Old frame tail & front X-member refuse

I got the frame pretty well cleaned up with a wire brush on a sidewinder. The lift/winch came in handy with lifting the frame up and wheeling it outside to clean this thing up. The frame is so light that I can manhandle it, but I needed an excuse to use the lift, it looked neat and really made moving things around a breeze, so I will use it like this more and more. I cut the rotted rear tail off. If you look at the picture (below and to the right) close enough, you might see the tack welds I put in here to lock the X-brace connection to the side-members. These should be accurate as I mocked up the open side to the other side that was still locked together with a rivet. I knew that the rivet connection was going to be lost with the cut, so I made sure to lock the open side in with a weld before cutting off the locked side. Then I matched up the measured references on the last side and locked it together with a tack weld too. I then took some reference measurements from the old 36 to see where the very back of the frame sat with respect to the area where the X-member ties back into the side member. It is 5" higher at the very tail. This became my reference for mocking up one of Scotty's X-member pieces for connection back to re-build the rear tail section of the frame. I cut slits on the bend of the channels to tuck about 8" of tails up into the X-member pieces still on the frame. I measured from the front of the frame to the end of Scotty's tail (157.38") and locked this in on the splice area with a C-clamp. Bingo, the holes in Scotty's piece lined up precisely with holes in the X-member. I knew at this point that Scotty's parts were going to work. I was ready to tack weld this first piece into place, but I needed to keep the part free to use it for a pattern to fab the outer piece with some keel.

After clean up of the rust and tail removal, I set to working on preparing the front end for the new IFS cross-member. I fabbed up a temporary cross support out of a 1" diameter, 1/8" thick pipe that was from a handle to a floor jack. I butt welded some hex nuts the same size as what the bumper brackets use and placed this in the very front of the frame. With the front of the frame secured, I then set to removal of the original cross-member. I used a side winder with a grinding wheel on it and removed the rivet heads then used a center punch to either punch the rivet though in a couple of cases, or mark the center so they could be drilled out. A drift pin finished off the harder to remove rivets and sledge hammer was employed to slide the old cross-member back from the sandwich of metal created at the frame by the radiator mounts, which were carefully left in place via some other rivets they have in the outer frame rails. The steering column frame bracket was removed with this same process.

All in all, it was a very productive few hours spent on the frame. Things went pretty well considering I had bandjobs and other family-oriented activities to tend to beside grass cutting at the shop and at home. There was a fair amount of metal refuse from this weekend and the frame is about ready to start with re-fabrication, once I am able to get a MIG welder, some metal and that cross member from Eddie Jones. I also am looking forward to getting those components from Bob Schmidt so I can start mocking up what the new drivetrain will do to the old X-braces and such. Looking at Trees '36, it looks like there will be little left of these things once I get start getting the engine and tranny positioned. I have a feeling that the shifting linkage will devour much of the tight section of the X-frame members. Ahh design & build....it's a beautiful thing!

Here are a couple of pictures taken today

For the next 2 weeks, I had things keep me away from the project. This week, Chris is out of town on business so I will not be able to get to much work. I did get the plate steel I needed to fab the rear part of the frame. Here are some pictures of the steel layout before we got to Feiss' to cut it out, connection of the X-frame tails (Scotty gave me) to the frame, a picture of Danny measuring the overall length of the frame, the 157.38" on the tape and the cut pieces temporarily clamped onto the back of the frame. Thanks again to the Feiss for the use of his plasma cutter (now I need to go get me another toy...man are those things nice!!!!). I can't wait to get to welding now, but that won't be until momma gets back in town.

Well mommy (Chris) made it back into town and we celebrated our 6th anniversary this weekend. She's still putting up with me folks. What a wonderful lady!!!!!!

On Saturday I got the 2 pieces we cut at Feiss' with his plasma cutter attached to the old frame. I was tickled with how the new welding helmet worked. I was able to get in behind some of the old frame pieces to weld about a foot back into the old frame with some overlap left on the new pieces to try to make a stronger attachment. Scotty's X-Frame members worked out great. On Sunday, I got the top 2" straps attached. These worked out great in that I was able to weave about 18" back into the old frame members on these guys too. I have the bottom straps to complete the rear channel section. I am a little concerned in that I found the rear is about 3/4" too high. We'll check this measurement again after I get the bottom straps on. Measuring the diagonal of the entire frame, we are within 1/4" on 161" overall. I am satisfied with this level of control and I have a couple things I am looking at to try to improve these deformities and I am not overly concerned until I get the rear cross piece and X-member installed. All in all, the connection looks stronger than what was originally manufactured. Here are a couple of pictures of where we are at now:

I picked up some more welding rod, a 3" by 3" tube of steel for the rear cross member and 1" by 2" channel for the rear bar of the frame. Man, steel is out of sight!!!!! I told you I was a cheap guy, right? Anyway, after I got the little guy down for the night and the rest of my daddy chores, I made it down to the shop and get one of the bottom 2" strap metal pieces fabbed and tack welded into place. That is pretty much it for the night.

Daddy chores tonight included

• clean the bathrooms,
• do the dishes,
• vacuum the rugs
• and take out the trash.

Now you know why I have a workshop/dungeon (re: Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus). I got to the shop by 8:30pm and the Cardinals were in a pitcher's duel with the Pirates in a game that took 12 innings to favorably decide for the Cards. After he gunned down a runner trying to steal on a double play that included a strike out in the top of the 12th, Yadier Molena knocked in a base runner with a ground ball base hit to the left side. The kid is comin' round folks.

Oh, the truck you ask? ....I got the other bottom 2" strap metal piece fabbed and tack welded into place. At this point, I am noticing some warping in the steel. I hope I can pull this out with the cross member and rear channel. These pieces, if cut properly, along with some bar clamps might be able to pull things into shape. The top of the humps are pulled in about 3/4" The passenger side looks pretty straight when I sight down the side, but the driver's side looks like it leans in a bit. I might have to pull things around with some come-alongs on the diagonals, but we are going to take our time on this issue before I start the full weld beads on the outsides of the newly formed channels that comprise the rear part of the frame.

One positive note is, I think my welding skills are improving. I am getting a lot of practice and the penetration looks good. I am watching the puddle form behind the arc, strike ups are no longer providing a challenge, I am using thicker metal to flow into thinner piece metal to keep the hotter arc temperature from burning through the thin stuff. All in all, I feel that I am making progress in my technique. Much of this should apply to the MIG, when I get to that work on the thin, sheet metal parts.

This Memorial Day weekend was taken up mostly with a family wedding. It was in Macomb, IL., so we were traveling much of the time and visiting with relatives there. It was a great time and in a part of Illinois that I haven't been before. It was very scenic and Chris drove, so Danny and I were able to take in the sights.

I got to the truck after cutting the grass and some other small honey-do's on Memorial Day afternoon. I got the rear part of the frame wrapped into shape with some bar clamps, a spreader piece where the rear cross member will eventually go and a cable come-along with some chain across one of the entire diagonals of the frame. Control-wise, I am relatively happy with what we got on this work. I nailed the the overall diagonals to 161" each and the height difference I was worried about over the rear axle humps was corrected. I am now at 5" height difference, which is what the old 36 measures setting on the ground.

After the measurements came in right with all of the rigging, I set to welding and get the rear members all welded solid. The welds don't look great, but there is good penetration and after I ground down the passenger side, things were looking pretty decent. There was so much grinding, that I need to get more grinding wheels for the side-winder. That was good as Chris and Danny stopped by the shop and said "Home-made pizza on the back porch in 1/2 hour." I thought, "time to clean up and go!"

Bob Schmidt got me the tranny and rear end. I am elated as Bob set me up with the entire frame and suspension out of a Chevelle and it all looks like it will work. The vertical throw in the frame matches up, the width on the frame matches up and he gave me the springs, a set of shocks and all 4 bars to mock things up. This is huge!!!! If this all works out, Schmitty will be a major hero on this project. I was expecting just the tranny and the rear, but now it looks like I will be able to set this project on the floor with wheels once I get a couple of spindles and rotors for the front Mustang II IFS

Here are some shots taken from today:

This evening, we got the welds from the weekend cleaned up and started on some measurements to line up the new rear suspension.

Here are some shots taken from today:

I welded the rear cross member in solid. I got the front mounts for the lower bars boxed in and welded solid to the X-frame. I welded the extensions to the lower bars in solid and rounded off some edges from the original pieces from where the cut was made on them. I am at the point now where I need to fabricate a couple of cross members (one for the rear end) and another for the transmission mount, rework the transmission area of the X-frame and we should be ready to clean up the frame and apply paint to it in preparation to set the cab on to mock up the engine/transmission mounts.

Here are some shots taken from today:

I had a little bit of time in the evening to go down to the shop. I was waiting on an Elvis tribute artist (Shawn Barker) to come by with some CD's of his material so I could copy it off for the band ( The Excelerators) to learn. He is from Collinsville, very good and looking for a local band to back him for local shows. While he was on his way, I cut out some pieces of some old snow plows from work into a configuration I worked up in discussions with my brother (Bob) who was in last week from Corpus Christi, TX. I called Feiss and I am scheduled to meet up with him on Saturday to use his plasma cutter to cut out some holes in the outer pieces before I weld them in the the frame. While checking some dimensions on the frame, I noticed a serious distortion on the passenger side outer rail of the frame. It is about an inch lower than the driver side between the front and back pick points of the jackstands that are mocking the frame up to ride height. I am contemplating placing weight on the driver's side and applying pressure with a jack on the passenger side. I need to fix this before welding this new cross member over to it. Feiss had an idea of applying long bolts with some straight material to comprise a sandwiching jig to straighten. This is a great idea, but I don't have such material. We'll see what the weight and jack idea accomplishes, then pursue some metal fabbing types to see if they have something like the frame sandwich that will work here.

Here is a shot taken of the mid cross member:

I fixed a tire that I need to put the chassis onto the ground after I get the frame work done. Thanks again to Bob Schmidt who gave me 2 old wheels to put together a complete set of tires to continue to work on the truck after I get it set up with the new suspensions. I got by Feiss' house on Saturday morning and cut out those access holes in the 1/2" plate I am using for a rear mid cross member. I fixed some of the deformation in the frame by cantilevering two, 1/2" thick snow blade over the X-frame pieces toward the driver's side of the frame. I got things within 1/2" of the height on the driver's side so I welded the cross member into place. I also tied in the the front connection points for the lower bars of the rear end and everything is very solid back here now. Next is the widening of the X-frame members to accomodate the modern drivetrain, fabricate a bolt-on cross member for the transmission and we should be ready to prime and paint the frame after the motor and tranny have been set up with proper mounts. I am going to miss the next 3 weeks as the wife is headed off to Seattle this week for work and we will be leaving the week after that for vacation up to the northeast for 2 weeks.

Here is a shot taken of the mid cross member:

As I mentioned before, I missed the last 3 weeks due to momma being in Seattle for a week and 2 weeks vacation after that. We went to Main, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts. The past week was spent working on a new Elvis Tribute version of The Excelerators. Today, I meant to check out an amplifier that I blew up at a job last night, but 4 weeks away from this project stared at me with Bambi eyes so I dabbled with the center section of the frame. Before I knew it, my day was over but I made great progress pulling out the old tranny connection and re-working the frame material in this area to accomodate the 350 Turbo tranny. I also used the MIG welder here and I liked the way it worked.

Here is a shot taken from today:

I think I am getting close to starting a new page for the drivetrain. I am close to putting together the mounts for the motor and transmission. I went through a 283 that I pulled out of my 57 Chevy. I investigated the number on this motor and found out that it is out of a late 61 Chevy car or Corvette. That eliminates my worry about putting it back into the 57. If it was an original block for that car, it would be cleaned up, put back together and stored for placement back into the 57. Since I don't have to worry about that, I will use it for mock up on this truck, but with all that I lack on putting together a working motor, I am thinking it would make more economic sense to get a new complete motor and put it in this truck. I bolted on the tranny that I got from Schmitty and hung it close to where it will go in the truck. It looks like I will be able to get everything to fit in the current frame configuration.

Here is a couple of shots taken from today:

I gave the center frame section another closer look and decided that I wanted more room. I was not entirely happy with how the old frame pieces connected back together and weren't totally straight in the tranny area. I stopped by Feiss' house and cut out some more of the 1/8" plate I had left from the rear frame side pieces I cut out back in May. When I got back to the shop, I was tired and about to head home when I realized it was early (about 8:30pm) and I could get in another hour of fab work. I hoped to just get the old section cut out, but I was able to get that done, fit the new pieces, clamp them into place and fairly well weld them up. I got most of the welds associated with the vertical web of the new channel into place on both sides.

After that, I cleaned up the work area to take a couple of pictures. At this point, I realized that I didn't have much of the old original frame left. There is only about 2/3 of the outer rails and only stubs from the X-frame components left from the original frame. There are 2 new cross members, a new rear rail, the back 1/3 of the frame was built from scratch material, the front cross member attachment has 18" of 1/2" plate reinforcement, there is a new mid cross member where the lower bars of the rear end attach to the frame, there will soon be a bolt on cross member for the rear mount of the transmission and now the center section of the X-frame is coming together. I am starting to like this. Oh, and the Cardinals, the lost to the dreaded Cubbies 2-1 behind Greg Maddux. He was tough on us tonight, but Albert got his 37th homer. Houston also won so our magic number is still at 11 to clinch the Central Division of the NL. I've been tracking the magic number since it was about 48 (back in late July) when we were about to go on vacation.

Here is a couple of shots taken from tonight:

I finally got down to the shop to work on the truck a little today. Since last, the Cardinals clinched the Central Division. Way to go Red Birds!!!!! Tony seems to be resting his ailing horses today for the playoffs. The subs didn't do too bad, but Carpenter was off a little today as the Cubs beat us 7 to 4. So Taguchi is having a great season. With Larry Walker's neck posing problems for the veteran, So has been allowed a little more playing time than expected and is making the most of it.

So what did I get done today....I buttoned up the center section metal that I cut at Feiss' a couple of weeks ago. I am noting more improvement with my abilities on the MIG welder. The new center section is plenty strong and will afford ample room for the new drivetrain. I also got the driveshaft hump placed into the rear mid cross member. I was happy with how this turned out. I am lacking the front suspension strut connection points to the frame and the engine & tranny mounts from having the frame ready to clean up and paint.

Here is a shot taken from today:

Today was time to try to mount the motor and tranny to the frame. I got the motor and tranny positioned as close to what I thought was right as possible. I off set the motor 13/16" to the passenger side of center. I got 4 degrees of incline to match what I had on the rear end. I mocked up and set the 2 front motor mounts. Then I drilled and set into place the tranny cross member. When I was done and relieved the pressure from the lift to allow the motor to rest in the frame, I was within a degree of level on the lateral axis and still right on with the 4 degrees of motor rake. I am going to try to get Feiss to come over with his plasma cutter to see if he likes the set up. While he is there, I will cut the holes to bolt up the tranny cross member.

I am slightly concerned that the motor might be off set too much. While my other 36 was offset about an inch, I double checked the rear end and it was more like about 1/2" to the passenger side than the 1" that I thought it was. The driveshaft alignment shows this, but it looks like I have a ton of room for steering components and shifter. Again, we'll see what Feiss thinks before I nail the mounts into place.

Here are some shots taken from today:

Feiss made it over and he said that he never heard of Chevy drive-trains being offset. I re-read the comment in the Hotrodder's Handbook and it say's that the engine can be offset up to a 1/2". This infers to me that the preferred location is center and other considerations, (i.e. - steering) should come after engine placement. I checked with Scotty and he says it shouldn't be a problem. I checked with Schmitty and he says that stock cars are off set by about 2" to the driver's side of his cars to shift weight toward the center of the track. Ed Albietz says that center is preferred, but some offset is not a problem. With all of this input, I set the motor 1/16" to the passenger side. I got the mounts reset and welded them in solid. I set the cab on temporarily and the 5 degrees of engine rake is causing some fire wall issues for the distributor. I will look into shimming this up on the cross bar later to more like 3 degrees to see how this issue can be alleviated. I took all the parts of the frame, turned it over and worked on some bottom welds I needed to make. I hope to make contact with either Feiss or Scotty soon to get access to a plasma cutter to blow bolt holes in the tranny cross member.

The Cardinals are going to the League Championship Series after a 12:54am (CDT) win over the Padres to sweep the Divisional Series. I was putting band-gear away after a job to witness Jason Isringhausen's fielding of a ground ball hit by Ryan Klesko. Izzy still made it interesting as there were 2 on base before the last out was recorded and he almost pulled Albert off of first with his throw out of Klesko.

Here are some shots taken from today:

Scotty came through with allowing me to use his plasma cutter. I made him a drag foot out of a piece of pipe. This allowed me to get the holes cut in the transmission cross member. I also got the brackets made for the front suspension. I heated and bent the sway bars to fit the configuation of my frame and mounted them.

The Cardinals are bumming. They are down 3 games to 1 against the Astros in the League Championship Series. LaRussa got thrown out of the game for arguing balls and strikes with the home plate umpire. He was wrong about the argument, but later, Jim Edmonds was also thrown out of the game during the middle of his bat by the same umpire who called a strike on a ball that just about knocked Jim down. The call was totally out of bounds! This umpire was out of control of his emotions and not within the bounds of professionalism fans expect out of Major League Baseball. That said, John Rodrigues, hit a ball 420 feet to center field that was caught. That ball is a homer in any other ballpark. The Cards lost this game when John Mabry hit into a double play and the Astros have the Cards' backs against the wall in this series. Meanwhile the White Sox are in the World Series after beating the Angels 4 games to 1 after their game last night.

Here are some shots taken from today:

I lost about a month with putting together an Elvis show with the band and a cold that I ended up going to the doctor to in order to get rid of it. I am still not over the cold totally, but I was able to get down to the shop today to get some landscaping things done for the winter.

Danny came along with me and we painted the frame of the truck after we got our landscaping work done. Danny was a real trooper and made sure I got everything done just right. He is so much like his mother and that is a good thing.

Here are some shots taken from today: