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

Yea.......hopefully it sounds good.

 

Milestone night tonight. I bent some tubing and now Henry is running on his own fuel tank for the first time of this whole project.

Sorry....no pictures!!

Time for a drink!!! Whoohoo!!

 

Gotta love the milestones... and the celebration that accompanies them!

Damon

 

Up until this point I actually had the gas tank from my motorcycle bungy corded under the hood as a fuel source.

 

Not much new on the project. Just stacking up parts for when I have some time to get some stuff done.

My radiator from Gulfstream87 over at HAMB showed up this week.



I also received my dropped axle from Sid. Everything looks great. I got the whole meal deal from Sid. All new modern tie rods ends, drag link. New installed King Pins. Should be better than new.



I ordered my new U-Bolts online last night. Need to order some caster shims and I should be almost ready to go.

I need to go to the local junkyard and find some Chevy 5 bolt steel wheels with some rubber on them for rollers for now until I decided on what I am going to run.

Also need to find a rear end and figure out what I am going to do about a driveshaft. Probably end up with a 4 x 4 S-10 rear end.

 

This is great. Thanks for the updates and the awesome pictures!

Keep up the good work

 

Will do!!!!

 

The axle looks great. Glad to see you're also using the KBS Coatings paint, I've enjoyed its ease of use.

Damon

 

Thanks Damon. Sid did a great job with modifying the axle and steering arms. Dealing with him was painless and straight forward.

Cannot wait until I gte to assemble it all.

 

Some advice wanted incase Dropped axle/parts from Sid

Hey Coach can i ask you for som advice ?

I overhauled all new but stock last year , but think the stock truck wheelbase is to high and want to lower the total truck to give it better driving and handling . I am intrested to know what dropped axle you have chosen the 3 " or 4 " model , what about the rearend blocks from Sid ? You have the modern tie rod ends , drag link and new king pins. Did you had to ship all your parts to Sid and have them overhauled or whas the deal done in another way?
As i live in Norway i have to think about the shipping costs and wanna find the best way of doing this without to much extra expends !

Ìt would be great if you could make some photos from the dropped axle install later on , do you plan disc brakes or drum brakes in front ?

Thanks so much Martinius

I also received my dropped axle from Sid. Everything looks great. I got the whole meal deal from Sid. All new modern tie rods ends, drag link. New installed King Pins. Should be better than new.

 

Looks great!
Just gotta say that those cheap WalMart thumpity thumps that have two speakers in a cabinet fit right on top of the gas tank, and spew music up and around the gaps of the seat. Add some other speakers up front somewhere, and it's a good thing.
I'm sure that box you installed will make some cheeks flush with envy, however.

 

Hey Martinius,

I chose the 4" drop axle from Sid. I sent everything to him, had him modify it and send it all back to me.

I would suggest contacting him, maybe he has the parts in stock and can modify then and send them to you to eliminate having to send your stuff over here.

I will be posting up pictures as soon as I do the install. Hope to be working on it next week.

Regarding the rear axle, my truck is a 3600, so the axle is below the axle stock. I plan on doing an axle flip to lower the rear.

 

Dropped axle.

Thanks for your fast reply Coach , this is what i will do. I`ll contact Sid tomorrow and ask him what the best way is to deal with this. I could have him to send the parts to Salem OR where i have famely then have them taking the parts back to europe this coming september. I am very excited and look foreward to your thread on the dropped axle install photos.

Best wishes Martinius.

 

Sounds great. Sid is awesome to deal with......I highly recommend his services.

 

Ride Height

Martinus ;

Adding good quality Radial Truck tires , Bilstein HD gas shocks and a sway bar will make it handle very well indeed .

Please remember that it's a big old heavy bit of steel so unless you go wild like Russ did (watch his slalom videos) , there's a limit to what's reasonable to expect .

I had stock suspension on my '49 3100 and only upgraded to really high quality LT Radial tires and flogged it up and down the world famous Angeles Crest Highway (Ca, Rt. 2) with ease and no safety worries ~ yes all the sports cars passed me but that's fine , these are old trucks, not sports cars .

 

Despite water pump issues, we are still making forward progress.



Time to install the new Sid's lowered 1/2 ton axle.

Height reference picture!!



15 minutes and a grinder with a skinny wheel and the stock 3/4 ton axle was out.



The ultimate goal is a 5"-6" drop. The axle is 4" drop, so the remaining 2" of drop will come from tires and removing some leaves from the spring pack. To start I removed 2 from the bottom of the stack. The spring retainer bolt came out easy, but I replaced it anyway.



Today I need to round up a puller for the steering arm and start installing the new stuff!!

 

I didn't know you were convertingt to bucket seats.

 

Good one, Bill! Adjustable as well~

 

High quality buckets.....with a handle.

 

Looking great! My buddy had bucket seats in his 69 chevy he had in highschool. He didn't have them bolted down for a while, so we would take them out and watch him try to drive the 1 mile home Its not easy to drive a truck while trying to stand hunched over

Glad to see your progress