My Stylish Parts Hauler project

Trying to nail down a wheelbase. If I have two feet of bed in front of the rear fender, my wheelbase will be 149". Is that too long?

The gray truck looks like it has one foot ahead of the rear fender....137" with my cab dimensions.

Based on my guess, this is a six foot bed. Would a 8 ft bed be too much?

 

I think I would have been in trouble if I had built big ass step notches. Putting bags under the frame with this deeper drop axle, is a significant drop over stock seagrave. Aired up, it should sit pretty good.

 

I don't know. If I go to a shorter front tire and do notches, I could set this thing on down. This is frame sitting on the axle. Fender is sitting on a 37" tire.

 

That could do with a bit more rear overhang.

 

Cancel that. The motor is too tall to fit in a "stupid low" chassis. Part of it has to hang below the framerails if I run a hood.

 

The though of building a truck height truck just feels wrong. This is a 32" tire and a seagrave firetruck fender at ride height and aired out. It almost looks like skinny wheels on a hot rod.

 

Nope. This won't work this would require a huge step. This is just gonna have to be a big ole truck.

 

How about using a 19.5 truck wheel? They should be somewhere in between

I have 16" dually wheels on my COE and the fronts look kinda small in the wheel opening

 

I understand why you don't see cummins 8.3 motors in anything but dump trucks and motor homes. They are too damn tall. From bottom of oil pan to the air intake tube it looks around 43" tall (kinda hard to measure cause it slopes downward). The Allison 3060 trans sump hangs down several more inches more. 4 feet tall overall?

Kinda hard to fit that in something sleek and sexy.

Looks like I'm stuck building something dump truck size. I could slice and dice the body to sit lower, but it might mean a foot of ugly motor poking through the hood and a monstrous trans tunnel in the cab.

 

I think I'm just not going to be able to make it sit like a hot rod no mater what. The free big diesel is just too big. I'm gonna have to build it with a work truck stance to let some of the motor hang down. Trying to stuff the axle higher is the exact wrong thing to do.

 

That is a monster! Are you firm on that engine choice?

 

I think so. I inherited the donor RV from my uncle. If I can get it sorted out, I think it will be cool. ....even if it is way taller than what the cool kids drive.

 

I found this 1957 ford dash at the Redneck Rumble. It will be the basis for my new dash. Right now, I thinking of shaving the bubble off of it and making it taller through the flat vertical section. I do plan on keeping the recesses for the switches.

Earl sheib had the diesel gauge cluster. I'm gonna try and work the gauges in somehow.

 

Ok. Fender fit/ride height mock up pics with probably what will be the front tire size. 255/70/22.5 on some old alcoas. First pic is resting on the fender (4.5" at rear).


The next pic is fender on two 2x4 plocks(7.5" off of the ground). Actual ride hight would probably be 10 or so inches off of the ground.

Is 10 inches off of the ground to be one of the cool kids? My 48 flatbed is 3.5" at the rear of the front fender. 10" seems 4x4 height.

 

Now for the crazy part. Frame height at the two 2x4 height is 24" to the top of the frame based on the fender notch.

Raised up to top of tire at the top of the opening is 4 inches higher.


I can get to this ride height with no step notch at all. At most it looks like I might end up with 2-3 inch pocket for the bags to be at their mid-point at ride height.

All of this worrying about not being able to fit the engine under the hood is completely a non issue with these tires at a "sensible" ride height.

The grill might look better a couple inches closer to the ground, but screw it.

 

This also means my four link frame mount will be under the frame rail kinda like one for a fendered model A. No steering box raise required.

My poor cardboard patterns have been beaten to shit.

 

Time to do some welding. This is the mounting plate for the air bag, four link axle end mount, and sway bar. It bolts to the axle with four 3/4 inch bolts.

 

Going from cardboard to metal. Mt Dew can shows how big my tabs are.

Now to figure out frame mount



This is what I came up with





Now to make the pieces for the other side.

 

Somebody suggested that I gusset the shit out of it to provide front to back support. I cheated it to one side to have a big gusset with these same pieces.

Better?

 

Thinking about mounting the gauge panel upside down in the middle of the dash. ....if I can flip the speedo and 4 smaller gauges in the panel. It looks like the white plastic piece is held on by the 4 screws on the face of the panel. Hopefully the pattern is symmetrical.