Hot Rods My 31 wideBed pickup

I've been working on this little pickup for about 3 years now. It has been drivable for a while now I have been putting some miles on it her staying close to home working out some little problems and making adjustments while gaining confidence in it. I tried to stay pretty traditional with the build, except the transmission. I am tired of shifting gears in town where I plan to drive this truck a lot so I installed a 904 automatic transmission from a slant six mopar.

 

lookin good ,like the speed parts..

 

Cool, what are the heads?

Rich

 

that's pretty cool! Very similar to my 31 widebed as well.

Sent from my SM-G900T using H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Someone say truck?
I'm here

 

I only see one.....

 

I was drinkin'

Rich

 

Thanks for the compliments.

Rich the head is a remake of the original Riley 2 port. A guy named Charlie Yapp used to make them, he has since retired the Riley 2 port and now make a remake of the Robert Roof 4 port head. He makes a lot of cool speed parts for bangers. He has a website as well as a bimonthly magizine called secrets of speed society.

Hitchhiker your truck is awesome. I really appreciate your attention to detail keeping it so period correct. I tried to make mine appear as something that could have been built in the 40's with a major exception of the transmission, I wanted an automatic. I do not like shifting gears in town where I will be mostly driving this truck.

I belong to my local model a club here in town ( I am probably on average 25 30 years younger than most members ) and have attended meetings on and off for the last few years as I have been building this truck. Last night was the first night I drove it to our meeting not sure of what their reactions to the truck would be. I was very suprised of all the positive comments and compliments I received about the truck. I was assuming it would be a little bit like what happens to hot roders who have questions in posts on the fordbarn. But it was all positive,maybe any of the purists just kept quiet I don't know. Looking forward to attending some events with the club, and more importantly looking forward to driving this truck any time I have a chance.

 

Cool truck!

What's behind adapting the Mopar tranny?

 

Very cool!

 

HotrodA

Thanks for the compliment. To put the 904 behind the banger you need to use hydraulic brakes. That was not a concern for me as my truck had been converted when I bought it.

The kit comes with an adapter to mount the flex plate to the crank. And the adapter to mount between the engine and trans along with all the hardware. A guy in California makes them for the hill climbers. His name is Raul. Pm me if you want his contact info.

You also would either need split the wishbone or do as I chose to and build some sort of crossmember near the front of the transmission and fabricate a place to mount the ball of the wishbone. I chose this option because I did not want to split the wishbone as well as I used this same crossmember to mount the front part of the trans to. Whit this adapter you do away with the original model a rear engine mounting spots as they were ata he'd to the bell housing that is not used. I have some pictures of the dual purpose crossmember I fabricated if you are interested.

You will also need to fabricate some sort of rear crossmember for the rear end of the transmission shaft to mount.

Last but definitely not least is you will need to convert from a torque tube to an open drive shaft. In doing that I bought an adapter from hot rod works to change the original banjo rear end to an open style drive shaft. It works great. I also had a driveshaft made. And doing away with the torque tube I decided to use ladder bars on the rear. I can't see them because of the fenders. I killed 2 birds with one stone by tying the front of my ladder bars into the rear transmission mount crossmember I fabricated. I have some pictures of that as well if you are interested.

One you get it all hooked up you will need to also run a throttle valve pressure cable from the trans to your carb. This is crucial without it the trans could burn itself up. This is sort of like a kick down cable set up but is also controls the pressure inside the trans while driving according to how much throttle is being applied.

Other than that it is a piece of cake.

It really does seem to run very well and seems like it was made for it. I don't know how much of that is in having a little more umph than the standard 40 hp banger? I would do it again the only thing I wish was different was the adapter that joins the engine and transmission I wish it would have more of the outer shape that matched the original model a rear motor mounting spots as well as a place on the bottom to mount the wishbone ball that would be sweet.