Andrew's R120


The place to put your L, R and S "Build Off" story.

User avatar

Rusty Driver
Rusty Driver

Posts: 165

Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:02 pm

Location: Charles Town, WV

Post Sat Apr 08, 2017 6:24 pm

Re: Andrew's R120

Man, that sucks the frame buckled. Is it excessively rusty there? Seems odd.


I feel ya on the bed floor thing. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I could get away with a stock bed floor on mine. Ended up shortening the rear frame rails by 2" and put a 3" hump in the middle of the floor (which if I had done first I wouldn't have needed to modify the rails as much, doh). I'm using a dodge dakota frame under mine.

I considered raising the entire floor but IH really put this thing together and I didn't want to spend the next year drilling out spot welds :rotflol:

Image
-Joe
'54 R112

Rookie
Rookie

Posts: 13

Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:16 am

Location: Western Wisconsin

Post Sat Apr 08, 2017 6:55 pm

Re: Andrew's R120

Your bed looks great. I could live with a small hump in it like you ended up doing. I have a 94 Ford Ranger sitting out behind the shed, but it's probably more rusty than this roadmaster frame. Plus sometime down the road I want to bag the truck, and from what I've read the Ranger frames make it not an easy task. I want the LT1 swap onto a new frame to be as easy as possible and have been looking at s10 swaps, but I suppose if the right frame comes up a little ingenuity is all it would take.

We'll see what happens though. I'm going to work on pulling the LT1 off the roadmaster frame and see what can be done to possibly save it. Depending how high I mount the cab/body off the frame, I might be able to still keep my usable bed!

Rookie
Rookie

Posts: 13

Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:16 am

Location: Western Wisconsin

Post Sat Apr 08, 2017 6:57 pm

Re: Andrew's R120

Also Joe... I noticed you're not the first person to mention using a Dakota frame... Is there a particular reason you used it over a ranger/s10/something else frame?
User avatar

Rusty Driver
Rusty Driver

Posts: 165

Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:02 pm

Location: Charles Town, WV

Post Sat Apr 08, 2017 7:44 pm

Re: Andrew's R120

The dakota's track width is about 3-4 inches wider than the s10 (maybe ranger too?). Results in the wheels not being buried way inside the fenders without needing a huge spacer or wheel with minimal backspacing.


Con is the s10 guys have got that chassis nailed down for front air bags. This dakota I'm pretty much on my own to figure out the front bags.
-Joe
'54 R112

Rookie
Rookie

Posts: 13

Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:16 am

Location: Western Wisconsin

Post Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:17 pm

Re: Andrew's R120

Well, life got in the way and I haven't been able to make much progress on my truck. I did have some time last weekend to get some stuff done and ended up getting the rest of my donor frame mostly stripped down and got the engine removed. I'm still debating if I'm going to go have the frame sandblasted or just take a wire wheel to it to remove the rust and scale before painting it. I'm leaning towards just using a wire wheel on what I can reach and hoping that a hammer and compressed air can remove what is loose on the boxed portion of the frame.

Now for some pics

got the front end pushed into the garage so I could pull the engine. I needed it in my garage far enough so that my cherry picker would be on the concrete as my driveway is **** falling apart asphalt
Image

got the engine removed, it went pretty quick because I only had a few bolts and the power steering lines to remove. Notice the pieces of angle iron I have clamped to the frame... I didn't want it to buckle on me again when I was pushing it around to get it in a spot I could work on the engine
Image

Here it is all removed! It only took me about 25 minutes from the time I had the frame pushed into the garage to having the engine in the air clear of the frame
Image
Image

Next up (hopefully tomorrow) is working on getting everything pulled off the engine so I can work on getting it all degreased and install the new gaskets that I bought for the common leak areas. One of my buddies is sort of a LT1 guru so I've been talking with him on what my steps should be on getting this engine freshened up and what gaskets to replace. I've also been throwing around the idea of putting a more aggressive sounding cam into it while it's sitting on the stand in my garage.

That's all for now! hopefully I'm able to make some continuing progress, I went to a car show this weekend and got some renewed motivation from seeing all these restored 40s and 50s trucks (even though I have no plans on making this truck shine like everything I saw at the show)

Rookie
Rookie

Posts: 13

Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:16 am

Location: Western Wisconsin

Post Mon Jul 17, 2017 8:46 pm

Re: Andrew's R120

Well looks like Photobucket changed their terms of service and now want $399 a YEAR to host images posted on 3rd party sites, so it looks like I'll have to find a new photo hosting site and re-upload my pics
User avatar

Rusty Driver
Rusty Driver

Posts: 165

Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:02 pm

Location: Charles Town, WV

Post Mon Jul 17, 2017 11:09 pm

Re: Andrew's R120

There are a few extensions for Chrome that make PB pics work again. So much easier to fix build threads if you know what you posted to begin with :D
-Joe
'54 R112

Rookie
Rookie

Posts: 13

Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:16 am

Location: Western Wisconsin

Post Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:24 pm

Re: Andrew's R120

Thanks Joe, I'll have to look into that. You can right click and open pics in a new window to see what the posted picture was, but it's time consuming. For now I moved all my pics to google drive, but still have to go through and update with the new link
Previous

Return to L, R and S Build-Off

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests

cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
Designed by ST Software for PTF.