Well, I had all weekend to work on the truck. And I am either making good progress, or making a really big mess of things. Not sure which yet.
I got the right fender off a week or two ago. The left fender is still there. Kirk says he pulled both fenders and the radiator support all as one unit, which looks like a very good way to do it, now that I see how it all fits together.
Someone pointed out to me that there should be an ID tag mounted in the blue area just in front of the door. I can find the screws that should hold it in place (the screws are there), but no sign of a plate ever having been there. That may cause me problems later on when I try to get it registered.
I already had most of the bolts loose, so the old motor came out fairly quickly. I did find that my engine hoist is very hard to roll with 600 lbs of weight on it.
I found a surprising amount of Woodleaf red dirt packed into the frame rails, along with the expected dried out grease (did you know grease dries out and gets so hard you have to chisel it off?).
This is the "new" engine, a 1963 Chevy 230 that Kirk's friend Robert traded me. There is also a 1997, 5 speed transmission behind it, but you cant really see it here. It all needs to move back about 2 more inches, but I am running into...
... the old torque tube drive shaft. It is keeping the transmission from sitting all the way back where I want it. The Torque tube does not just move over like a modern drive shaft, it is mounted very solid to the rear end. From the looks of it, the torque tube is quite difficult to remove, and I may have to pull the axles and differential carrier to get it out of the way.
Overall, I think it is going well. The transmission is sitting about
where I want it. The blue block on top is where the shifter will sit. I
will probably need to hump the
floor pan a little to make room for the larger transmission (something
like the '57 Chevy). The stock
floor was totally flat.
So much for the easy stuff. I need to fabricate from here (after I
figure out how to get that torque tube out of my way).
-bill