Maxwellvis. A 20 year old with a 1949 Chevrolet truck.

[78C10BigTen]

A quick walk around from the day we first laid eyes upon it...

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And then a cold start when it is around 32* in the morning...

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Wow she pops off nice when cold! I think a set of motorcycle tombstone tail lights would look awesome on that! Or an old school set of round red ones that say stop in the glass! Sweet score @Maxwellvis , also glad you decided to keep the 55!

 

[78C10BigTen]

Dont I know that.
Same here. Every one of my toys I've paid for with my money, no help, but as of now there all on my folks property. Luckly dad doesnt care, at all. He "gave me" one square acre for all my stuff. He said only 3 rules; has to stay in the acre and not spill into the home yard, and everything has to be in a neat line, like a parking lot, and it has to get mowed and weedwacked come summer. Aside from that, he said do whatever you want.
Ma doesnt care really either, but whenever I bring something new home or start talking about "the next one", I always get that look like "really?". Gotta convince her it's a good buy, and I will do somthing with it.
So far I'm doing okay. Keep em neat and mowed, and they still fit on the acre, haha.

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Wish i had that arrangement!

 

[RecklessWOT]

Wish i had that arrangement!

lol my thoughts exactly. I remember I found a couple different second gen T/As when I was in high school for dirt cheap (my dream car back then, took me until last year to finally get my hands on one), they were crappy but ran and drove and I could afford them. My dad's response was always "you're not parking that POS in my driveway!" I missed out on several awesome vehicles that way, stuff that I know I will never find again in this day and age. The fact that I had two vehicles in high school drove him crazy, but he wasn't about to start a war by having one of them towed off lol.

 

[Catbox]

So junior cheesebag has been working on this one nonstop since he picked it up.
He is always doing stuff to it.
It got an electric wiper set up installed as the stock wipers were almost totally missing, so it was a no brainer.
He put a simple heater in there to help defrost the brand new front & rear windows that also were put in with new seals.
So much easier to see through now.
He has done some upgrading with the things we have on hand as well.
Since he has a fancy steering column for his Bel Air, the old one has been pressed into service back in the truck.
This gives him factory on the column turn signals and an era correct steering wheel.
There is a bunch more that I have forgotten, but he has put a bunch of cash into it since he got it.

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He has also installed a B&M Mega shifter in the truck on a custom mount.
The mount was built out of an old set of bed frame angle iron to raise it off the floor for easy reaching.

 

[Catbox]

On Feb 5th at midnight, he calls me.
Uhhh dad, I blew the driveshaft out of the truck.
I need a tow home, can you come get me?

Greaaaaaat.
So I went to him a few miles away from the house and it was just past midnight so not much traffic at all.
He was able to coast most of the way up the off ramp to a safe place and parked.

We hooked him up with a tow strap and yanked the little dead thing home.
Once home we went back and picked up the pretzel drive shaft from the side of the highway he was on.

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It was easy and uneventful to get it home.
The engine ran fine and he had heat, steering, brakes, and lights on the way home.
The Suburban had no issue with the extra weight of the truck.

Next day the discovery was made that the output shaft of the trans now has movement in directions it is not supposed too. Last I checked they are not supposed to go side to side much at all, this one now has plenty of motion.
So the metric 200 trans is toast.

The decision was simple.

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He had already purchased this fresh rebuild 307 and turbo 400 transmission and it was just sitting waiting.
Out came the 305 and metric 200 and in went the 307 and turbo 400.
He wants to run headers on this engine and so the hunt for the correct set began.
A set of V8 swap headers for an S10 were purchased.
No dice.

The truck combo will not allow these to work as two of the pipes have to go wide for steering shaft clearance.
Turns out, those work with the stock angle of the S10, not the stock angle of the 3100.
On the 3100 the column comes out higher than the relationship of the stock S10, so no dice.
Simple small block headers don't work as the S10 frame is pretty dang tight and the suspension gets in the way.
We have several examples of those to test and none of them work on the driver side.

The closest ones that might work are the set I have for our Suburban.
With some cutting, heating, bending and welding on the front tube they should work.
But I don't want to give them up.

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So we will keep an eye out when we go to the PIR Swap meet in a couple weeks.
I will also be looking for cheap headers so we can chop them apart to make what we need if the first plan does not work.

 

[Catbox]

But, my friends.
She-it hit the fan.
With the combo of the 1968 307 being an early small block unit with no accessory bolt holes and needing to run the manifolds for the near future.
We had to improvise.
The alternator now has no place to be.
Can't bolt it to the heads and the bracketry we have works for only for headers, not a set of F body manifolds.
Just the stock Ram horns that are now on a buddies Winnebago.
It won't work mounted low as the chassis is in the way.
Fykk.

So crafty dad starts brainstorming with a grumpy kid in the driveway who just had his Cheerios pee'd in.
There are several sets of Vortec heads here at the house, but none have been checked for cracks.
So those are out.
He was about to start looking into buying a set of new Summit Vortecs for it as he can run those on a 4" bore engine as well.

Yeah, but that is not cheap and there has to be another way...

We just yanked a good running 305 out of there.
How about we run the numbers and then pull the heads off the 305.
Check them out and then clean them up.
They are the correct valve size to fit the bore and the chambers are smaller than the ones on the 307.

He got busy and pulled the heads from the 307.
That lets us see what the rebuilder used for pistons and also what machining they had performed.
It had new four valve relief "rebuilder" style pistons in it.
They also have a chamfer around the edge.
When measured to see how far down they are in the hole, he found they were down .035.
Some research shows that the common rebuilder pistons have a reduced piston height of .020 to account for decking of the engine during the rebuild process.

The rebuilder that did the work, did not deck the block at all, so that is why the pistons are so far down the hole.

With the chamber volume of the 307 heads, the negative space of the pistons, and the .039 gasket it was running, it had a monster deck height of almost .080, not good for flame propagation in the chamber.

So the 305 heads will give it a compression bump and with some maths we figured we will run some steel shim head gaskets that are .019 for a much better deck height of .054.
That is within the acceptable range of .040 to .060 to keep it snappy and furious in the chambers.

The compression will be a touch high at 9.7, but he is a youngster and does not care if he has to run premium gas.
It will be spiffy.

Here is the 305 in front of the truck.

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Later here is the 307 nestled down in the frame rails...

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[Catbox]

With this, since we are now removing the engine again.
Here he is pulling stuff off the 307.

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It is now getting a new camshaft.

So I introduced him to the Duntov 30-30 cam.
We looked at things on youtube that had 283's running this cam and he was sold.
It provided all the right noises and performance he wanted.
Granted the 307 is simply a stroked 283, this will be just fine.

I sent him to do research on the subject to see if it was truly what he wanted to do.

He came back to me a day later and said that he was going to go with the L-79 cam from a Z28 350.
This works out to be very similar to the Duntov 30-30 but instead of being a solid lifter setup, it is a hydraulic setup.
So simpler to run this one with nearly the same performance since we are not running it to 8,000rpm.

With this change from the little "RV" cam that is currently in the block, we now have to change the torque converter.
The Turbo 400 has a shift kit and the stock 1968 convertor on it still.
So I pointed him towards the B&M page and told him to find a unit that stalls at 1900-2200.
I have used one in the past and it was perfect for my application that will be about the same power levels.

That part came in the mail just the other day.
So now we are going to start the assembly stuff and will be taking photos along the way.

Max has all the photos on his phone of what he has done, but he is not here currently for me to post them.
Loser.

 

[Catbox]

Back at it now.
Neighbor turned us in to the city's code compliance office for having junk cars and parts all over.
Fykk you Karen.
This is not a HOA, so piss off.
With the city on my back, his truck needed to be put back together.

Holley 570CFM Street Avenger carb sitting atop a Ebay Vortec intake while wearing a swap meet scoop.

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Moved from the end of the driveway for installation.
We didn't change the cam, so it is still a small RV cam that is better than stock.
The heads are Summit branded Vortec heads with the 1.94 intakes that fit the small bore just fine.
What's funny is that he changed the heads due to needing the accessory bolt holes to fit the alternator in place.
With the S-10 chassis under it, the suspension is close to where this alternator bracket places it.
His buddy gave him this mount that just bolts to the water pump, it fits like a champ.
There is about an inch of clearance and that will do just fine.
I guess we didn't need to buy a set of heads...

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Finally.

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Looking good.
The nerd misplaced his valve cover adapters, so the MT covers will be shelved for now.
These center bolt valve covers will be just fine for the moment as we need this running soon.
The engine looks totally cool with the MT covers and the black carb scoop on it.

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Here the boy if fishing in the mount bolt.

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Putting the engine in was super easy.
Up and over and just drop it on the mounts.

 

[Catbox]

Here you can see the self guided roller rockers he installed.
The Comp roller rockers he has do not fit with out some machine work, ain't nobody got time for that!
So these will work just fine.
I don't remember if these are all 1.5 or 1.6.
I know he has a mix of the Comp rockers.

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Loads of room in here, like it was made for a V-8.
The hackery of the inner fenders was done two owners ago.
Apparently they had installed a MOPAR 340 when it was on its original chassis.
Notice the Cherokee steering shaft upgrade...

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Turbo 350 with new 1900-2200ish stall converter on the jack and the Turbo 400 on the rolly cart.

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Nearly finished product.
He swiped some of my recent swap meet MSD wires, so the wires are half black and half red.
Manifolds are temporary, headers will be a project to tackle another day.
We have 6 or 7 sets of SBC headers in the stash all picked up cheap.
A couple were purchased to cannibalize for the bends, on the driver side he will need to run one of the tubes around the steering shaft.

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It took him all of 15 minutes to put the transmission in.
There is an abundance of room under the truck with the S-10 chassis under there.
He is working on the rest of the temporary exhaust today.
A pair of single chamber Flowmonster 3 inch mufflers arrived from Summit today.
Amazon has the 2-1/4" to 3" adapters on the truck for delivery any time now.
So he will be welding those to the pipes that are attached to the manifolds currently.

Down the road he has a complete 3" tubing kit that Eastwood had on sale for $263 shipped.
After the truck is running around again, that will be installed from the rear of the truck forward.
Get the tail pipe locations burned in and work his way to the mufflers.
Then with the V-bands he can connect them right up easy peasy to continue working his way to the headers.

The plan is to make way more power later on and the buy once, cry once motto I have taught him is working.
He also has to order a new driveshaft for the truck and it will all be high speed balanced and made with the big U-joints in mind. Overkill for the tiny S-10 differential that is under it now, but a Ferd 8.8 will be built to fit soon.

Photo could have been taken back in the late 70's, but no, I took it this morning to show the city we are cleaning it up.

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[Soundmound]

F#@%ing busybody Karen's!! I'd take my dog to sh!t in her yard everyday on principle. Maybe release some chinch bugs on her lawn while I'm at it. Mind ya business beotch!!

 

[Catbox]

F#@%ing busybody Karen's!! I'd take my dog to sh!t in her yard everyday on principle. Maybe release some chinch bugs on her lawn while I'm at it. Mind ya business beotch!!

Apparently she does this to the neighbor as well.
He will put some scrap out in the ditch in front of his yard and a day later there will be a complaint letter.
The junk is usually picked up in a couple of days as we live on a busy busy road.

Oh and he said that those rockers are all 1.6 ratio and that should put the wimpy little cam in the mid .450's for lift.
Not terrible, but not wicked cool like it should be.

Yesterday he found out that the flex plate that was on the back of the engine was the single pattern one.
Not the pattern that he needed....
I guess being a hoarder having parts in stock works out for us, as he went to the stash and pulled a dual pattern one out and installed it right in there.
He said it took him about an hour to RR the flex plate, not bad.

There are a billion little things left to do and they all suck up time.
He should have it started up today as I know it needs a fuel line, vacuum lines, and the exhaust.

But just for the lady across the street, I am sure that he will start it up without the mufflers just for her.

 

[82sbshortbed]

HoA suck! Fck them! I don't have one either lol

 

[Catbox]

BOOYAHHH!
The truck runs and drives now.
It is well...not quiet.
For the easiest temporary exhaust to toss under it at this time, I got him to toss a set of long ass Cherry bombs under it that terminate before the axle.
Sounds decent at idle and even better when you put it into gear.
But under load, they are all wrong and with the short pipes it is wicked loud in the all steel cab.

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I took this one this morning for the city fella.

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I still have to send in updates, but no fines are being imposed upon me at this time.
So that is good.
Now to start on the Bel Air.

Truck was put back on full coverage insurance today.
He emailed the driveshaft guy the measurement for a custom shaft on Saturday.
Currently there is a cut and paste driveshaft under the truck now as a temporary solution.
He made that one out of his buddies old Nova shaft and the remnants of his old "temporary" driveshaft.

One of the things he had was a Lokar gas pedal set up to install over the weekend.
Because he had that, I guilted him into buying the proper kickdown cable for the truck to the tune of $130 from Lokar. He was gifted the pedal earlier from one of our car club members that was trying to get rid of the stuff he no longer needed.

Now he just needs to put the new driveshaft in.
Replace the '55 ignition switch as it is being funky.
And to wire up the choke to a switched source.

Then he is going to start on cutting the bed for a set of 4 inch tubs that allow him to run the 275/60's he has for it...

 

[Catbox]

Here you can see his widening of the 2nd Gen Camaro exhaust and H pipe to fit the truck.

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And here you can see our highly technical way of testing the exhaust to see how it sounded.
Of course these pipes came off a 1981 K20 so they were not going to fit the '49 the way they were shaped.

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They were cut a few inches in front of the mufflers and mated to the H pipe section that was mated to the 1979 Malibu manifolds and down pipes.

They cutoff in front of the axle and are turned out towards the tires.

 

[78C10BigTen]

BOOYAHHH!
The truck runs and drives now.
It is well...not quiet.
For the easiest temporary exhaust to toss under it at this time, I got him to toss a set of long ass Cherry bombs under it that terminate before the axle.
Sounds decent at idle and even better when you put it into gear.
But under load, they are all wrong and with the short pipes it is wicked loud in the all steel cab.

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I took this one this morning for the city fella.

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I still have to send in updates, but no fines are being imposed upon me at this time.
So that is good.
Now to start on the Bel Air.

Truck was put back on full coverage insurance today.
He emailed the driveshaft guy the measurement for a custom shaft on Saturday.
Currently there is a cut and paste driveshaft under the truck now as a temporary solution.
He made that one out of his buddies old Nova shaft and the remnants of his old "temporary" driveshaft.

One of the things he had was a Lokar gas pedal set up to install over the weekend.
Because he had that, I guilted him into buying the proper kickdown cable for the truck to the tune of $130 from Lokar. He was gifted the pedal earlier from one of our car club members that was trying to get rid of the stuff he no longer needed.

Now he just needs to put the new driveshaft in.
Replace the '55 ignition switch as it is being funky.
And to wire up the choke to a switched source.

Then he is going to start on cutting the bed for a set of 4 inch tubs that allow him to run the 275/60's he has for it...

Dont sound too bad! Better then my 4.3 v6 with no cat and a purple horny lol