Back up in yo ass with the fabrication

[The ghoul]

Here we go; the last project between me and getting back at the caballero.
This is the makings of my buddy's 49 ford pickup

It looks to me like some one at some time had a 49 ford missing lots of body panels and a rotted out 75 camero.
So they decided to mash them together and buy fiberglass bits.
Naturally the cab, hood, and doors are not pictured as we haven't gotten them to my place yet.
The plan is to assemble it, find out what we are missing, get the stance diled in, and make a big shopping list for my buddy to start buying.
He is already on bored with full poly suspension, full fenders, chopped, dropped, channled, rear disc conversion, engine rebuild with a more aggressive cam.
Stay tuned

[The ghoul]

Starting out slow on this project;
I got her sitting closer to level with a quick and dirty axle flip


I still need to fabricate an axle perch and set the pinion angle

[Fryguy302]

Sweet! Keep the pics coming.

[Duke]

Neat!

[The ghoul]

turned my attention today to the bed... er... what I had of the bed that is..

since the bottoms of the panels were rotted out and since Im assuming we will end up channeling the body I decided to fabricate a new bed frame and locate it about 4" higher than the stock bed location using some 2" square tube and 1.5" angle iron.
again, the bottoms of the panels were rotted, twisted and mangled so I got a laser line on the ridge of the upper bed and measured off of that.

then I welded together the rest of the frame with the 2x2 leaving the two center cross bars floating for now, once I get a feel for how high up the rear axle will be sitting I will bolt them in; then welded in the header panel

judging by the wheel marks on the bed sides this is how I figure she sits stock (although much lower)


the fenders seem to be from a much later truck. perhapse one with a much wider bed. so much fiberglass will need to be done to make these work.
here you see the fender sitting with 4" spacer between the top of the tire and the fender


and here she sits on the ground.... I would be very happy with that stance

[The ghoul]

First order of busness today was fabricating a new post to replace a missing one that was on the bed side.
This is the stock one from the opposite side that I took all the measurements from to reverse engineer.

From that I started my layout with some very simple tools

I was able to use my brake for the majority of the bending

Only the top tabs remained. Those were easily done in the bench vice with a backing plate

Then the roper Whitney hand punch made quick work of the plug weld holes

And burned into place

This then gave me the two rear uprights to weld a lower cross bar into place. Once in place and because the bed was channeled about 4" there was need for a filler pan. The pan would need to be 49" long so it was beyond my brakes capasity so instead I used my modified harbor freight bead roller to make one of the 90* bends and add a structural/style bead

Once those two elements were done i formed the tabs on the side on the brake, clamped the pan in place using a section of square tube and two "c" clamps along the bed rail. Some excess was factored in so that I could hammer the pan around the bed rail and weld it into place where the welds wouldn't be visible when the deckings on...
I then welded the pan on the lower bar from the back side to assure good alignment and hammered the pan around the lower bar...
By the lower section the pan was rather beat up but with luck it won't be too noticeable once the tailgate and bumper are on...

Here you can see it from profile... Not perfect but good enough for ratrod IMO

[OldbutNew]

You're a bad whamma jamma!!

[DRAG-ULA]

Looking good Kevin!!! Hurry up & finish this so you can get back on the caballero.

[The ghoul]

Looking good Kevin!!! Hurry up & finish this so you can get back on the caballero.

You have no idea how badly I want to get back at that!!!

[The ghoul]

Got a few spare hours this afternoon so I got back at it.
I "found" these stainless cable ends at work and realized the hole in them was about perfect for a M8x1.25 tap. So I trimmed them down length wise a bit and tapped them out

I then found a section of 1/8" wall pipe that fit around the main body snugly but would jamb up tight on the tapered section. I cut two chunks of the pipe, drilled out the original tailgate holes and welded the pipe into place as a sleeve.

I then tightened up the cable ends in place till the taper wedged them solid, and used a bit of round stock to bend and weld a master link that works as the tailgate latch.... I also found some "s" hooks that worked perfect as retainer hooks

Now all we need is a bit of chain and the hinges to make the tailgate complete

Also at work I was able to make up a new set of axle purchase and plates and also found some Allen bolts that would work wonderfully as leaf spring pins...
It really does help having access to a waterjet

I then prepped the axle for welding, and installed all of it. Once final ride height is deturmined I will set the pinion angle and weld the purches to the axle tubes

I'm currently trying to talk the owner into doing a mini tub on the rear to take advantage of the 4" of unused space between the truck bed and leaf springs (to run wider rear tires) and to run the exhaust up from behind the cab and along the bed rails like this

I think I'm losing the mini tub battle but I think he might go for the exhaust idea....