ok guys you got about 1 hour... this is the mock up (chip board built) gauge pod i designed. its to go in place of the non existing radio with the 2 toggle switches on either side were the og knobs would be (hopefully later covered w/ lucite knobs or vintage radio knobs), this in no way cuts or drills into the dash (which i like that) and the on/off for the air compressor can be on the bottom flap of the pod centered on the gauge. ignore the sharpie pin-strips, plan is to paint the pod gloss black and pin-stripe it green and ivory (with an upside down composition to what i did, heavy on top thin on the bottom pin-striping). i know, i know i too wish the gauge was black faced but they are always sold-out of those. so any thoughts before i make it out of metal? ima have lunch then jump on it so if you got something speak now or forever hold your peace. thanks, Yaril
That's gonna look good when your done(the whole truck I mean). I love the 47-54 Chevy's & GMC's. I gotta few i'm building to sale myself right now.
just wanted to add 1 more thing i thought about doing... ill try and hinge the original radio block off plate on the bottom to hide the goofy air gauge when not in use.
Hey Tyler, where's the square back? I saw your Buick at billetproof and loved it. There are a few shots of it on our Salvagerz website. I see you met my friend Bill down at the Lauderdale VW show. Mr Clean! Love the GMC's progress. I'm still working on my 51 suburban. You brought up a good point with a mono leaf and bags. I used a 4'' drop leaf conversion, bags, and 4'' blocks and couldn't get the running board down enough.
man that is a slick looking truck. i wanna kick my brother in the *** everyday for getting rid of his very clean 52 5 window chevy. how much did you chop yours? looks perfect, just enough to stay subtle. love the orange as well.
the squareback is where it should be here at my house. built the gauge pod. its actually leftover sheet metal from when i cut off the roof on my squareback to install the sliding rag top. after the mock up this was pretty straight forward... heres the metal i used with the template transfered ready to cut: drilled the gauge hole with a 2" hole cutter and cut the sheet metal with my 4" grinder, clamped it over some angle iron and flat stock and bent it / hammered it into shape: tried my best to not burn the paint on the other side of the radio delete plate but with the mig i couldnt control it as i wanted, got a couple paint burns on the other side. here you see the hinge welded on, only had to grind down the lip on the delete plate to make things work: almost final product, i just painted the pod gloss black and i also drilled on the bottom center for the on/off compressor toggle switch which is also black. the front and rear switches will go on the two blank ****ons, i am ordering (too much work to make for a client) green Lucite knobs that i will slip over the 2 toggle switches. best thing is that you can close the delete plate and delete the "modern" stuff. hope yall likes it. i did this today cause i am waiting on a cherry picker to continue with the mustang II front end install. Yaril
a 72 monte carlo i heard is very well. hey Tyler.....do you have a shop or you do this on the side? i'm looking for a competent shop and can't seem to find one.......i'm in miami as well.
what do you do when your waiting for a cherry picker and cant work on the truck? now for an intermission... bike build: me and my best friend Jorge had been throwing the idea of building a bicycle for some time now. i found enough frames to get us started; so today we spent a few hours cutting and welding a couple of frames and in less than 5 hours we designed and built our rolling frame! plans are to ride the bike on our next meet immediately followed by tearing it down for cleaning all the welds and prepping it for paint. then 1 more meet to build it back up with all the painted and polished parts. the goal was to built the lowest possible bike. as it sits now the frame is on the floor, so only the tires will raise it an inch or so, plus we plan to do a leaf spring front end to bring it back down to about 1/2" clearance (with the riders weight). enough babel, here are some pics... this frame my buddy gave me for free: this frame is from the same buddy also for free, its a real Schwinn frame but it had a couple bent tubes on it: some laying out, using the edge of the concrete slab as the scrub line: a little cutting and reconfiguring: a standing mock up with me sitting on it, sort off: so here is what we are left with: the pedal crank is planned to go on the end of the cantilevered bars hopefully. when we put the seat on it we will check for comfort? then weld in the cranks. we are really pleased with the overall look of the bike and cant wait to finish it off. the top tube still needs to be completed to meet the "S" seat tube and other areas still need attention, but we will knock all that out on our next meet. thanks! Yaril now we return you to your regularly scheduled program...
hahaha, guess no body liked my bike side project. now for an update... was waiting for my friend, but he took too long so i went ahead and pulled the motor out myself. then i had him cut all the bolts that hold the bed in place (they were too rusty). so then we got the bed off. removed all the brake lines and cleaned some gunk of the ch***is. oh, almost forgot also put the front leaf spring shackles on the rear leaf springs they are about 1" shorter and its FREE. some pics... some questions... can i remove the brace on the rear ch***is that looks like is there to hold the spare tire? can i see some pics of rear airbag setups? i see that most people are laying running boards with only "pipe" notches into the ch***is and stock bed floors, so obviously the bags will need to be in front or behind the axles. thanks! Yaril
actually i kinda liked the bike project. i'd like to see a pic of a boxed frame for this truck if anyone has one. i have a few links to airbag setups. i'll se if i can pull them up.
Tyler, I dig the bike and the flower car you got sitting there. As for your question of removing the rear brace where the spare goes, yes and no. You can remove it but you need to replace it farther back towards the rear of the frame. I didn't move mine for my bags and I ran my bags in front of the axle. I don't have pics with me right now but I could post them this afternoon. I fabricated bag mounts to bolt under and out from the leaf spring bottom plate, then attached the top bag mount to the side of frame. You need to box and c notch this part of the frame to add strength and give you some mounting points. The only thing I did with the rear brace was notched it out for my rear mount gas tank and I still added a brace in the rear of the frame for strength. You may have to cut the main cross member for drive shaft clearance. If you plan on going to Mr Clean's Memorial Day VW party next month I will be there with my burban. It's mostly round like a VW.LOL.
thanks for the tips! i would love to see some pics of that. so you got the original motor / drivetrain? and are riding on how many leafs? i most likely wont be at the Memorial Day Party, i tend to rather work while i got work. thanks!
I'm runnin the 4'' drop leafs only because it is a suburban and I plan on using it as a truck plus hauling the wife and kid, coolers, tool box.... More weight than I want to put on a mono leaf. The stock drive train is gone. I have a sbc 700 r4 and a ford 9'' rear. CPP has the mono leafs and move the rear 2'' back to re center the tire in the fender. They have 4'' and 6'' drop mono leafs. I have a 28'' tall tire in the rear and 4'' lowering block and with it aired out the running board is 4'' off the ground. You may want the 6'' drop leaf to get it down further. I'm still working on it right now, almost done, just have to set my pinion angle and attach my front shock mounts. I'll try and load the pics.
wow, great pics. cant tell cause the bags in the way but what size lowering blocks did you use? i know mine will be different and from what i have read on truck forums 27" tires are as tall as you can go to lay running boards cause they hit the tops of the fenders. so a ford 9", could you tell me what car that came out of? my guy is looking for a rear end right now and hasnt had any luck. thanks again.
I think it was out of a 60's ford falcon wagon. I played hell trying to find bearings and an axle to match what I had. The width was 56'' from backing plate to backing plate if I remember right. I can measure it today for you if you want. As for the lowering blocks they are 4''. Kerry
some progress, mocking up: welded in the "boxing" on the front end and tack welded the cross member where it needs to be and the top hats. bolted everything together to see just how low it will be. hope i am clear with this... the bottom of the running board supports are 13" off the ground (trucks on jack stands obviously) the actual running board bottom is 1/2" higher or so. the center of the spindle when fully raised (slammed) is 26-1/2"; so 26-1/2" minus the 13" = 13-1/2" times 2 = 27" tires to lay running board supports on the ground. that sounds correct. i checked the suspension travel with and without the airbag, its the same. it seems that the balljoint has no more travel, causing the suspension to stop. there are about 5" of travel from full slam to raised, again the balljoint seems to bind stopping the travel. i have set the upper control arms "in" towards the motor on the adjustable slots, this gave me 1-1/2" or so more drop than with them all the way "out". so, 205/75R15 tires are about 27". any suggestions before i go in and fully weld everything? Yaril
well, tomorrow i will finish welding the MII front end. in the mean time i "screwed up" the "holey" firewall. still got the larger holes to fill but i knocked out all the small and medium ones out today thanks to some screws and washers with small eyes. ground them smooth, tomorrow i will also finish the larger holes and grind those smooth. goal is to have only the required minimum holes on the firewall to run the essentials. anyone know the paint code for this color green? holey: screwed: smoother: thanks!
well i finished filling in about 54 holes on the firewall, filled, grounded, de-greased and primed. also welded up the front end. came out nice, just got some weld splatter cleaning to do and its good. gonna get ready to paint the ch***is after the V-8 motor mounts go in. im thinking semi-gloss black. pics... thanks! Yaril any tips / advice / comments are welcomed!
thanks guys^^^ can i get some examples of "affordable" 2-link set-ups? that would be the least costly way to go, i can support at the ch***is and then u-bolt it to the rear end, put the bags on the 2-links for better leverage and simply pipe notch the ch***is. thanks! Yaril
Great work man! Its coming along nicely. I think the 27'' tire up front is the way you wanna go. I can't prove this because mine is a nova/camaro clip but I am running the same tire. I could go smaller but I would have to make bump stops so the fenders wouldn't get crushed. Mock up something using that tire width and check the clearance lock to lock on your fenders. I had to raise mine way up to clear for driving but I also have a wider track.
thanks kerry! you know dont count on it, but i may just head up with my friend to that party. see ya there, maybe? not much picture worthy updates today. the rear end that ill be using is now cleaned off all brackets and mocked in place (ill be going with a simple 2-link system now). began to remove the wood floor in the bed. did the c-notches for the rack and pinion which are now waiting to be welded and got the firewall much smoother with a skim coat of filler, some sanding and some primer: thanks, Yaril
so i mocked the front suspension back on the truck and mocked the rear suspension. the rear end is hitting the ch***is so obviously a notch is needed, that will allow for the rear running boards to come down the 3-1/2" to meet the floor. mocked on the front clip (fenders / grill) and the bed to locate the tires in the wheel wells properly (i think im on the money). the tires measure 25.5" tall, the plan is to run 27" on the rear thats 1.5" more, divided by 2 = .75"; that means the rear running boards will need to come down .75" more than what i see. so ill be notching it now after lunch. the front will need to run no more than 26" tall tires. hope yall likes it: im thrilled that the inner fender wells clear the upper A-arms, looks like i wont need to trim them to fit. thanks! Yaril
Livin' the dream! Building hot rods in the Florida sunshine! The truck is looking really good. You accomplished in 3 weeks what took me at least a year...
The Jalopy Journal
