During our trip to TX a while back, we managed to pick up, among other things, another vehicle, a 51 Chevy Suburban panel truck. This truck as noted before, will need a full restoration but our plans for this vehicle involve swapping frames with our S10 truck so as to take advantage of the modern running gear and quite possibly the powertrain from the truck. Anyway, we had to rent a 3/4 ton diesel truck and use our neighbor's trailer to go to TX to retrieve the truck. Unfortunately our trailer needs tires and trying to run several hundred miles with 2 tons of weight over those tires was not an appealing thought. Anyway, we made an early morning departure to TX, getting to the guy's shop around 1230 PM. Of course it was drizzling so that threw a little bit of a hurdle in our path but we still got to work. We ended up pulling the truck out from its parking spot into the main thoroughfare before pulling the trailer around to get it staged behind the truck to pull it up on the truck. After a failed attempt to try to winch the truck onto the trailer because of four flat and destroyed tires and more than likely seized up drums, the guy was able to borrow a neighbor shop's forklift to lift and push the truck onto the trailer more than enough to have it safely on board. Using our ratchet tie downs we had the truck secured and ready to run. From there we went back to Estephan in Richmond TX, the dude that sold us some 65 Mustang floor pans because he had some more 65 Stang parts that I would be needing for that build later on. After chilling around The 51 Chevy and just talking it up about old cars and drawing a crowd as his neighbors thought he might've picked up another old project, we loaded up our Mustang parts and parted ways once again. Feel free to check out EDG Classics on Facebook to see what he does, he's got some cool old bikes and trucks. From there we cannonballed it to Ft Worth because I finally managed to catch up with another dude that had another classic that I really had my eye on because of the basis of the project. He had a 46 Ford coupe that was swapped onto an S10 frame and had the top chopped a little bit but was never finished. This car would also need to be fully restored or in this case, completed, but this is one of those cars that rat rods are made of. It's literally an "anything goes" type of build because being on a common chassis opens the door to being able to put different powertrains in the vehicle. I could go back to the 4.3 V6 and a 5 spd manual out of an S10 or I could cram a SBC V8 into the chassis. I could modify the suspension in a myriad of ways, either raise the thing off the ground or drop it like its hot. With the interior unfinished its an open canvas for building the inside how I want as well. It'll be another reason we'll have to return to TX once again, but that trip will be postponed until June since we had another trip we had to do first. Another little treat that we managed to get our hands on after getting the Ford was an old go kart. The story behind it was that the guys son used to run it when he was younger and after having some close calls with it a few times, got off the thing and it sat parked ever since. This go kart is a higher end machine with an electric start engine and multi speed transmission and hydraulic disk brakes along with headlights. It's actually a decent go kart and probably a couple grand or so brand new. The guy told us we could have it if we wanted. After looking at the ole lady we agreed and the guy grabbed his front end loader and hooked it up with the chain and dropped it right into the bed of the truck. So we really struck gold on this trip. We were ready to go home happy campers. From there we cannonballed it back home, returning at night and too tired to even attempt to unload the truck from the trailer. The following morning I got to work. I first started off by staging the trailer just behind the power pole that's next to the main driveway. The intent was to put a tow strap around the pole then hook a tow chain up to that and onto the undercarriage of the truck. From there I would gradually pull the trailer forward, with the ramps in place of course, and allow the power pole to pull the truck right off the trailer. I took my time gradually moving forward and watching the truck, checking to ensure it was lined up with the ramps and not scraping the fenders of the trailer. Eventually the front wheels were past the ramps and on the ground and shortly after the rear wheels were on the ground. I pulled the trailer clear of the back of the truck and put the ramps back in place. The next order of business was removing the Gokart. Since this wasn't the little rinky dink go kart that we would've rode as a 10 year old, this thing had some weight to it. It would take a couple of dudes to hump this thing out of the back of the truck and onto the ground. I didn't have a couple of dudes. My next option, after seeing the spacing from the tailgate to the front of the trailer, which was still attached, I took a couple of the leftover 2x6 boards from the disassembled porch and laid them across the tailgate to the front rail of the trailer where they overhang onto the trailer's deck. From here I ended up having to open the bleeder valves on the calipers of the go kart to release the pressure on the brake pads so the wheels would free spin. From there I staged the go kart on the boards and rolled the machine across the boards and onto the trailer's deck and on down to the back. From there the angled end of the trailer allowed me to roll the go kart effortlessly onto the ground where I was able to push it over to its new parking spot on the midway. With the truck in place I gave the truck a good once over just to familiarize myself with the old vehicle once again. I had to look at it while planning in my head everything I would have to do and what I would want to do, especially regarding the frame swap. Even getting ready to do that would be an undertaking of its own due to the fact that we're talking about stripping a whole vehicle apart to prepare it for this new life under a classic truck. One might say, "why not just try to find a raw S10 frame?" While there is some truth to this, if I do find one, I might find one for a few hundred bucks with the running gear still attached. Then there's a matter of the old truck. Since the bed is trashed, the engine has a lot of miles and the transmission is starting to fail, no one will give me anything for it as a regular truck. Even then, they will probably try to part the thing out after getting a few more miles out of it but either way, I lose. On the other hand, I can sell off parts from the vehicle that I don't need, make that extra money then use the complete chassis to where I could possibly get $500 worth of parts off of it, still have the chassis with the engine and transmission (I do have a replacement tranny to go in this truck), and rest easy knowing that I still got what I wanted out of the deal and made money to boot. Another thing that I thought about was the idea that I wanted to duplicate a project that I seen several people do. This is what is known as the predator truck or car conversion. This involves taking a Predator brand 6hp or larger engine from Harbor Freight, doing some small modifications to allow for a hook up to the input shaft of a manual transmission on a donor car or truck, and basically powering the vehicle from a large go kart engine. The idea was so simple and unique that it appealed to me enough to want to try and do this. Now after hunting for donor vehicles that would work for this type of build (lightweight is always better), I thought, after I swap the frames, I'll end up with an old chassis that actually shares the same wheel bolt pattern as modern day Suburbans and pickups and a few imports with 6 lug wheels as well. Even after pulling the antique powertrain from the chassis, I could get any old manual transmission from the junkyard and make the necessary hardware to couple the Predator engine to the transmission and just mount it on the old chassis. To add even more to the mix, I could save the cab and front clip from the S10 and mount it to the old frame to make what amounts to a "truck", just for the sake of rolling around the yard. The funny thing is if I do save the S10 body, I could technically still legally put the truck on the street on the premise that the truck is still able to be tagged for road use, despite being swapped onto another frame. I could make a quick and dirty flat bed for the truck or salvage some of the material from the old bed to make a flat bed in order to make the Predator truck, only having to restore the brakes on the old truck. I wouldn't even worry about the shocks as much since this thing would only be used around the yard for moving things around and maybe trying to pull or stage something like another vehicle in a spot prior to performing some work. Either way, whatever I decide, it will be on here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2023
|