Project: Nasty Bastard

[uglyota]

engineers have gonnorrhea?

I guess it makes sense to point it towards the spring hanger end, just never heard it described that way

edit: best page top ever!

[sasquatch]

i took the overloads out and put a short add a leaf in

[bcolman]

i pulled out the overloads and left the rest alone

[stx4wheeler]

I keep reading on here and some on pirate about people tweaking the chevy half ton frames. Where do most of the problems occur? I plan on adding a front crossmember where the front spring hangers are, and I am thinking about boxing the inside of the frame from the engine crossmember to the front bumper. The cab will soon get boatsided so that should take care of the rest, right?

I will also be adding ord's steering box frame beef up kit and making my own brace for it.

[Sharpe]

Pigpen's frame has held up prety well and the only additional bracing is the sliders.

[stx4wheeler]

Even though I was excited to take the bastard to alto for the Halloween run, I did not want to miss Clayton to do it. Major tear downs always eat up more time than I anticipate so I am gonna start way early and it will realistically still take longer than I want it to.

It is now sitting on jackstands at its previous ride height of about 4"'s of lift. My main goal is to keep it at 4"-5". Also, I had planned to run chevy 52's up front, but I don't like that they have a centered spring pin. I am picking up a set of alcans that the guy I bought my doubler had made. The specs are 1" longer than stock(49") with a 2" offset to the front. They are also designed to give 3-4" of lift, and have a military wrap leaf already in the pack. This will shorten my approach angle by about 3.5" maybe a little more if I install a zero rate, and control the wrap.

List of Major things to do:
Swap in new front springs
Swap in new rear springs(waggie 54" rears that have a 4" offset spring pin)
Setup gears in both 60's
Swap 35 spline shafts into the rear 60
Swap old sm465 for the late model 465
Swap doubler input and redrill face for 6 bolt pattern
Mount doubler
Swap out 35 gallon tank for the 12 gallon from krebs blazer
Hard wire my winch in, and respool with new to me cable( thanks clarke).

[stx4wheeler]

And yes before I do any real work under the truck I will get the right jack stands/ supports for it. I had to get the axles out in a hurry so I could sell them.

[TdmayfieldIV]

how do you swamp a leaf spring? Soggy bottom?

[DRAGOONRANCH]

It's a bonfire thing, you just wouldn't understand...

[stx4wheeler]

I got the old 10 spline sm465 and np 205 pulled tonight along with the old front leafs. I also ordered the rest of the parts to put the truck back together.

From the looks of the flywheel/clutch/pressure plate I think this trans may have been subjected to some alto submarine action.

[stx4wheeler]

Some of the new parts are starting to trickle in. Today, I got the chromo 35 spline stubs, doubler re-seal kit, and the 32 spline input gear for the np 203. ORD was also cool enough to send me a template to cut out and use for the drilling and tapping of the np 203 to get it ready for the round 6 bolt pattern of the sm465.

I also removed both of the old front spring hangers because the bolt holes were egged out. I had another set laying around so it was easy to throw the new set on. I moved them forward and inch to help with approach angle. I also threw my new springs in place to see how far the axle would be moved and to check my shackle angle. It is currently moved forward 3", you can see a barely see a yellow mark on the frame that indicates where the factory spring pin was compared to the new one. I think I am going to move the front hanger back another half of an inch to get a little better shackle angle.

Last but not least, thank you very much previous owner for doing a **** job welding the rear ****ing axle, and also failing to use loc-tite on either pinion nut!! See pictures below for 10 bolt paper weight!!

[KrazyKarl02]

I would take all that rivet'd spring hanger crap out and weld some stuff.

[stx4wheeler]

Over that past few weeks I have gotten a few things done. I have swapped the old sm465 10 spline for the 32 spline with the hydro clutch bellhousing, with centerforce II dual friction clutch.

I mounted the hydro clutch master cylinder, and started on making my own hydro clutch pedal assembly, because I am not using a factory pedal assembly because they are hard to find and people think they are made of gold.

Over the last week, I drilled and tapped the face of the np203 to use the round 6 bolt pattern, and swapped the 700r4 np203 input for a 32 spline input. While doing this I replaced the seals and gaskets on the doubler, changed the fluid and repainted the doubler truss.

[stx4wheeler]

I slid the doubler under the truck to get a feel for what my rear driveshaft length and I think my high angle shaft will work without shortening it.

So far the only problem I have ran into is with the new trans, the trans mount on the trans adapter doesn't rest against the old trans mounts on the factory crossmember. Does anyone know if chevy used a different crossmember for the later model standards? I think I have a crossmember from an auto in my shed so I am gonna try that first or build a new one.

Also, what angle are most factory drivetrains set at, or most of the 4x4 builders using?

[bcolman]

not sure where you would check on yours, but every time i rebuilt my trans cross member i just made sure the trans pan was level and that has worked great for me