Was able to sneak away to Iowa a few weeks ago. Got to see the '52 and the progress that's been made. In case anyone is wondering, it's a 9" Ford rear with the Versailles disc brakes, Chassis Engineering suspension kit. The floorpan and firewall were fabbed up by the bodyman. The frame is boxed as well, tho the pics don't show it. The IFS is also Chassis Engineering and the engine is a 5.3L Chevy engine. I was a little disappointed...I didn't take very many pics, I have no idea what I was thinking! Andy
It's off to a good start. You should ask the shop to take pictures for you and e-mail them to you every week or so. That way you'll get to keep up with the progress and it might motivate them to keep plugging along. I had my truck painted at a little shop with only 3 or 4 employees. Looked like they had 5+ projects going on. Some were clearly on the back burner with nothing done on them the 2 months my truck was there.
Well, my father is close by the shop. And while he does have a digital camera, he hasn't quite gotten the idea of sending digital pics on email. So I get lots of hard copies...and without a scanner, well, that's why I had to take the pics and post them myself. So I do in fact have a stack of photos for the photo album. This shop is really a one man show. He could have finished the truck in about a month had I turned him loose with my checkbook. But instead he's been good about working with me in stages. He understands financing a large (for my checkbook) project takes a little time and he's been extremely workable. I took my 1969 Impala to him a few weeks back for some minor items. The last body shop I had tackle a few small items the car was theirs for almost 6 months. I spoke with him today and he's done in three weeks...and I'm sure the quality is way above the last place... Andy
5.3 engine location Andy, It appears the stock plastic fan is inside the radiator support. Does the radiator fit in there? I had planned on a 4.3v6/700r4 combo in my s10-framed 53, but the donor drivetrain is questionable. The new plan is a 5.3(aluminum block)/4L60e combo like yours, stock serpentine setup, plastic fan and all. Keep us posted. Thanks, Mike Wilton NH
Mike, Well, yes in this case the fan is inside the radiator support...but that's because the radiator support is leaning on the engine at the time of the pic. Depending on how you situate the engine in the truck will dictate if you can use the plastic fan. Some engine mount kits move the engine quite a bit forward, you can kinda see my firewall has been modified. The Chassis Engineering IFS (and engine mounts) moved the engine back just a little. The bigger issue is with the location vertically of the fan/engine. If you use a stock type radiator and the location of the engine using mounts normally included with an IFS kit the engine will be located too low to effectively use the stock fan setup. So you could raise the engine up, but I figure that would cause even more problems. I'll more than likely be removing the stock fan and just using a simple electric fan setup. I'm going with a Griffin Radiator (as they look just like stock) and Griffin will supply a mounted fan and shroud. So there's no brackets sticking thru the fins of the radiator. I've also had some problems with late model fan clutches, so I'll be happy to pitch that in the garbage (sweet revenge for my g/f's Envoy fan clutch issues). Other issues...exhaust manifolds. Factory truck ones won't work (they exit slightly to the outside of the truck and interfere with the frame). Try Camaro LS-1 manifolds (rear dump). I'll be using blockhugger headers (tho I'd rather long tube, but obviously no one makes them for this chassis) and I'll let you know how that turns out. A/C compressor. Mounted low so it can interfere with the IFS setup (it did on this one). Took a few hours of fabwork to get around that. Raising the engine up would have allowed access to it, but then you'd have floorpan issues, and I wanted that to stay as minimal as possible. Reading your post you may not have as many issues as I did...since you have the S-10 frame. But these are things to keep in mind anyway. Will you be using the electronic throttle or cable actuated ('03 and up had electronic I believe). A final word of advice...watch the mounting for the 4L60E...they take a strange rear mount (read pricey). If you could grab one from the junkyard that would save $150! I just thought that was funny when piecing mine together. Hopefully over next winter I'll have more info on the electronics and wiring. I'm going with a painless wiring kit (easier to eliminate much of the emissions stuff that is unneeded for our vehicles and way easier to get...factory harness is hard to get in one piece from a donor vehicle.) Once all is up and running I'm hoping to do some performance upgrades...I really want this to be a toy while being a 100% daily driver. A fellow I met at a car show had a similar setup. 26 mpg on the highway at 70 with it. I was impressed. Hopefully not bad for an engine I paid $500 for.... Andy
A mere 12 months until I get to start wiring and finishing installing little stuff...Funny enough, at least its past that point where you sit back, look at it, scratch your head and quietly wonder to yourself, "What the hell did I do?" (Usually right after there is no possible way to put the truck back on the road.) Slowly making progress... Andy
