I've wanted to do something from the 30's now for a while, this is gonna sit on paper and in my brain for a while, still ironing it out. its not tradional, its sorta a custom, its, well mine.. anyways. I need a truck to do truck things, I want a flatbed, I want a hotrod, I want room, I wanna lay frame. I want mpg(ish) I want reliablility. geezus this list is getting long.. So the idea is semi simple, take a long frame, and a 4 door sedan, either fab, or graft a truck back window behind the rear doors, push the front axle forward, and make a cool looking flatbed. voila quad cab flatbed hotrod.. Simple right? that being said, I want it low, but yeah, need to do truck stuff, so we know where this is going.. AIR! since were shooting for the stars here, can it ride ok too? yup it can. the rears easy, long control arms, and bags, with lots of travel, being as its more than likely going to be an 8' bed, lots of real estate for links. Front gets a little more interesting. Love the look of simple drop axle with radius rods, but yeah doesn't make for great handling.. for right now, I think I'm hovering over ford TTB's with long pivot distances, if I set it up right, should be able to keep this wheels from looking crooked and stupid with the air let out, and aired up, with some creative touches, could look like a regular drop axle for that nice look, that still leaves the question of where do the bags and shocks go, I'm leaving that one as my ace up the sleeve, gotta leave something to the imagination and surprise, right? only got that one half ironed out.. work in progress I guess. so now the time comes, what are we using for a starting point? I think a ford van might do the trick. not super sure yet, but since I also want a dually, I think an E250 van from the 70s, 80s might do the trick, reason for the only going to 3/4 ton, since the body I'm thinking about running is considerably narrower than most newer things, I'm going to need to narrow the track width, the idea is basically take dually wheels with there high offset mounted to a regular offset 8 lug spindle, thus moving the track width in 6" or so to keep the wheels from sticking out. still ironing that one out too. also it seems the e chassis frame is within a couple of inches of an s10 in width, so it COULD work. powertrain, It will have 8 holes, boring bellybutton off topic engine. feeding power through an equally boring transmission, and almost as boring axle, with a locker or limited slip. So that's it.. Take what ever I can get my greasy mitts on, and make it do what I want and be sorta fast.. so what do y'all think?
Would not the high offset wheels place too much strain on the wheel bearings? This built is not a traditional build in any way, not really what this site is about, even if you are starting with a 30's body.
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