n8in8or
I never met a project I didn’t like
I have been wanting to start this thread for a few weeks now. I see someone else started a "franken" thread, but this is the title I was planning all along, so I'll stick with it.....hopefully this doesn't cause any confusion, and if so, I apologize in advance.
They say necessity is the mother of invention, so I will say that perceived necessity is the mother of my projects
I was given a parts truck with a title a couple years ago. I didn't know what I was going to do with it at the time, but since it was free, I just couldn't pass it up. What I knew then is what I know about it as of this writing: It's a K30 frame of unknown year, with an '82 C10 cab on it that has factory AC and was originally a diesel. Unfortunately someone swapped the front Dana 60 out for an early 70s Dana 44 at some point, but the frame itself is solid, so it's a great foundation to a build.
In the meantime, I have been slowly getting parts when I thought about it or they became available. Someone had taken the AC evaporator box off the firewall and cobbled a heater box in its place, so I got all of the AC parts off of a truck at the junkyard. I also got all of the AC accessories off of a squarebody diesel truck last year.
I didn't know exactly how I was going to build the truck, but I hoped to use some 16.5" kidney slot wheels that I already had, just because they'd look retro and cool on it.
This fall, I finally had a need and direction to move forward with this, so here it goes...... This summer, I moved a butt-ton of dirt in the yard. I have a large pile that I'm estimating to be about 175 yards of dirt that needs to be moved now. Luckily, a friend of mine just half a mile up the road wants the dirt, so that makes this easier. Now we need to move it. His house will be challenging to maneuver a dump trailer in, so a dump truck makes more sense. Renting a dump truck is problematic due to insurance issues, plus it's pricey if we go that route, especially since we'll be loading the dirt with my Ferguson, which has a capacity of about 1/4 yard per bucket full.......so I'm not even sure the job can be done in a weekend. I was looking at old dump trucks to buy, but anything in the price range I wanted to spend needed work and was going to be a challenge to get home due to the weight. Then getting parts and fitting it in my barn will be a challenge on top of that. Oh and then license and insurance is once again a challenge. So now my brilliant idea is to build a dump truck, using this squarebody as the foundation.
I've started collecting parts for this project. I found an old International truck at the junkyard that was 4wd. It had an NP202 transfer case under it, which I hadn't heard of before. I did a little research and found it's actually a heavier-duty (and heavier) case than an NP205. Conveniently this unit was divorced from the trans and had a passenger side drop, so it matched the factory GM arrangement. I want the truck to be close to factory from the firewall forward so I can make a tubular turbo system that will clear AC - you can't fit the factory cast iron manifold around the squarebody evaporator case.
I also picked up a 2wd 4L80e trans as a core that I will be pairing with the transfer case.
Next I found a Dana 60, so I grabbed that. It was missing the hubs, but I found a set of dually hubs nearby, so I grabbed those as well. The axle already had a crossover steering arm, so that's cool.
Yeah, so dually hubs..... I decided that even though I wanted to use those 16.5" kidney slots, that this truck was going to make much more sense as a dually since it will be a dump truck, so these dually hubs are actually perfect.
I've been working toward getting this truck ready to work on. I bought a cheap flat bed squarebody truck and parted that out, getting some useful parts for this project - one more truck to add to the list of trucks used to build this truck....so far isn't an 82 C10, an unknown year K30 and a 79 C35. I'll likely also be using a steering column from an 86 Suburban I used to own and who knows what year that Dana 60 is from.
But there will be more trucks.... I want to lift this truck, for stance and also for more offroad capability. I have been looking at Off Road Design offers and a shackle flip in the rear makes sense to me - I can keep the heavy rear springs that are on the K30 currently and gain some lift that I want. However, that shortens the wheelbase a little and that is a negative for how I want to use this truck. I started looking into stretching the K30 frame. That would take some money and time to do it right. I started searching for squarebody frames and found a C30 frame with a 160" wheelbase about an hour-and-a-half from me. I should have that in my possession tomorrow. I don't really want to hack up the K30 frame I have to convert that C30 frame, because the K30 is in quite nice shape, so I'm also getting a K20 frame that's in so-so shape that I can rob the crossmember and other bits off of. The K30 frame then will be saved for another build in the future.
I found a good deal on some 8" Superlift front springs, so I bought those.
Things are coming together, and it's exciting to start on a new project. I will be posting pictures shortly, but I wanted to do all of this typing on the computer first for ease. More to come shortly.
They say necessity is the mother of invention, so I will say that perceived necessity is the mother of my projects
I was given a parts truck with a title a couple years ago. I didn't know what I was going to do with it at the time, but since it was free, I just couldn't pass it up. What I knew then is what I know about it as of this writing: It's a K30 frame of unknown year, with an '82 C10 cab on it that has factory AC and was originally a diesel. Unfortunately someone swapped the front Dana 60 out for an early 70s Dana 44 at some point, but the frame itself is solid, so it's a great foundation to a build.In the meantime, I have been slowly getting parts when I thought about it or they became available. Someone had taken the AC evaporator box off the firewall and cobbled a heater box in its place, so I got all of the AC parts off of a truck at the junkyard. I also got all of the AC accessories off of a squarebody diesel truck last year.
I didn't know exactly how I was going to build the truck, but I hoped to use some 16.5" kidney slot wheels that I already had, just because they'd look retro and cool on it.
This fall, I finally had a need and direction to move forward with this, so here it goes...... This summer, I moved a butt-ton of dirt in the yard. I have a large pile that I'm estimating to be about 175 yards of dirt that needs to be moved now. Luckily, a friend of mine just half a mile up the road wants the dirt, so that makes this easier. Now we need to move it. His house will be challenging to maneuver a dump trailer in, so a dump truck makes more sense. Renting a dump truck is problematic due to insurance issues, plus it's pricey if we go that route, especially since we'll be loading the dirt with my Ferguson, which has a capacity of about 1/4 yard per bucket full.......so I'm not even sure the job can be done in a weekend. I was looking at old dump trucks to buy, but anything in the price range I wanted to spend needed work and was going to be a challenge to get home due to the weight. Then getting parts and fitting it in my barn will be a challenge on top of that. Oh and then license and insurance is once again a challenge. So now my brilliant idea is to build a dump truck, using this squarebody as the foundation.
I've started collecting parts for this project. I found an old International truck at the junkyard that was 4wd. It had an NP202 transfer case under it, which I hadn't heard of before. I did a little research and found it's actually a heavier-duty (and heavier) case than an NP205. Conveniently this unit was divorced from the trans and had a passenger side drop, so it matched the factory GM arrangement. I want the truck to be close to factory from the firewall forward so I can make a tubular turbo system that will clear AC - you can't fit the factory cast iron manifold around the squarebody evaporator case.
I also picked up a 2wd 4L80e trans as a core that I will be pairing with the transfer case.
Next I found a Dana 60, so I grabbed that. It was missing the hubs, but I found a set of dually hubs nearby, so I grabbed those as well. The axle already had a crossover steering arm, so that's cool.
Yeah, so dually hubs..... I decided that even though I wanted to use those 16.5" kidney slots, that this truck was going to make much more sense as a dually since it will be a dump truck, so these dually hubs are actually perfect.
I've been working toward getting this truck ready to work on. I bought a cheap flat bed squarebody truck and parted that out, getting some useful parts for this project - one more truck to add to the list of trucks used to build this truck....so far isn't an 82 C10, an unknown year K30 and a 79 C35. I'll likely also be using a steering column from an 86 Suburban I used to own and who knows what year that Dana 60 is from.
But there will be more trucks.... I want to lift this truck, for stance and also for more offroad capability. I have been looking at Off Road Design offers and a shackle flip in the rear makes sense to me - I can keep the heavy rear springs that are on the K30 currently and gain some lift that I want. However, that shortens the wheelbase a little and that is a negative for how I want to use this truck. I started looking into stretching the K30 frame. That would take some money and time to do it right. I started searching for squarebody frames and found a C30 frame with a 160" wheelbase about an hour-and-a-half from me. I should have that in my possession tomorrow. I don't really want to hack up the K30 frame I have to convert that C30 frame, because the K30 is in quite nice shape, so I'm also getting a K20 frame that's in so-so shape that I can rob the crossmember and other bits off of. The K30 frame then will be saved for another build in the future.
I found a good deal on some 8" Superlift front springs, so I bought those.
Things are coming together, and it's exciting to start on a new project. I will be posting pictures shortly, but I wanted to do all of this typing on the computer first for ease. More to come shortly.
