1955.1 Chevy Truck - Hurry up and wait

This will be a very slow build. I live in Portland OR, but the truck is in South Dakota. I get back there twice a year so this project is going to be a series of long stretches of research and stockpiling parts with short bursts of progress.  It's not at a point where it can be shipped to me, and even if it were, I don't have a place to work on it. 

I decided to post it here because I'm always on here reading through everyone's progress-you guys keep me motivated and never fail to impress.  Maybe I can contribute a little bit back to this community.

The truck was purchased by my dad probably dozen years ago. The story goes that it was a seed corn salesman's truck. My brother and I spent a Christmas vacation putting in a Nova front clip but then nothing much really happened with it from there and it just sat in his shed.

The sledgehammer clearancing for the spare is a nice touch.

A couple of years ago, my dad offered the truck to me if I promised to do something with it. I finally got serious about building the truck last fall and started putting together a plan. The goal is to road trip it in some kind of semi-finished state to wherever I'm living.  My brother and did a South Dakota - Alabama trip in my half-finished 1956 Corp of Engineers truck and it was one of the best road trips ever.  I wanna do that again.

I'm trying to spend as little as possible but I want to avoid taking shortcuts now that I'll regret later. I want something that I will actually want to drive and use like a truck. I also want to do as much of the work as I can with my dad.

My first problem was the frame work / front suspension. We put the Nova clip on the truck without really understanding what we were doing, and it did not turn out well. The clip was set incorrectly relative to the rest of the frame, which was going to make for a higher front ride height than I wanted.  The link from the steering column to the steering box was too short and at a really severe angle. The Nova clip was really rough and needed everything - brakes, bushings, bearings, etc.

I tried to find a way to make it work, and even hooked up the steering column to the Nova box during one visit a couple of years ago, but I just could not get comfortable with the idea of it so I decided to start over. We still had the front part of the original frame, but instead found a complete, uncut frame to start from. 

I priced out various Mustang II IFS kits and found that by piecing one together I could significantly beat the price of a complete Speedway kit. Through combination of eBay and rockauto, I was able to save a few hundred dollars over a comparable kit and didn't feel like I was sacrificing quality.  ***UPDATE:  Don't do this!  I ended up with a bunch of problems here.  If nothing else, source the cross member, a-arms and spindles from a single reputable supplier.  I have had a bunch of incompatibility issues come up that have totally backfired on me.***

I chose 2" drop spindles, a manual steering rack and tubular a-arms. I purchased everything I'd need to make it a roller, thinking I'd come back to finish the brakes later.  I had it all shipped to my parents' place and brought my grubby clothes along for our annual winter trek to SD.

The biggest issue we ran into was a poor fit of the MII cross member to the frame - they did not fit to the contour where the frame drops down toward the front. we had to cut plates to fill the gap. The other issue was a complete and total lack of instructions, since everything came from different sources. We used the TCI instructions available online as a reference and checked fit and mocked up the suspension repeatedly. I guess we'll see what happens when we finally get it on an alignment rack.

My dad and I stripped the frame and installed the MII crossmember over a few days in the shop.  I must have air-chiseled 50 rivets out of that frame.  It may not seem like much, but for me this was a big step toward getting this thing going. I had to make the initial investment in it to commit. I had an awesome time working with my dad and I really look forward to my visit this summer to wrap up the rolling chassis.

I've started accumulating parts for my next visit in July.  I found a salvage yard with online inventory near my parents so my dad snagged a Ford Explorer 8.8 with the lsd and disc brakes.  It's pretty crusty but all the important stuff is in good shape and the price was right.

I've also ordered a set of shackles, hangers and the perches/u-bolts and plates, as well as some early Ford Ranger leaf springs.  TCI makes a rear leaf kit, but before I could order it the price jumped up another $150, so I pieced together my own version of it.  Hopefully it works!  The spring lengths and load ratings were very close to the original springs on these trucks.  I wanted to stick with leaf springs due to simplicity and cost.  Anything more complicated seemed like it would be overkill on this truck.

I have a junkyard 5.3 and 4L60E that will go into this truck.  I have the motor mounts and I found some early LS1 Corvette manifolds for sale for a really good price on a Vette forum.  They are supposed to be  the ones to get to clear the steering linkage on these trucks, due to the very narrow frame.  G8MikeGXP also hooked me up with a harness that I will eventually modify for the truck.  Thanks Mike!

With luck, I'll have a rolling chassis with the engine and transmission mounted by the end of my visit.  I can't wait to get back there and get to work.

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

Whereabouts in SD is the truck. For some reason East or West River context  gives the build a different flavour in my mind. 

Pete

Nice!

NOHOME said:

Whereabouts in SD is the truck. For some reason East or West River context  gives the build a different flavour in my mind. 

 

Pete

It's a couple of miles east of I-29.  Very much farm truck vs. ranch truck :)

I'm shopping for the brake booster/MC right now.  These trucks have the brake and master cylinder mounted under the cab floor as stock.  I bought one of these:

The typical setup seems to be using the generic, universal 8" booster and the old-style 1" bore Corvette MC.  These are usually found with aftermarket part numbers and don't tie back to any OEM part number or application.  I'd like to see if I can beat the hot rod shop prices with something OEM in the biggest diameter that will fit.  Clearance seems pretty tight down there though:

My first thought is to use the Explorer setup, since it should be sized appropriately for the rest of the braking system.  The diaphragm diameter according to online info is closer to 9".   I've also seen the GM G-body and S-10 mentioned as candidates but I think they are closer to 7" diameter.  Also, the Explorer MC reservoir is plastic, which makes me a little nervous about road debris if I don't protect it somehow.

Anybody have any experience here?  Other ideas?

Very cool truck, I like it.

The Corvette master cylinder they use is the 1967-76 models, 1" is manual brakes, 1-1/8" is power (power should be the same up to 1982). Rockauto has them new for $25 and up.

Brother had one of these, think it was a '49 5 window.  He was going to put a Z motor and 5 speed in it.  Never finished and now long gone, unfortunately.

These are some of my favorite trucks.  Looking forward to seeing what you do with yours.

I spent a few days back in South Dakota last week, working on the truck and hanging out with family.

Remember that poor fit of the upper a-arm mount?  Uh yeah, that should have been a warning.  It is totally the wrong mount.  That's what I get for trying to piece a kit together to save some money.  After I put together the front end components, my brother said something didn't look right, and he was right.  And I was very angry.

He called Speedway to see if we can order just the upper mounts, and they referred him to their supplier.  Sounds like they'll help us out and we'll hopefully just have to zip off these and mount the new ones.  But it put a stop to progress on getting the engine mounted on this trip.

However, we got the rear suspension mocked up and the body transferred to the new frame.  The 4x4 shackles and hangers worked out great, the Ranger leaf springs seem like they'll work too. I'll probably go with shorter shackles and/or some short blocks under the axle to dial in ride height once we have it all weighted down.  The new crossmember will be cleaned up, I will close off the open ends of the square tubing and wrap an L-shaped plate from the top of the crossmember down along the sides of the frame to spread the loads back there.   The booger welds are mine - i'm so out of practice.

My dad has a Bobcat skid-steer and that made transferring the cab and box from the old frame so much easier.  We just ran a wooden fence post through the side window openings and used a couple of heavy duty tow straps to lift the cab.  No damage to the cab or anyone's lower back.  No pics of that process...I'm bad at stopping and documenting this stuff.

The junkyard rear end needs all new brakes but the guts look good and it does indeed have the limited slip differential.  

Planning for the next trip in December is starting.  It's been really fun working on this with my dad and brother, as much as I really wish it was in my own back yard.  The steering / exhaust puzzle is the next big hurdle, I want to avoid using a third joint but there is not much room in there.

Tuned in and following along.

Looking forward to watching this.

Spent time with family over the holidays and got more work done on the truck.  First order of business was un-mucking up the front suspension.  

The new upper mounts appear to be much more appropriate.  I have a full range of camber adjustment available to me now.  With that completed, we stabbed the engine and transmission back into it.  My goal was to get the bottom of the truck oil pan just above the bottom of the suspension cross member.  I had two reasons for this- I didn't want to buy a different oil pan, and I figured that the higher the motor sits, the easier it will be to have a straight run from the steering column to the rack.  Most people with these trucks and LS engines end up with three joints and a rod end support, which just seems like too much complexity and potential for weird steering issues.

I used a plasma cutter and spent a lot of time trimming away bit by bit until the engine was close to level, about a half inch from the firewalll and at the height i wanted.  These trucks have a flat floor with with a huge access panel originally, so i just had to trim away at the lower firewall and the floor pan area under the seat.  In the photo below you can see the amount I had to trim compared to a photo of the stock replacement pans.  (Photo from a Lowrider mag tech article).

At this point we played with a couple of styles of manifolds and the location of the steering column (photo above is after we set the column location).  I had the stock Vortec truck manifolds as well as a set of LS1 Corvette manifolds.  The Corvette manifold was supposed to be very similar to a block-hugger center-dump style and clear the steering shaft if you cut it where the downpipe starts and angle it in.  I used some wood dowel to mock up the steering shaft and cut the manifold, but it still looked way too close for comfort.  i think it could be done, and may be an option in the future, but we ended up mocking everything up with the rear-dump truck manifolds.  I had to kick the bottom of the column down and to the driver's side a little bit, too.   The slight angle of the steering column isn't noticeable to me while sitting in the truck.  I ordered a Trailblazer SS manifold, as they tuck even closer to the block in the rear and should easily the clear the steering shaft, and may allow me to move the colum a bit back toward it's original location.

Once that was set, i trimmed the frame-side of the engine mounts and my talented fabricator brother welded them in.  He also welded in a steel shaft between the steering joints.

We built a simple transmission cross member using a stock rear rubber trans mount and some round tube and I mounted the under-floor brake pedal assembly to measure for clearance.  I'm not sold on using it yet but I need to do some research.  It takes away a lot of room that could be used for routing exhaust and means there's a hole in the floor for the pedal arm.  

I also mocked up the rear wheels to measure for spacers, since the Explorer rear end is a little narrow, and i didn't want a shallow backspace on the wheels.

I plan to weld clips to the wheels and try to find some similarly-patina'd stock hubcaps to match the one remaining cap I have from the spare.

Last we put on the front clip to make sure everything cleared the inner fenders and put it away till summer.

The front wheels were connected to the steering wheel for the first time in 10 years as we shoved it into the back of the barn.  Now onto planning for the summer visit...

Awesome progress. I have been seriously considering a build using a trailblazer 

Ride height looks spot-on.

Thanks guys. Writing it out made it feel like I didn't really get much done, but it does feel like I'm kind of over a hurdle now and can start doing stuff to make it move.

AngryCorvair said:

Ride height looks spot-on.

Agreed.

Wow, cool project. You're going to love and hate it by the time you're done

Looks great.  Definitely my favorite truck body style, and yours is starting to shape up.

I love the grille, the dents give it character.  Excited to see it moving in the right direction.

Very cool! You've definitely made great progress for only having two times a year to work on it. I can just imagine if that was me I'd forget to bring a part or something that would hold up progress. 

This is cool.

All the best projects have a ton of challenges during the build, that's just the way they are.  You are well on your way!

SkinnyG said:

This is cool.

All the best projects have a ton of challenges during the build, that's just the way they are.  You are well on your way!

Thanks!  I appreciate your build approach a lot for your ability to solve problems with OEM parts.  

Speaking of OEM parts, the Trailblazer SS driver’s side manifold provides much more clearance for the steering shaft.  Not sure if we’ll have to do anything tricky to bolt the rest of the exhaust system to it or not.

I'm about a month away from seeing the truck again.  Time to start collecting parts and prepping for the next steps.  I'm going to see if I can reposition the leaf springs on the outside of the frame rails on this trip - the rear needs to come down some more and I don't want to use blocks if I don't have to.

I hit up the Pick-n-Pull today for the 50% sale and grabbed some stuff.  I plan to buy Ford Ranger rear shackle mounts and use stock ranger shackles.  The brackets are cheap new, but the shackles are not.  Got a pair of shackles, didn't even have to cut anything (thank you PNW, no salt on the roads).  Also snagged a couple of pedal assemblies (2nd gen S-10 on the left, GMT400 truck on the right) and a LS throttle cable.

Not sure if the column levers will work but they cost me a total of $4, so worth a shot.  I'll ship all this back to SD, and I'm working on the rest of my plan for the trip.  Hoping to finalize all of the suspension and steering on this trip, maybe get the brakes sorted out too.  

I'm back home from my summer trip and made some more progress on the truck. 

1) Cut a coil from the stock Mustang II springs and installed them.  Still sits a little high but i don't have all of the weight on the front yet so I will fine tune ride height later.

2) Realized the berkeleying steering rack mounts were way off center.  Cut them off and centered the rack, necessitating a big notch cut from the cross member to clear the u-joint on the rack-end of the steering shaft.  I still need to clearance a bit more and plate it, but that'll have to happen when the motor is out.  I pray that is the last rework i have to do on that part of the truck. Never again will i piece together a suspension like this.

3)  Made mounts for the rear dampers and finalized the leaf springs mounts.  I wasn't able to use the Ranger shackles and hangers...the frame is just too wide.  Good news is that the springs settled and ride height in rear looks pretty good.  Bad news is that the right side spring has settled about and inch more than the left...both brand new, so don't know what's up with that.  Guess i'll buy another new spring when i get closer to driving it.

4) A set of explorer wheels with 255/75-16 tires showed up and were mounted on the rear. I'm not going to go with a tire that tall when I buy a new set, but these helped me make sure the rear suspension was set up with probably the widest possible tire.

5) My daughter is very intrigued by the history of the truck.  She wiped the door with some water to see if she could read the ghost of the old lettering.  We were able to read it a bit, and after some Googling, found that the truck must have been used for service or sales for Smith-Roles, a Canadian company that made equipment for farmers, like generator-driven welders, bench grinders, etc.  I would love to find one of those welders and haul it around in the back of the truck.

I didn't take many pics this trip...most of the work wasn't really impressive in photos.  But we got one of the door and i really like the rear 3/4 view of the truck...