1949 Chevy 3600......making it a daily driver!!

Busy weekend with family and kid obligations, but I did manage a couple hours in the garage.

I was pretty nervous about the steering set up before I even started. The input shaft of the rack was aimed right at my drivers side motor mount.



The headers I am running gave me a couple good sized openings to get through.



When it was all said and done it was not as big of a deal as I had dreaded in the first place. I modified the motor mount a bit so the bolt hole was closer to the block. This required extending the mount a couple inches and cutting the biscuit. Once I did this it allowed the clearance I needed.







I mocked it up with a piece of dowl rod and it works great. Now I am going to pull the motor and weld up the modified motor mount and paint the area. Once that is done hopefully the motor will go in to stay.

New parts are arriving daily.

New rear calipers for the Ford 8.8.



CPP Firewall mounted Brake Booster.

 

Man, Coach, this is cool!!!
I like those big long, out-the-fenderwell, headers.
The above shot photo with the faded blue cab and the bright newly painted orange engine is really cool.
I like the way your going at this truck, with the faded original paint. The old feed stickers on the tailgate. But, all the really cool mods, lurking underneath.
I've followed alot of projects, but, this is one of my favorites.

Steve.

 

Thanks Steve. Slowly but surely moving forward.

 

I had a breakthrough couple hours in the shop and ended on a positive note.

Tonight was all about shock mounting..........but had to clear the headers. I kept thinking about straightening out the shock a bit, rather than leaning it back towards the frame. I took some 2" flat and bent it up and put a quick gusset on side to brace it and tacked it on the frame.





First I bolted the shock to the side of the LCA but I was not happy with the minimal clearance. I then made a quick mounting tab and tack it to the LCA and that gives me almost 2" of clearance when the spindle is on the stop. I might bump the bottom of the shock out towards the ball joint another inch or so.



I plan to gusset the other side of the mount as well as build another mounting tab on the LCA.

 

Hey, any chance you get to do some more welding, right?
So what's the punch list look like now, to get this thing on the road to see how all that handles?
(Great photos as always!)

 

Current punch list. I am sure I am missing some stuff.....

 

Mike. You done yet?

 

Quiet Saturday, which almost happens.

Wife went to an auction with our youngest, and the oldest was away at some training for work. That only left me and my 12 year old at home and he was preoccupied with some homework. Only dad in the garage.......PERFECT!!

Picked up some steel and went to work.

The beginning of a column support.....



20 minutes later



I did not think the dowel rod was going to hold up long term....so it was replaced with some 3/4" rolled steel bar.



Pinned with roll pins and started welding.



Motor back out and the modified motor mount was final welded, as well as the shock mounts.



After all that.........it got a coat of paint.....

 

Awesome build Mike
Talk about a one off truck
Amazing welds for not being a professional welder but I think you are now thanks for the pictures as well

 

End of another weekend. Today was a shop cleaning day, but I did end up getting all the painted suspension parts back on Henry, as well as get the motor and tranny back into place.

I never did show a picture of the painted column support.



Bolted the headers on while air out......which brought up another obstacle.



Looks like I will need to get creative with the exhaust. I had plans if running right below the frame and exiting out wither the running board or the fender in front of the rear wheel.



Plan right now is to get a 2-1/2" dia ,mandrel bent 45 degree and cut the flange off the collector. If I can get it that welded in parallel to the ground and pointing towards the inside of the truck slightly I should be able to make it work.

 

thanks for the props.....but far from a pro.

 

Good morning. I have a thought on your header issue. If you think about how a round duct- (or woodstove-) elbow works, each segment rotates. Since you are going to have to cut the collector off anyway, if you were to cut it at a 20-degree angle, you'd be able to rotate it and end up with a 40-degree turn (and so on).
Just a thought. Awesome work, keep the pictures coming!

 

Definitely some potential with that idea.......

 

Busy day....but no photo's to show for it.

• All air lines ran
• rear brakes lines ran
• CPP Brake Booster and MC mounted

 

Kind of feels like the movie "Ground Hogs Day" with Bill Murray. Seems like I work on it every weekend....but the list never gets smaller......

 

Someday...

 

Your making tons of progress on this end of the screen
You have done more work ( custom) work at that than I've done in two years since I blew my truck apart
I'm starting to put my truck back together just to get it in one piece again
If I build mine the way I really want it to be . it will always be a pile of parts
So step back and really look at the amazing fabrication you have done.
And thanks for the extra time in making it possible for us to see your step by step build .
Robert

 

Thanks for the input. I am going top put as much time as I can this weekend and then take a step back for a little bit.

Not sure I have mentioned it, but my wife has a small store that sells refurbished/ reclaimed furniture. One of my other hobbies.

I will build a couple pieces of furniture to clear my mind.

 

Not a huge amount of progress this weekend, but I did have the camera out for some other stuff so I snapped some pictures.

The CPP mounted up great. Pretty happy with the quality after I got it in. I tried to put it in without removing the gauges, but it was a big struggle. Took the gauges out and 15 minutes later it was in place with 5 minutes worth of help from my oldest son.



I thought the unit would come with a brake switch. It did not......so I am debating on making a bracket for a stock brake light switch (Which is brand new) or spending the cash on a pressure switch.

I am not sure why.....but I really hate bending, cutting, reaming......flaring brake lines..........I guess I just really hate doing brakes......



Motor is slowly going together. Maybe a start up in the next week.



Having a heck of a time with one of the rear knuckles/ hubs on the IRS set up. Once torqued the bearing has a ton of drag. After pulling it and reinstalling it a couple times and having the same result, I swapped it with the other side today to make sure the problem was the bearing. Same result on the other side. New bearing is junk. I need to pick one up and reinstall.





That is it for today.



Hopefully this week I can get the bed on since the brake lines and air line are ran.

 

I've been watching your progress like everyone else, and all your work is really top notch! I just hadn't commented before... I do, however , like doing the double flare brake lines.