Andrew's R120

Well, I guess it's finally time for me to document my truck somewhere on the internet, so what better place than a forum dedicated to these great trucks. My story begins back somewhere around 2007. I was dating this girl from southern Minnesota who grew up on a farm. On my first time meeting/visiting her parents I saw an "old truck" sitting back behind the barn, sunk down to the axles in the mud, with the windows busted out, and weeds growing all around it seemingly long forgotten by anyone who cared. I began tossing around the idea of maybe it would be a project some "dumb college kid" with no real automotive knowledge could take on. A few weekends after the visit I asked her (my girlfriend at the time) if her dad would sell me the truck. She asked him and got a big fat no for an answer.

Fast forward to 2011.... Out of the blue I get a call from her (my now ex girlfriend for a couple years). She asked me if I still wanted to buy that old truck rotting behind the barn. I looked at my schedule and without hesitation told her yes and that I could come pick it up that weekend. I load up my dad's truck with some shovels, come alongs, and the 4 wheeler hoping I would be able to drag the old IH pickup out of the mud, and make the 5 hour trip to her parent's house. I get there and nobody is to be found, so I get to work digging the truck out of the dirt. After an hour or so of struggling, I come to the realization that this truck is stuck. I end up walking around the barn and see Rick (the dad) just coming out of the field in his tractor and ask if he could help me out. We hook up a chain and the truck seems to just jump out of the dirt. We get it loaded up on the trailer and I grab my cash out of my truck. I go to pay him our agreed on price, and he says don't worry about it, just get it running some day. I couldn't just take this man's truck for free, so I pulled out my money and make him take it. $100 for the truck, and $100 for helping me load it up. Yup that's right, I only paid $200 for an almost complete truck (missing some glass and the tailgate)

So here it is, all loaded up and ready to make the 5 hour trip back to my parents house


And here's a pic of the engine. The truck had been sitting for around 30 years (it was last registered in 1982). There was probably an inch of build up on the engine (mud, grease, oil, etc.)


Overall the body wasn't in terrible condition. A few dents on the hood and grille, and the front bumper was bent up from somebody hooking a chain onto it. The drivers side of the bed is 2 colored too which is weird because it's the only body panel on the truck that isn't green



I'm not sure how long my posts can be, so this is the end of post #1

So after getting it home, I spent a few weekends cleaning all the gunk off the engine, and painting it up so that it didn't start rusting. I cleaned the carb, replaced the belt, ignition coil, distributor points and cap, and plugs and wire. I also picked up a new 6v battery from the local farm supply store. The engine turned over by hand, but I think it was just too sludged up to run. There was probably an inch of sludge in the bottom of the oil pan, and under the valve cover was all sludged. Whatever the cause, I couldn't get the engine started.

Around this time I ended up getting my first "real" job out of college and had to move 3 hours away, so work on the R120 pretty much got put on hold.

In the fall of 2015 I changed jobs, and was able to move back to the same town as my parent's live. More time to work on the old International right?! Wrong... I was super busy with work, working 60 hours a week, so I still didn't have time to work on the truck despite living 10 minutes away from my parent's house where the truck has been stored since I got it in 2011.

Finally in the fall of last year (2016) work slowed down enough, I had money to play around with, and in the past 5 or 6 years I've gained the knowledge to probably accomplish what it takes to get this truck back on the road. I had originally bought a Ford Ranger from a buddy with the thought of doing a frame swap for the IH. After I bought the Ranger I really started to look at it and decided it was a big POS, and that I really wanted to put a V8 in the truck, and not the V6 the Ranger had (really I wanted to drop a 5.9L Cummins in it, but people want crazy prices for them).

Alright, so I started getting the body parts removed in preparation for a frame swap. I didn't know what I was going to use at the time, but I knew the frame swap needed to happen if I ever wanted this old truck to hit the roads again.

Here we go, wheeled into the shop so I could work on it over the winter


And removing the front end

I started looking around for a new donor. I tried finding a Crown Victoria, but could never find one with the chassis/engine in good enough shape, or in the price range I wanted to spend. I eventually found a 1995 Buick Roadmaster as my new donor! It had a burnt up transmission, but the engine only has 88k miles on it. The chassis is in pretty good shape as well.

Here is the Roadmaster which will be donating the chassis, engine (LT1), transmission (4L60E), and wiring harness.


And this is the Roadmaster as of today. You can't tell by the picture, but the entire interior of the car is gutted, and the transmission has been removed


I removed the 4L60E transmission from the Roadmaster and rebuilt it
Removed and ready to be rebuilt. The eye bolts were so I could loop some ratchet straps through it and to the rafters in my garage as a safety so it didn't fall off my table while I was working on the transmission


Every single one of the clutch packs inside the transmission were burnt up, the fluid was black as night, and there was clutch material saturating the fluid. A complete rebuild was necessary


All disassembled


And finally all back together


I decided to hold off on reinstalling the transmission back into the roadmaster because I'm going to be pulling the body off, and engine out here within the next couple weeks if the weather cooperates. I'm then going to have the frame sandblasted, and I will be painting the frame to prevent any more rusting. It will be then that I'll reinstall the engine and transmission onto the frame and begin fitting the R120 to it's new chassis.

The wheelbase on the Roadmaster is around a foot shorter than R120's, but that's ok because I'm just going to shorten the bed to make up for the difference in WB. The front of my bed (like many others) has rotted out some, so instead of trying to patch rusty metal, I'll just make the cuts needed for the new wheelbase and stitch the bed back together.

Thanks for reading so far, I'll update when I make some more progress

Looks like an ambitious project, Look forward to seeing more. Making the bed shorter in the front will make it closer to a short bed, so still will look good. You just will not have the indent in one fender for the spare. I am assuming you are keeping the "module" for engine/trans control?

Looks like a great project and a cool story for how you obtained the truck. Looking forward to watching your progress!

$200 bucks. Wow, her old man must have thought you were the best one she ever brought home.

I have a 1991 Dodge W250 diesel 4X4 donor that I plan to put my 1954 R120 body on and was wondering if you had done any research down that avenue? There is a 5" wheel base difference and frame width issue, so everything will be custom fabricated. Any info would be appreciated!

I have a 1991 Dodge W250 diesel 4X4 donor that I plan to put my 1954 R120 body on and was wondering if you had done any research down that avenue? There is a 5" wheel base difference and frame width issue, so everything will be custom fabricated. Any info would be appreciated!

Haven't done much research. I'm just taking the challenges as I go. I know my roadmaster wheelbase is roughly a foot shorter than my R120's wheelbase, but I think I'm going to shorten the bed to make it fit. The front of my bed is rotted anyways, so it makes the most sense to me right now. I also believe the roadmaster frame is wider, but I'll make it work with all custom frame/bed mounts

Here's a quick update!

The weather has been nice the past week so I was able to get some stuff accomplished

Last weekend I got the front end torn off the roadmaster


I also removed the doors and finished removing the wiring harness. I also got the steering column removed, and made sure everything was unbolted from the firewall


Then today after work I was more productive than I figured I would be. I got all of the body mounting bolts removed and finished stripping anything off the body that I thought might be salvagable and able to be sold on ebay. I then jacked the body up to prepare for being removed and placed some 2x3 scrap lumber between the body and frame. As I was jacking up the drivers side of the body I realized that the gas tank straps were attached to the frame and body, so I had to stop for the moment and remove the gas tank. I was going to nicely remove it, but got to looking and realized the straps were rotted beyond saving. It's a miracle that the tank hadn't fallen off when the previous owner was driving it


Looking at the underbody of the car body and the frame, it's hard to believe this car only has 88k miles on it. The previous owners must have never washed the car in the winter. Salt doesn't agree with anything in the northern climates.

Plans for this weekend are to pull the body off and throw the removed body panels (along with some other scrap steel I have laying around) and haul it off the the scrap yard

I also got my new rear end finished (rust removed and freshly painted, new brake calipers/pads/rotors, and found a posi carrier at a u-pull yard for $22) I still need to run my new brake lines on the rear axle though. No pic right now, but if I remember I'll snap one this weekend.

Next tasks after getting the body removed, are to remove the engine from the frame, remove all brake/fuel lines and suspension components from the frame, and then taking the frame to a sandblaster. When it gets back from blasting I'm going to work on the new cab/bed mounts and boxing the frame. After all the welding on the frame is finished, I'll be coating it in POR 15. It's nice to finally realize I'm making some progress. I really should get my bonded title application in the mail but I keep forgetting

So here's my rebuilt rear end! cleaned up the housing and painted it (can't really see it in the pic but the rear cover is a lime green... the accent color I'm using on a few parts of the chassis). New bearings and seals throughout, as well as completely new brakes (rotors, pads, calipers, and lines). The calipers and lines aren't installed on the axle right now.


I think it looks pretty good.... BUT.....



It might not even end up being used now. While removing the body today, the frame decided to buckle where it's not boxed. It turns out for about 3-4 feet of each side of the frame, GM decided to use this flimsy c channel. The frame bent in the weakest point where there are access holes for the body mount, as well as a hole in the side of the channel with an unknown reason for being there.



The engine is still good and only has 88k miles on it, the transmission is freshly rebuilt, and I have everything needed to use them as a powerplant/drivetrain in my old IH pickup. I now have to decide if I'm going to attempt to fix this frame and use it, or search out a new frame to use. This is a huge setback for my project and my motivation, but it's part of life right?

I figure if I'm going to fix this frame and box it in for some strength, I might stretch the wheelbase while I'm at it. My only concern with using this frame going forwards is the huge hump in it over the rear axle. I'm going to have to do some research into "Z"ing the frame and possibly eliminating the hump so that my bed will still be usable. I don't really want to cut out the floor of the bed and lift it up in order for the body to sit the way I want. Earlier today I noticed that the stock frame on my R120 is pretty much straight from front to rear with no humps or Z's in it. I really would hate to cut up the bed more than I have to and don't want to eliminate the usable bed if possible