squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

Jim
your collection disgusts me, damned desert dwellers anyway.

Let's see guys - I'll just pull ANOTHER rust free 50 year old vehicle out of the back fourty and put it back on the road.

Lucky bastid!

I'll put it this way John, I'm used to these west coast vehicles, and I was drooling on Jim's stuff and I'm not even close to a Chevy guy.

[squirrel]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

I guess I do have a lot of junk, don't I?

The extended cab 59 has a trash can 454. I got a running engine cheap, pulled it apart, had one peanut port head, one oval port. The block was sleeved in every hole, then bored .040 over. I honed it, put in cam bearings and a reground crank, and some "rebuilt" peanut port heads I got with another engine. It runs ok, there's some clatter in it, and it broke a valve spring once (hence the quotes on rebuilt). Has a low rise EGR iron intake and a Qjet that needs some tweaking.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

Jim, I wish I coulda spent another day there. I wanted to hear the dozer run too ;D

[squirrel]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

the video doesn't do it justice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuh1BxZBQhs

[squirrel]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

and the truck video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6r45dLsVSQ

I moved the donor 86 Suburban rear frame section into the shop tonight, I'm gonna draw the spring perches and gas tank crossmembers, and figure out how it will sit on the one ton. Then I'll remove the spring perches from both frames, and figure out how to attach them to the old truck, where they belong. I'll probably need to fab some brackets to support the lower part of the new perches below the frame to get it to sit up high enough. Like lowering a truck, only backwards

Pics at eleven.

I'll probably need to go fetch more oxygen for the torch in the morning, too.

[Monk]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

Since we gave the 87 Suburban to my son, I need a truck to drive, so I got my 59 extended cab re-registered and insured.



now I'm toying with the idea of putting this extended cab (that I built in 1994) on the 57 one ton chassis. Hmmmm......

Man, I'm not much of a truck guy......but I
dig this ride!

All kinds of possibilities.........I want one

[squirrel]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

A little progress....ok, no progress. But a picture.



I'm measuring and calculating. I have the assembly manual for the late 50s trucks, it has some nice drawings of the frames. I need to make the back of my 3800 (one ton) look like the back of a 3600 (3/4 ton), with the spring perches and gas tank crossmembers from an 86 C20. Fun stuff.

[squirrel]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

oops, I got reminded that the 55 3600 in the assmbly manual has a 7-1/2 foot bed, not 8 foot like the newer versions. I did some under the truck measuring on my orange truck, and determined that the 1 ton frame needed to be cut off 10 inches. Makes sense, it has a 108" bed vs the 98" bed (inside measurements) of the 1/2 ton long bed like I"m using.

Anyways, I got out the torch and grinder and stuff and went to work. here is the back of the truck before removing extra stuff and shortening it.



and after:



Now it's in the shop, set up so the top of the frame is 30" off the floor and level (that's the height I decided I need to set the frame at with the new rearend/springs/tires in place, with no load on it).




Also a friend who's into 60s trucks stopped by with his son to look at my new mill, and his son wants the old rearend, something about the load bolt in the center section that the 4x4 guys like to use when building a stout axle. So I'll reimburse 10% of the cost of the truck by selling it to him

[squirrel]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

A little more after dinner progress.

I remove the spring hangars by torching the heads off the rivets, then driving them out with the punch and big hammer.



The rearend rolled right out.



The naked rear frame, just a hangin in the breeze



Trying the new rear for fit. Looks like it'll work



the truck with it's new rear, although it's just sitting there. Still a bit of work ahead on it.

[Brian Lohnes]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

Nice work Jim, although those rear spring packs look kinda wimpy. :D

[squirrel]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

They do, but the truck they're from was rated 8600 gvw, which is more than my 57 was originally rated.

[JOES66FURY]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

man, that all looks like fun..I really envy your time and space to do this kind of stuff.

[Brian Lohnes]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

They do, but the truck they're from was rated 8600 gvw, which is more than my 57 was originally rated.

Upgrade!

Maybe a dumb question, but is a arch and stuff the same? Do you have to make any changes for ride height/rake?

[JOES66FURY]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

the arch on the new springs looks much greater than the arch on the old spring....the old spring pack looks damn near flat in that one pic

[squirrel]

Re: squirrel's 57 Chevy one ton

The old springs had some helpers added on top. The main part of the spring had some arch to it when I pulled them off. But the new springs are more progressive, they have a very thick, straight leaf at the bottom of the pack.

It was kind of hard to figure out exactly where to put it, but I think it'll be pretty close. The idea is to make it so the truck sits rear up until you load it with the full load (about a ton), then it should sit about level. I have the luxury of having a friend with a suburban that's pretty much identical to the one I pulled the springs/rearend from, so I was able to measure the height of the spring ends on his truck, which is the normal ride height that I'm shooting for.

Hopefuly it'll have a softer "empty" ride than the truck originally had, but with more load carrying ability. We'll see what happens.