5.3l into 87 Chevy 2wd. “Big Red”

In reply to Racingsnake :

Right? I had to count the teeth 4 times before I could believe it. I am not sure what to do with this lump yet. 

In reply to SkinnyG :

I did measure and yep; it is wider. More on that to come. 

I bought "cut to fit" axles from East Coast Gear Supply. They came with three different bolt patterns so you can match wheels front and back.

I am running the full width 9" on my '61, but I move the front lower balljoints outboard about 3/4" and am running 88-98 spindles on a 73-87 front suspension.  Coupled with Jeep Grand Cherokee steelies (6" backspacing) the track width is the same as the 61's original, but better scrub radius because of the worse steering axis inclination. Countered with a lot more Caster.  If that makes sense to anyone here.

So I am the proud owner of another 9" posi fresh from a field.  It is 5 x 5 1/2" and super wide (rumored to be from a van). It is also 28 spline and late Torino housing ends. So maybe some really lucky size match is in my near future? 
 

This one if the tag can be believed has 2.75 gears. I am marginally more excited about that but eventually will want to change them also. 

For now I need to de-crust, disassemble and measure what all I have and then see if I can bribe a lathe operator into making some tools. 

In reply to SkinnyG :

I know some of them words and I like how you have used them. I may be perusing ctl axles in the near future. 

GoLucky said:

In reply to SkinnyG :

I know some of them words and I like how you have used them.

I feel this way a lot when reading on this forum. That's why I hang out here. 

I am still waiting on some supplies before the rear end sub-project continues so in the mean time I thought it might be time to do something that will completely get in the way of the rear end: Bedtime. 
I have some, but not all of the parts to make either a Fleetside or Stepside bed. My original plan was to cut this long bed down into a short bed. 
But... this thing is ROUGH. It has saddle tank doors in the wrong places both sides, the floor is hammered and passenger wheel arch is bashed. I am not trying to do EVERYTHING in the most difficult way possible. 
The stepside route seems to be the path of least resistance to get my project looking like a truck. What I have is: bedsides, '67 fenders, 1.5ish steps and well... a bunch of Fleetside stuff to chop up and make work.
Fortunately the hot rod shop has a repro front panel to pattern from so I started measuring and chopping. 
fleetside panels have a piece that comes out and mount to the bedsides so that is chopped off thusly: 

the fleetside panel is also wider so:

and after some sparks and noise: 

just over 18" out of the middle. Held back together with butt weld clamps and some support under the panel. micrometer was used to scratch the final cut line since the first one was slightly shy of the full removal. 
Zap. zap. zap. 
the height of the panel is still about 2" too tall but for now that Is still attached. I will probably just chop it off straight and weld on a piece of angle to connect to the floor material. Wood? Steel? Advanced composites? Kind of up in the air for the time being.

Surprise twist: 

that's right. It is tax season so time to deal with the IRS.  Yesterday it was windy and snowing, so perfect time to lay in the snow/mud and wrestle out a rear subframe. I had help though and aside from a jack that suffers from ED it went fairly well. 
 

While I was in a holding pattern with the 9" I pondered. What do I want for my c10 rear end?strong(ish). Posi. Disc brake. 3.xx gears. Decent ride and handling. This has all of that plus less unsprung weight. The downside is the ridiculous 5x4.25" bolt pattern that I need to deal with. 

Moving those live axles around really made me think about how insanely heavy they are. So I traded the super wide truck one to the junkyard for this 3.08 trac-lok 8.8" from a 199x v8 thunderbird with the option to pull Lincoln Mark VIII alloy lower control arms in the future. They like 9" rears and dgaf about 90's thunderbirds/Lincolns. 
I have never put an independent rear where it didn't belong so this should be fun.

De-gunk 

mn12 IRS FTW! 99-04 IRS Cobra hubs will press into those bearings. That will at least get you to a normal-ish 5x4.5" pattern.

Also, I am a bit jealous your spray bays still have green degreaser. That has been pulled from my local places which sucks when I dump ATF in the bed of my truck.....

Out with the old. 
hopefully this will sell and get out of my way. 
I wrestled a bit and got the new rear off the trailer. 
 

headed for the empty space: 

and after quite a bit of shuffling and fiddling with jacks, stands and a hoist I called it a day here. 

The old is sold, no going back now.  Spent some time getting things out of the way. 
I haven't got an air chisel, but got it done with lots of hammering and frequent trips to the belt sander for sharpening. I did end up cutting through rivets and punching them through. Air chisel is highly recommended.  Panhard bar mount is still in the way and will go next. I also removed the fuel system intact up to the fuel rail. 
Lots of extra length here as I knew that this was not a permanent setup. For now it is out of the way and taking up space in my shed. I have some ideas for a fuel system with more capacity and less in the bed-ness.  
But for now the job at hand is to get the suspension sorted. 

Additional mangling and removals:

and 

both of these put up a fight. I need to restock on death wheels and sawzall blades before going any further 

Awesome progress. Looking forward to seeing the next step!

Armed with a fresh supply of cut off wheels and a new pack of sawzall blades I made mess, sparks and some progress.

First up: full removal of the panhard bar crossmember. It was in the way and the rivet heads fouled on the cradle.

With a lull in the cursing and violence I made a big production of measurements. 
the main idea here is to have the cradle level and get the axles square to the frame center line. It sounds easy, and to some I am sure it is. It took me a ludicrously long time to get it looking right. 
Chop! Some people make a plate and bolt the cradle to the frame. I am not going that route. The rubber bushings look too flexible for my taste. A quick smack with the hammer got them out of the way.

I made these location tabs so that I could drop and raise the cradle returning it to position without hours of measurements each time. X marks the one where it shifted and I had to start over. 
for the front I decided to box the shock mount crossmember with a plate of 3/16 x 6.  Because it was in the garage and an ideal fit. 1.75 .120 wall tubes connect the front of the cradle to the crossmember. 
I drilled this and put bolts through also for locating purposes. After some more measurements just to get a warm fuzzy feeling I made all my recently installed bolts redundant with liquid metal. Zap! 
IRS in. No jacks, clamps or straps.  
In celebration I swept up several pounds of grinder dust and metal bits. 
Also, the drive shaft will need a different size u-joint (mock up install only) but the length looks good. Up next: springs and shocks plus more cutting and welding.  

 It is so sunny and beautiful out today I am working with the door up and in a T-shirt. I am getting stuff done also. Made mounts for the coils the visible bolt is holding in one of the big cone washers that the cradle originally used to retain the rubber mount bushings. Using my highly scientific calculations I decided to immediately cut a full coil before going any further. 
Next I used a piece of 1.25" square tube to tie together the coil plates with the cradle and frame. This piece was holding turbos in the bed previously so I had to chop off a bracket to reuse it. 
At this point I got pretty excited; I aired up my junkyard t-bird wheels and prepared for IRS action. Bam! Sits on its wheels again. 

Glad I took out that coil. It's sitting higher than my planned ride height but without bed, battery and fuel tank. For now it works for me. I still need to plate some things chop some others and figure out some shocks but I am pretty excited to see it on wheels with the IRS in.  

Today In the garage: Ashocking development! this is a front shock from a K5.  Blazer because that is what has a close to correct extended and compressed length. 19.xx/11ish. I did have to swap the tbird lower shock eye tube in to replace the factory one since the tbird one is larger diameter. 9/16 vs 1/2 Not an ideal situation. If I had a lathe I would have preferred to turn a sleeve to use a 1/2" bolt instead of fighting the rubber bushing. But I do not and the passenger side is set, just need to repeat on the driver's side. 

A squarebody 4wd front shock should be the exact same as the rear shock on a 67-72 2wd rear, if it makes you feel better....

In reply to SkinnyG :

So it's basically OEM now! 

zap-zap

passes the jumping up and down on the rear test. Need some brake lines next. 

Brake lines. It seems simple, but I have a few things that need to also happen sort of at the same time. But to begin with I started taking everything out. 
I have been waffling about this next part.
   Sensible voice in my head: "Don't put the hydraulic handbrake in this truck, you're going to look like a young punk up to no good. And what about the resale value? Anyone with any sense will turn around and walk straight away." 

  Other Voice: "Hmmm... Well Pops you got a good point there, but how are we going to keep the truck from rolling away without an E-brake? Seems like a safety issue. I suppose we can Park it with the line lock on? Speaking of which, how many people are going to accept the line lock, the turbos, manual trans, IRS swap and then draw the line at the party lever?" 
Obviously a hydro handbrake is happening. Needs a place to attach so I guess it is time to put the trans tunnel in. A couple of measurements and some cutting and voila: 

This should make it slightly less terrifying for passengers who get queasy about seeing the road through the giant hole in the floor. Some scrap angle gets to be the bracket. 
mark and drill. 
Not pictured are the captive nuts welded to the underside. To clear the nuts a riser of flat stock is chopped out of the now removed fuel cell mount and welded to each side of the angle pointing down to the hump.  
And now the bracket is on the hump ready for the lever. 
Well. Now at least I have something to aim a brake line at. I am thinking about inverting the master cylinder to make the brake lines less obtrusive. Any reason not to do this? The inverted master, that is. I have already done the mental judo to justify the existence of the handbrake. Ya' know... for safety. 

Hawt Damn, this is righteous!

I have been somewhat otherwise occupied but found some time this past week to play C10. 

Foolish I know, but I assumed that the building of some brake lines would be a straightforward task. I ran into trouble with the inlet fitting of the e-brake cylinder. It is some kind of m10 thing that none of my local parts stores Comprehend. What's more, the PO ran into the same issue with cylinder 1 and boogered up the threads something awful when he attempted to run a steel SAE nut in there. Good intensity, poor execution. Boogered one in foreground. Here is where I went with it: 

7/16" drill bit

tap to 1/4npt. U-S-A

move all fittings and rod from Cyl. 2 back to Cyl 1 

so now, with Four frikking fittings, my cylinder is setup for regular ass brake lines in and out. I also hit it with a coat of aluminum colored paint to keep it fresh.

To run the lines in a way that made me happy the seat bracket had to come out. It was good that it did, since it led to a somewhat startling safety discovery. But while the seats were out and the day was beautiful I prepped and applied the "upholstery in a can" treatment because of all the ugly sun fade. Below the driver's side is done and the passenger side shows what it was like before. 
and both: 

less gross by far. I still have to address the problem I alluded to. It is the fact that the seat mounts are basically crap and rear passenger one isn't even connected at all. But for now it is back in the cab until I have some more time and energy for this project. In the mean time I have to play the musical chairs with some of the fleet. 

In reply to GoLucky :

I recommend this for the Say What column:

In celebration I swept up several pounds of grinder dust and metal bits.

So I bribed the boys with promises of letting them drive the truck once it is operational and suddenly had helpers for bleeding the brakes: 

we got pedal and I ran out of dot fluid so stopped for the night. 

I may have created some monsters. My stepson riding shotgun drove the Fiat today and we had a VERY good time. I think he may be looking at an eg33 swap for his forester now.  My son "driving" the c10 is 13 and lusts after the 81 turbo trans am roller across the street.