48 chevy truck

[jaybee]

This is a pretty ambitious chassis, should be a radical looking truck.

[kb426]

Quite a few hours with slight progress.

[jaybee]

Strong like bull!

[Crosley.In.AZ]

Quite a few hours with slight progress.

Progress is progress.  Or I could post something like:  "Well , at yur age... "

  

[kb426]

Tony, I think you are accurate.
Another day of quite a few hours and not much accomplished. The sleeves through the front frame rails are close tolerance. The frame has 3" of taper from front to rear. That made the bolts for the front crossmember too tight. I had several options in mind. I settled on reducing the shank on the bolts where the passed through the outer rails. I removed the front crossmember and sanded it to match the taper as good as I could. Nothing is exactly perfect. I wanted no more than 5 thou in any gap. I didn't quite make that. The rear member and the braces are partially welded. Next will be cutting the rear trans mount and a center k member and then flipping the chassis and welding everything. I'm about out of argon. The price has gone up to $152 for a large. I know I used to pay $114 but I don't remember if there has been another price increase. There are no options.

[WZ JUNK]

I forgot to close the valve on my argon bottle last month and wasted about a half a bottle.  I had never made that mistake before.  I guess I had been waiting for a time when it was a worthwhile mistake.

[kb426]

The rear end of the frame is welded. The engine and trans is close to placement. The pinion has a 1" offset to the right so the engine has the same. Lots more thinking.

[jaybee]

I'm impressed you were able to set up a pickup with the rack ahead of the engine, where it is in a Corvette. Inability to do that often badly compromises Corvette suspension in other cars.

[kb426]

O&S put in a half day today. I had purchased polyurethane bar stock for bushings for the irs carriage. I machined .035" from the od and bored a 5/8" hole in the center. I have the 2 rear brackets bent but not trimmed. It was necessary to notch the frame where the upper a arm runs under it. 5/8" x 4" grade 8 bolts were close to $4 each.

[kb426]

O&S has a tiny bit of progress. I spent time trying to come up with a way to make brackets with the equipment that I have. The throat on the benders I have wouldn't allow the brackets to be one piece. I will install some diagonal braces on all of the parts welded to the frame rails. I walked away a couple of times waiting for a better idea. I think age is catching up.

[kb426]

O&S started out today by removing the sway bar and mounts. The rubber bushings in the lower a arms were fun to remove. I raised the chassis up to waist height. Too much work to be bent over for hours. I assembled one coil over and started to see what cleared and what didn't. There are 2 different companies that I'm aware of that have produced c4 conversions. I looked at their lower brackets and combined parts of each. I made one and figured out that I can do it a little different and make it stronger so tomorrow will start on version 2. I'm blaming the lack of brain power on covid rather than aging. LOL.

[kb426]

O&S has the front lower coil over mounts done. Lots of time and machining. These are held on with 3 - 3/8" bolts to the lower a arm. I have fabbed some struts to set ride height so I can put the uppers at the correct height to allow the shocks to have adequate compression travel. I have found that compression is way more important than rebound. The pics show all 4 brackets being machined together, the completed part and on the a arm. I'm without an explanation on why it's taking so long to do some of this.

[jaybee]

They're nice brackets.

[kb426]

O&S had a partial day. That way I have an excuse for little progress. I had one of the coil overs in and that a little more clearance would be good. I used the plasma cutter end removed about a 1/4" of material. Everything is real close on this front. The radiuses will get finished out as this goes on. I used the 4 parts that were removed from the plates for the shock brackets and turned them into braces. I got started on plating the cutouts above the rear upper a arms.

[kb426]

O&S got started on the upper mounts on the front. There's several angles involved in this.