below.







This setup (Found on Killbillet) is a Intrepid rack on S-10 chassis.

The last straw would be to hack this thing off and install a M2 or a Dodge Dakota Crossmember from Industrial Chassis.

 

Can you shorten the steering arms? That has been done with some success on Mopar rack conversions.

 

Looking into that now....

 

Where did you get the Bracket for the kickdown cable? I've got a th350 in my 57' and I have no way to make the cable stay in place.